ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND
SYMPOSIUM, AMSTERDAM, 9-10 DECEMBER 2016

This year marks the 450th anniversary of the Beeldenstorm, the wave of iconoclasm that swept over the Low Countries in 1566. This defining moment in Netherlandish history will be commemorated with a two-day symposium ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND, which will consider the Beeldenstorm in relation to iconoclasm as a global phenomenon. 

The symposium will be held on 9 and 10 December 2016, in the auditorium of the Rijksmuseum and the aula of the University of Amsterdam. The program and registration are now online: 

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/iconoclasm

ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND will seek to deepen our understanding of the ideological and systematic destruction of art under different historical and cultural configurations. The symposium will bring together an international group of scholars who will offer the latest insights on the hostility towards images in the Habsburg Netherlands, the Byzantine world, Islam, Colonial America, China, (Early) Modern Europe and, presently, in the Middle East, and on iconoclasm in contemporary art.

PROGRAM

Friday, 9 December 2016

Auditorium, Rijksmuseum

09.00 – 09.30 registration and welcome

09.30 – 10.00 Hugo van der Velden, University of Amsterdam, Image-Breaking and the Survival of Art

10.00 – 10.30 Geert Janssen, University of Amsterdam, Iconoclasms and the History of the two Netherlands

10.30 – 11.00 coffee break

11.00 – 11.30 Birgit Meyer, Utrecht University, Image Wars, Past and Present: Religious Studies and the Figuration of the Unseen

11.30 – 12.00 Bissera Pentcheva, Stanford University, Icons of Sound: Performative Iconicity in Byzantium

12.00 – 13.30 lunch break

13.30 – 14.00 Tine Meganck, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Painting during the Beeldenstorm: The Case of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

14.00 – 14.30 Edward Wouk, University of Manchester, Iconoclasm, Black and White

14.30 – 15.00 intermezzo

15.00 – 15.30 Richard Clay, Newcastle University, Signs of the Times: Fanaticism, Terror and Vandalism during the French Revolution

15.30 – 16.00 Juliane Noth, Freie Universität Berlin, Destroy the Four Olds: Iconoclasm and Red Guard Visual Culture during the Chinese Cultural Revolution

16.00 – 16.30 tea break

16.30 – 17.00 Maria Barnas, Poet and visual artist / Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, The Art of Destruction

17.00 – 17.30 James Simpson, Harvard University, From Smashing Images to the Museum: The Six Classic Phases of Iconoclasm

17.30 – 17.45 Concluding remarks

Saturday, 10 December 2016

Aula (Oude Lutherse Kerk), University of Amsterdam

09.00 – 09.30 registration and welcome

09.30 – 10.00 Nourane Ben Azzouna, Université de Strasbourg, The Question of the Image in Islam: Orientalism and New Approaches

10.00 – 10.30 Christiane Gruber, University of Michigan, Image-Breaking under ISIS: Truculent Iconophilia as a “Vexation Operation”

10.30 – 11.00 coffee break

11.00 – 11.30 Ruben Suykerbuyk, Ghent University, Towering Piety: The Patronage of Sacrament Houses before the Beeldenstorm

11.30 – 12.00 Hilbert Lootsma, Utrecht University, Heritage in Danger: The Protection of Art during the Beeldenstorm

12.00 – 13.30 lunch break

13.30 – 14.00 Marisa Bass, Yale University, Under Alba’s Thumb: The Public Monument as Enemy

14.00 – 14.30 Thomas Cummins, Harvard University, The Idols of Others: Spanish Iconoclasm in the New World and its Reverberations in the Old

14.30 – 15.00 intermezzo

15.00 – 15.30 Frits Scholten, Rijksmuseum, After the Beeldenstorm: Controversies about Public Sculpture in the Dutch Republic

15.30 – 16.00 Nadia Baadj, University of Groningen, Stone Surfaces and Materialities of Marble in 17th-Century Antwerp Painting

16.00 – 16.30 tea break

16.30 – 17.00 Koenraad Jonckheere, Ghent University, Materiality, Medium and Space: The Use and Perception of the Image in the Wake of the Beeldenstorm

17.00 – 17.30 Discussion and concluding remarks

ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND is organized under the aegis of Arts of the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam / Rijksmuseum) and in collaboration with the Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History OSK.