Invisible Spectrum: Making and Viewing the Unseen

Either because they are conceptually abstract or physically imperceptible, some things cannot be seen. The subjects of artistic expression, scientific inquiry, and religious devotion frequently exist outside the boundaries of the visible spectrum, posing a series of obstacles for their realization in material form, their reducibility to the conventions of image-making, or even their very conception. While new technologies, epistemologies, and artistic innovations have aided our endeavors to visualize the invisible, the mystery of the unseen endures.

Invisible Spectrum gathers graduate students whose work encompasses an array of historical periods and geographic areas to address how the invisible has been rendered in the history of visual culture. Rachael Z. DeLue, Professor in American Art at Princeton University, will give the keynote lecture.

Program

9 AM: Coffee Reception

9:30 AM: Morning Session I

Orsolya Mednyánszky (PhD Candidate, Johns Hopkins University), "Pater incertus: Skepticism and Evidence of Incarnation in Late Medieval Art"

Abby Eron (PhD Candidate, University of Maryland), “Mystic, almost psychic’: Gertrude Käsebier’s Photography of the Unseen”

Break

11 AM: Morning Session II

Ty Vanover (PhD Student, University of California, Berkeley), “Sex in Two Dimensions: Fritz Kahn and the Medical Infographic in Nazi Germany”

Samuel Allen (PhD Candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), “The Referent Adheres: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Registration of Toxicity in The Notion of Family”

Lunch Break

1:30 PM: Afternoon Session I

Yifan Zou (PhD Student, University of Chicago), “What Does an Experience of the Surface Alter? Materiality, Function, and Viewing Practice of a Ming Dynasty Carved Lacquer Plate”

Kristen Nassif (PhD Candidate, University of Delaware), “The Spectacle of Seeing Spectacles: Vision Aids and John Haberle’s A Bachelor’s Drawer”

Break

3 PM: Afternoon Session II

Zhe Dong (PhD Candidate, School of Architecture, University of Virginia), “I See Chairman Mao When I See His Badge’: Local Practices and a Theory of Figuration in Mao Zedong’s Birthplace”

Amy Wallace (PhD Candidate, University of Toronto), “Invisible Walls: Glass Studios and Naturalism in England and France, 1875-1900”

Break

4:30 PM: Roundtable Discussion

5:30 PM: Keynote Lecture

Reception to follow