[1] TIAMSA Workshop: Selling and buying anonymity: How does the art market deal with indeterminate works of art?

From: Anne-Sophie Radermecker
Date: 4 July 2019

Chair:
Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Université libre de Bruxelles / B.A.E.F Fellow at Duke University, Anne-Sophie.Radermeckerulb.ac.be

The International Art Market Studies Association’s Workshop at the CAA Conference

Deadline: November 15th, 2019

The artist’s name is one of the most significant parameters that determines pricing in the art market – so how are unattributed or indeterminate works of art marketed and sold? The notion of ‘indeterminate artworks’ (Lupton 2005) covers all kinds of works of art, cultural objects and crafts––from any period of art history and geographical area–– whose author’s name and/or origins are missing, unknown or (intentionally or not) kept anonymous. Based on a cross-disciplinary approach, this session aims at better understanding the inner workings of this understudied market segment which, however, concerns a large number works and transactions. Contributions addressing the following subjects are particularly welcome:

Supply side: Business and marketing strategies developed by auction houses and art dealers to increase the perceived and/or the market value of unattributed goods (e.g. identification strategies used to label anonymous artworks, discourse strategies, advertising campaigns, sales modalities), etc.

The art object itself: Do indeterminate works of art suffer from negative views that may affect their market value? What are the main direct and indirect quality signals of these goods? Are the notions of quality and artistic merit presented differently for anonymous artworks? Etc.

Demand side: What are the buyers’ profiles and incentives to purchase indeterminate works of art? Is anonymous art potentially interesting for investment purposes? How are collections exclusively made of indeterminate works created? Etc.

Price formation mechanisms: Difference in willingness to pay for branded and unbranded goods; market and price analyses of sub-segments particularly concerned with anonymity, etc.

This one-hour TIAMSA meeting is open to all participants at the CAA conference, as well as the general public. The main goal of this seminar-style workshop is to ignite a scholarly exchange on indeterminate artworks. It will offer the opportunity to discuss various issues specific to the sale of these artworks (with uncertainty and asymmetry of information playing a key role). It also aims at connecting scholars and professionals to create, in the long-run, an international network dedicated to the study and understanding of this market segment.

Researchers and art market professionals interested in actively participating in the meeting are invited to respond to this CALL FOR PROJECTS (7-minute presentations). Speakers may present both ongoing and past research. To participate, please send a short abstract (max 500 words) and a short bio (max 300 words) by 15 November 2019 to Anne-Sophie.Radermeckerulb.ac.be or as.radermeckergmail.com. Selected projects will be announced by 15 December 2019 alongside the guidelines for the short presentations, which must be submitted by 15 January 2020. Please note that TIAMSA will unfortunately not be able to provide travel funds.

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[2] What Can Art Say About Extinction?

From: Brianne Cohen
Date: 5 July 2019

Co-chairs:
Lily Woodruff, woodru56msu.edu
Brianne Cohen, University of Colorado, Boulder, brianne.cohencolorado.edu

Deadline: 23 July 2019

Extinction of plant and animal species was discovered at the end of the 1700s even as its causes continued to be debated for centuries. Today, we are in the midst of a massive loss of biodiversity caused by human activities that include global warming, the destruction of habitats, and the slaughter of animals for reasons ranging from convenience to the market in exotic species. Not all groups are equally responsible, however, as extinction is driven by the development and consumer activities of the wealthy, while traditional ways of life are alternatively scapegoated and jeopardized. Emerging from the animal turn, recent publications on extinction have taken interdisciplinary approaches that multiply the stories that can be told in the face of great loss.

This panel seeks to address this topic from across its history, and from diverse cultural perspectives. We aim to understand the ways that art and visual culture have reflected on and processed species loss in forms ranging from scientific illustration, to eco art, video, and protest. How does visual production allow us to understand the cultural, political, and economic causes of extinction, and conversely of conservation? Can it remediate the harm done by colonial exploitation? Do artistic practices provide an opportunity to conceptualize animal and plant subjectivity in a way that promotes human understanding of our ecological interdependence? How do they provide models for envisioning temporal scales of generational loss, the traumas of cataclysm and of slow violence, or investments in long-term sustainability?

Your proposed abstract (250 words) must be submitted to the chairs by the deadline of July 23, 2019. Selected panelists will be notified by August 22, 2019.

Please also include a CV and completed CAA proposal form, available for download here: https://caa.confex.com/caa/2020/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html

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[3] The Collector and Cultural Narratives

From: Julie Codell
Date: 5 July 2019

Chair:
Julie Codell, Arizona State University, Julie.codellasu.edu

Deadline: 23 July 2019

From the mid-19th century, a new kind of narrative about private collectors appeared in Europe and the US, e.g., Jameson's Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries (1844), Waagen's Kunstwerke und Künstler (Berlin, 1837-1839), trans. Elizabeth Eastlake as The Treasures of Art in Great Britain (4 vols. London, 1854, 1857); Dumesnil's Histoire des plus célèbres amateurs (1853-1860); F. G. Stephens's 90 Athenaeum articles on British collectors (1873-87); Strahan's (pseud. Earl Shinn) The Art Treasures of America (1879-1882); and René Brimo's The Evolution of Taste in American Collecting (1938), among others. To Oscar E. Vázquez, "collectors and collections…are a creation of the modern era" with "increased attention to…the collector over the collected object" (Inventing the Art Collection 57-58).

Attention to collectors began in the 18th century; by the 19th century, collectors became cultural icons and national figures. Many gave their collections to museums, shaping public taste and the canon. This panel will examine the discourse around collectors' activities, high profile and relation to museums and public taste.

Panelists may consider questions about 18th, 19th and 20th-century collectors, such as (but not limited to):
– How did these narratives shape and revise collectors' images over time?
– Did narratives about collectors inflect notions of the modern? of tradition?
– How were gender, class or national identity applied to collectors?
– Did narratives about collectors endorse cultural hierarchies?
– Were collectors tastemakers? public servants? cultural paradigms?
– How did collectors' motives and desires affect their collections' meanings?

Submission Deadline for CAA form, CV and proposal: July 23, 2019

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[4] Producing and Consuming the Image of the Female Artist

From: Ellery Foutch
Date: 4 July 2019

Co-Chairs:
Alison J Carr, ajcalisonjcarr.net
Ellery E Foutch, efoutchmiddlebury.edu

Deadline: 23 July 2019

The Zoë Mozert Appreciation Society cordially invites you to submit a proposal for our upcoming CAA session “Producing and Consuming the Image of the Female Artist.” We welcome submissions from practicing artists and from art historians who study any geographic region or historical period (including the present day).For more details, please consult: https://zmas.org/2019/06/24/cfp-caa-2020/
American illustrator Zoë Mozert (1907-1993) was the ultimate 1940s “Calendar Girl,” famously serving as her own model for the pin-ups that she so prolifically painted. Newsreels and magazine coverage fostered a fantasy of an artist-model who willingly and flirtatiously revealed herself to viewers. Her assertive engagement with commerce and publicity—and canny use of her own body helped to launch and sustain her creative career.
Although Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz incisively analyzed and articulated the tropes, ‘myths,’ and ‘legends’ of male artist-creators throughout history, the image of the female artist has not been as extensively investigated. This panel invites explorations of the role of women artists in society and art history, across chronological and geographical boundaries. How have female and nonbinary artists embraced, rejected, or adapted stereotypes of artistic identity and success for their own ends? When the dominant genre of artistic achievement has been the representation of the female nude, how have these artists inserted or adapted the representation of their own bodies? What does it mean to deploy one’s own body in image-making? What does the exploitation through idealization of the artist’s body mean? How might we understand bodies as sites of and vehicles for exploration, experimentation, and even protest?
Please submit proposals (2-page cv, abstract, images) to co-chairs Alison J Carr (ajcalisonjcarr.net) and Ellery E Foutch (efoutchmiddlebury.edu) by 23 July. For more information, see https://caa.confex.com/caa/2020/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html.
About The Zoë Mozert Appreciation Society (ZMAS)
Inspired by the work of Zoë Mozert, a mid-century pin-up artist and model, ZMAS explores questions of artistic practice, image consumption, bodily display, and relationships between artist and model, muse and producer. Balancing a playful spirit of inquiry with rigorous research and critical engagement, ZMAS searches for evidence of the lived experiences of pin-up models and artists through archival hunting and imaginative acts of interpretation and speculation.
ZMAS.org will function as an archive and platform as we generate transdisciplinary research into Mozert, reconstructing a context for her that considers her contemporaries as well as who Mozert has influenced today. We welcome collaborators, contributors, and co-conspirators in this exploration and adventure.

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[5] Kitsch and Craft in the Middle Ages: Making Medieval Art Popular

From: Rachel Danford
Date: 4 July 2019

Co-Chairs:
Nathan Dennis, ndennisusfca.edu
Rachel Danford, danfordrmarshall.edu

Deadline: 23 July 2019

From its academic foundations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the art historical discipline has always relied on various forms of connoisseurship to determine “masterpieces” as the exemplars of stylistic movements, iconographical foundations, or even entire historical periods, and the history of medieval art and architecture is certainly no exception. Privileging this model of elite patronage and viewing (royal, ecclesiastical, aristocratic) has often marginalized the aesthetic concerns—and by extension, historical realities—of large numbers of consumers of the visual or material arts in the premodern world.

This session is designed to highlight nonelite patronage and viewing practices in the Middle Ages, how workshops catered to the aesthetic sensibilities of the masses, and how art and artifacts designed for lower-class consumption can inform the history, politics, theology, economics, anthropology, or culture of specific people groups or geographical regions in ways that traditional art historical methodologies have ignored. How did workshops or individual artists adapt stylistic or iconographical trends from more elite spaces, or commissioned by elite patrons, for a general public of eager consumers? How did the acquisition of art or artifacts by lower-class patrons affect social stratification and mobility? How did popular aesthetics affect shifts in medieval viewing, craftsmanship, or materiality in the Middle Ages? Papers addressing any of these social concerns in production and reception of nonelite medieval art, from late antiquity to the long Middle Ages in Europe, North Africa, or Western Asia are welcomed.

Completed submission forms and 2-page CVs can be sent directly to Nathan Dennis ndennisusfca.edu and Rachel Danford danfordrmarshall.edu up to Tuesday, July 23rd. Please find the submission form at this link: https://caa.confex.com/caa/f/tnxbicijhcpp