[1] The Global Contemporary in the Expanded Museum

Contributor: Sandra Zalman
E-Mail: szalmanuh.edu

In 1961, Art in America devoted a special issue to the role of the museum, noting that modern and contemporary art museums in particular had a vital role to play in framing contemporary culture. Featured along with several other major museums was the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s new Mies van der Rohe wing — a large hall designed with the flexible needs of special exhibitions in mind. Today, museums are increasingly recognizing that the mandate to expand comes along with the opportunity to re-frame the canonical narrative of modern art within a new context — the global contemporary. As the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston prepares to open its new building devoted to global contemporary art, this panel offers a timely forum to consider the conceptual and practical issues involved with instantiating the idea of the global contemporary around a group of objects. How do curatorial choices, collection practices, and facilities impact this new direction? Will this lead to more diverse and inclusive institutions? Does the de-centering of the European-U.S. canon take on particular relevance in the mid-west, which has never been an acknowledged art center? Put another way, does mapping the global contemporary also necessitate a re-orientation away from the U.S. art centers of New York and Los Angeles? Taking the MFAH’s new building as a point of departure, this panel solicits papers that interrogate the nature of the global contemporary and consider how we can better understand this field within the expanded museum.

Co-Chairs:

Sandra Zalman, Associate Professor, University of Houston
Rachel Middleman, Associate Professor, California State University, Chico

To apply, please send a 250-word abstract, along with CV to szalmanuh.edu and rmiddlemancsuchico.edu by 20 December 2019. All presenters must be members of MAHS ($60/year) and register for the conference ($150, includes Friday lunch).

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[2] Sounding Contemporary Art

Contributor: Melissa Warak
E-Mail: mcwarakutep.edu

Since the 1960s, contemporary artists have increasingly looked beyond the visual to engage a broadened material and experiential field of practice including the sonic, which has inspired the development of the distinct field of sound studies. But how might the discipline of art history accommodate artistic practices rooted in sound and listening? How does paying attention to the realm of sound change our understanding of the visual? This panel invites new approaches and case studies representing art historical engagement with contemporary art and artists involving sound and/or practices of listening. Papers may address topics such as the materiality of sound and its relationship to other mediums, auditory processes and technology, participation and social engagement, and curatorial approaches to displaying and collecting sonic work. We invite papers from all those whose work touches upon sound and listening, including scholars, curators, and artists.

Co-chairs:

Natilee Harren, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Houston
noharrenuh.edu

Melissa Warak, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Texas at El Paso
mcwarakutep.edu

Proposals due by December 20, 2019. Submit a 200-word abstract and current CV directly to the session chairs listed above. Accepted panelists must register for the conference and join MAHS, an affiliate society of the College Art Association, in order to participate.

https://www.mahsonline.org/conference/