Inventing the pictorial North - International conference

University of Greifswald
Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald
Pomeranian State Museum Greifswald

Scientific Chairs:
Nico Anklam M. A. (Greifswald/Berlin); Professor Dr. Kilian Heck (Greifswald)

Funded by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Essen, and the German Research Foundation, Bonn.

The international conference asks how after 1800 a “northern“ imagery could establish itself in the arts of Northern Europe. By what motifs could the “North“ be identified as “North“ at all? Was it alone specific subjects or representations of natural phenomena in landscapes through which “Nordic“ topics spread? What institutional and social structures fostered these developments? Did specific “ethnic types“ come into focus in order to represent another characteristic of “Nordic“ art? Did techniques of “scientific” landscape depictions as well as the emphasis on ethnic characteristics lead to national isolation? Recent museological and curatorial debates about a decolonization of images and objects are part of the discourses this conference is also interested in.
“Inventing the pictorial North” aims to present results that resonate in the current humanities and discuss representations of the “North” in a novel way. This happens not only with the intention of portraying the “North“ beyond the individual national narratives but also as the overarching topos of an art history that has since the 19th century repeatedly tried to associate geographical spaces with specific motifs and iconographies. The visual construction of the “North“ represents a gap that still has to be filled in the humanities. Currently the questions about the attraction of the “North” and its subjects, which were already virulent in the nineteenth century, are re-emerging: as a romantic place of mythical images, as well as places that, in the discourse of worldwide migrational movements, fosters new narratives of longing.

Program:

Thursday,10th January 2019
Location: Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg

7.00 pm – 8.30 pm

Welcome words by Kilian Heck and Nico Anklam

Public Key Note Lecture
Knut Ljøgodt (Oslo): The Romantic Image of the North

Friday, 11th January 2019
Location: Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg

9.00 am – 11.00 am

Session I. The “North” as a Topos in National Art Histories

Welcome words by Christian Suhm, Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg

Timo Huusko (Helsinki): Two Paths Crossing. Finnish National Identity and the Idea of Nordic Art in Germany

Kilian Heck (Greifswald): Let ́s construct an Opponent to the Renaissance – The Evocation of the North
in German Art History after 1900.

11.00 am – 11.30 am

Coffee break

11.30 am – 1.30 pm

Session II. The “Northern” Landscape between Science and Fiction

Gry Hedin (Faaborg/Ishøj): Northern landscapes? Geology and archeology in Danish 19th century landscape paintings

Michelle Facos (Bloomington): Shaping Perception: Visions of the Swedish Landscape

1.30 pm – 3.00 pm

Lunch break

3.00 pm – 6.00 pm

Session III. The Transatlantic and (Post-)Colonial “North”

Welcome words by Holger Wandsleb, ministry of education, science and culture of
Mecklenburg-Pomerania

Jan Cox (Sommerset): Art of the Arctic: From North Cape to Baffin Island

Cordelia Heß (Greifswald): A Different North for Indigenous Peoples: The Christianization of Greenland and Sápmi in 20th Century Historiography

Eva Wattolik (Erlangen/Nürnberg): “Norway through the Stereoscope” – American Points of View around 1900

Saturday, 12th January 2019
Location: Pomeranian State Museum

9.00 am – 11.00 am

Session IV. National Narratives and Contact Zones in Northern Germany and Southern Denmark

Welcome words by Birte Frenssen, Pomeranian State Museum

Thor J. Mednick (Toledo): Three Cheers for the Fatherland: Agnes Slott-Møller and the Shifting Contours of Danishness

Christel Bair (Greifswald/Jever): Artificial Borders? Painting in Denmark, Schleswig & Holstein in the Second Half of the 19th Century

11.00 am – 11.30 am

Coffee break

11.30 am – 1.30 pm

Session V. The “Northern” Landscape as a Pictorial Discourse between Medium, Space and Beholder

Carl-Johan Olsson (Stockholm): Topography & Constitutive Blanks – on the subjective narrativity of landscape painting

Nico Anklam (Greifswald/Berlin): On the limits of the world and the semantics of an infinite landscape: dynamics of expansion and closure in Danish painting of the 19th Century

1.30 pm – 3.00 pm

Lunch break

3.00 pm – 4.00 pm

Visit of the collection of the Pomeranian State Museum with Birte Frenssen

4.00 pm

Farewell words by Kilian Heck and Nico Anklam followed by a reception in the courtyard of the Pomeranian State Museum

Information:

https://www.wiko-greifswald.de/programm/allgemeines/veranstaltungskalender/veranstaltung/n/inventing-the-pictorial-north-35049/

The conference is free and open to the public. Please register with:

Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald 17487 Greifswald
Phone: +49 3834 420–5021
Fax: +49 3834 420–5005
E–Mail: sebastian.jatzkewiko-greifswald.de
Registration:
www.wiko-greifswald.de/anmeldung