Before Judgment. Critiquing Imagery and Style of 'Good' and 'Evil'

Conference organized by the Minerva Research Group "The Nomos of Images. Manifestation and Iconology of Law"

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
Florence, 29-30 May 2017

An uncanny play of prefixes to the German term 'Urteil' (judgment or adjudication) mirrors the common observation that every act of sentencing ('Verurteilen') is preceded by prejudice ('Vorurteilen'). Judicial judgments are as much shaped by images and forms as by language. Hence, legal norms themselves can be apprehended as artefacts of social and cultural practices, which not just regulate actions, but co-create the identity of subjects and communities acting through them.

The conference analyzes the place and significance of visual media in determining the interplay between norm and deviation: How is "evil" visualized and framed in normative terms? In what ways are "good" and "evil" manifested as opposing forces and by which means do these images – directly or indirectly – refer to perceptions of legality?

Ranging from demonically imbued images, figurations of "evil" (devil, demon, monster, tyrant) and the techniques of its exorcism (apotropaics) to visual strategies of criminalisation, from the forensic commensurability of representations, proportion and dimensionality to its unrepresentability and banality, from the figures of judicial language to the status of images as witnesses, the question of "evil" will serve as a leitmotif for reconsidering the relationship of society, legal practice and visual culture.


PROGRAM

Monday 29 May

14:00
Welcome
Alessandro Nova | KHI Florenz

Introduction
Carolin Behrmann & Felix Jäger | KHI Florenz

14:40
PANEL I EVIL IMAGES
Chair: Felix Jäger

Face-to-Face with Demons: Images of Possession and the Judicial Aspects of Exorcism
Henry Kaap | Freie Universität Berlin

The Iconoclasts and the Aesthetic of Judgment
Bruno Sotto Mayor | Ethnologisches Museum Berlin

16:00 Break

16:20
PANEL II DEMONIZATIONS
Chair: Carolin Behrmann

A Bad Image: Representing Rulers as Tyrants
Johannes v. Müller | Warburg Institute London

Revealing Evil: Demonization as an Operation of Exclusion in Political Protests
Florian Göttke | University of Amsterdam

17:40 Break

18:00
Evening Lecture
Leviathan und Behemoth im Zeitalter der Distanzvernichtung
Horst Bredekamp | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin


Tuesday 30 May

09:40
PANEL III IMAGES OF JUDGING
Chair: Alessandro Nova

Codification and Visualization of Wartime Sexual Violence: Political Allegories by Giotto di Bondone and Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Peter Bokody | Plymouth University

The Good, the Evil, and the Mediocre: Renaissance Iconographies of Saint Michael with the Scales
Annette Vowinckel | Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam

11:00 Break

11:20
PANEL IV BODIES IN CONFINEMENT
Chair: Gabriel Gorodetsky

Claude Lamouroux: Severed Head and Fist
Dominic-Alain Boariu | Université de Fribourg

Where is 'Habeas Corpus'? Imprisoned Bodies and the Construction of Liberty
Lisa Haber-Thomson | Harvard University

12:40 Lunch Break


13:40
PANEL V BEFORE THE COURT
Chair: Merel van Tilburg

When the Law Itself Becomes Evil: On the Iconology of the Old Law in Criminal Courtroom Decorations around 1900
Stefan Huygebaert | Ghent University

The Imagery of Evil in the Narrative of Criminal Law
Michele Papa | Università degli Studi Firenze

Images from the Bench: The Judge's Perspective
Ruth Herz | Birkbeck College London

15:40 Break

16:00
PANEL VI SEEING AND ADJUSTING
Chair: Stefan Grundmann

Pictures as Witnesses
Ludger Schwarte | Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

World View and Judiciary Methods: The Unwritten Rules of Legal Practice in 19th Century Japan
Lena Foljanty | MPI Rechtsgeschichte Frankfurt am Main

Sehen und Juridisches Urteilen
Sabine Müller-Mall | Technische Universität Dresden


LOCATION
Istituto degli Innocenti
Sala Brunelleschi
Piazza della SS. Annunziata 12
50121 Florence

We thank the Istituto degli Innocenti for the collaboration.

CONTACT
Carolin Behrmann
carolin.behrmannkhi.fi.it

FURTHER INFORMATION
Internet: www.khi.fi.it
Newsletter: www.khi.fi.it/newsletter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/khi.fi.it/