[1] Holding Patterns

From: Aline Guillermet <agg28cam.ac.uk>
Date: Sep 25, 2016

Convenors:
Moran Sheleg, University College London (moran.sheleg.10ucl.ac.uk)
Aline Guillermet, University of Cambridge (agg28cam.ac.uk)

The distinction between ‘free’ and ‘adherent’ beauty, which goes back to Immanuel Kant’s third Critique, has to a large extent shaped the debate around the aesthetic status of the ornamental arabesque throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. So, too, has it continued to polarise the production and reception of 20th-century abstraction, opposing geometric purity to more mimetic, or biomorphic, forms. A closer look at the history of ornamentation, however, reveals that repetitive patterns have consistently mediated between abstraction and figuration. This panel seeks to explore how artistic approaches to repetitive visual motifs and decorative patterns have contested the hold of such enduring critical dichotomies since the mid-20th century.

In what ways could ornamentation, despite its use as a rhetorical device in modernist ideology (Loos), and subsequent incorporation into the logic of early capitalism (Kracauer) and contemporary commodity culture (Warhol, Buren, Neo-Geo art), remain an enduring, and culturally subversive, form of artistic production? Following the polemical debates surrounding both abstract and figurative painting during the 1960s and 1980s respectively, is pattern consequently doomed to carry the mantle of pastiche, or can it, on the contrary, facilitate feminist, queer, and racial subversion? Finally, how have ideas around ethics, spirituality, and subjectivity been reconfigured through the mediation that the ornamental aesthetic offers? Papers are invited that critically reconsider these issues in relation to artistic practices from a variety of regional contexts from the 1960s onwards.

Please email your paper proposals to the session convenors by 7 November 2017. Provide a title and abstract for a 25-minute paper (max 250 words). Include your name, affiliation and email. You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks.

See more details at: http://aah.org.uk/annual-conference/2017-conference.

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[2] Gendering Patronage: Women Artists and the Contemporary Art Market

From: Veronique Chagnon-Burke <vchagnon-burkechristies.edu>
Date: Oct 1, 2016

Art patronage has always been beneficial for both the artist receiving support and the patron giving it. While a tradition of aristocratic female patronage has existed since the Renaissance, it was not until the 20th century that female patrons became prominent players in the art world. The role that women such as Abby Rockefeller, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney or Katherine Dreier played in supporting the development of modern art in the United States is well documented. Nearly a century later, what are we to make of the December 2013, Art + Auction, special issue: “Power 2012” which ranked Sheikha Al Mayassa bint hamad bin khalifa al-thani in second place among the influential people in the art world? Have women artists reached a similar level of visibility as the women collectors?

The goal of this session is twofold; first to examine if the circumstances that determined the development of female patronage have changed, and then to expand the definition of patronage to include other art world members, such as curators, art advisors, and auction house executives. The session will focus on female patronage and their impact on the place of women artists in the contemporary art market. It hopes to highlight the role that female art professionals play in supporting women artists. The papers should investigate the kind of influence that the increased number of women art professionals and women patrons may have on the increase visibility of women artists. They could also consider if there are any factors that affect the propensity for women to become art patrons.

Deadline to submit abstract: November 7th 2016
To: Véronique Chagnon-Burke at vchagnon-burkechristies.edu