Editing (out) the Image
Toronto, 7 and 8 November 2003

"Editing (out) the Image", the thirty-ninth conference in the series,
convened by Elizabeth Legge and Mark A. Cheetham (Department of Fine
Art), will take place at University College on 7 and 8 November 2003.

The convenors of the conference gratefully acknowledge generous
support from the Department of Fine Art, the Humanities Centre, and
the Faculty of Arts & Science in the University of Toronto, as well as
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

An Overview

The notion of editing, if it is conceived broadly, touches on concerns
crucial to those fields that make up the history of art as a practice
today; its effects work across the spectrum from the most traditional
to the most controversial aspects of the discipline. The aim of this
conference is to address issues of editing the image by bringing
together a range of practitioners from different constituencies:
academic art history, museums, artists. We plan to focus on both
practical, localized concerns and more general theoretical matters.

Art historians in the academic context are increasingly self-conscious
about their roles as editors of the canon. The rhetorical and
philosophical issues of writing about the visual, and of whether this
sort of translation is ever unproblematic, while enjoying an ancient
lineage, have been compressed into David Carrier's neologism
"artwriting". The numerous "identity" issues topical now in art
history (who writes about whom, and from what perspectives) can also
be seen to connect with a spoken or unspoken editorial policy about
the visual. Another dimension where art history and questions of
editing intertwine is that of academic publishing, particularly of
journals in the field.

At issue in these brief examples, we believe, is the applicability of
a primarily textual term in the context of the visual arts. Art
historians and art producers debate endlessly the differences and
unions between the realms of image and text. Do we elide the
specificity of the visual by thinking textually, or is the conjunction
both accurate and productive? And why might it be that we can
effortlessly discuss "editing" with reference to some visual forms
(photography, film, video) but not others (painting, sculpture,
architecture)?

Tentative Programme

Please note: all sessions will be held in University College, Room
179, with the exception of the afternoon forum on Saturday. The
registration desk opens at 1:00 pm, Friday, 7 November 2003 in Croft
Chapter House.

FRIDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2003

3:30 4:00 pm
Opening Remarks

4:00 5:30 pm
Inaugural Session: Public and Private Editing: Museums and Other
Collections

DAVID CARRIER (Cleveland): "Editing in Museums"

JOHN O'BRIAN (Vancouver): "Rectified Smiles: Signs of Distress in the
Postwar Postcard"

6 7:30 pm
Opening Reception: Sable-Castelli Gallery, Yorkville

SATURDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2003

9:30 11:30 am
Session 2: Editing (out?) the Image: Visual Practices

LISA STEELE / KIM TOMCZAK (Toronto): "Edit In ... Edit Out:
Collaboration in Video Production"

REESA GREENBERG (Montr(c)al): "Editing the Image: Museums and the Web"

JOHN GREYSON (Toronto): "Mr Blank Edits History"

12:00 2:00 pm
Lunch: Croft Chapter House

2:00 4:00 pm
Session 3: Editing Art's History

JOHN ONIANS (Norwich, UK): "Editing In: World Art Studies and the
Constraints of Academic Disciplines"

MARC GOTLIEB (Toronto): "Disciplinary Journals in an Interdisciplinary
Age: The Art Bulletin and Art History"

CATHERINE SOUSSLOFF (Santa Cruz): "Image (less) Text: Visual and
Verbal Rhetoric in Early Modern Art History"

4:00 4:30 pm
Coffee

4:30 5:30 pm
Session 4: Graduate Student Forum: Croft Chapter House

6:00 pm
Closing Reception: Croft Chapter House

Information

For further information about the conference, please contact Mark
Cheetham. Visitors may also wish to consult information provided on
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/cep/cep2003.html.

Mark A. Cheetham, Professor (On Leave, 2003-04)
University of Toronto
Graduate Department of History of Art
100 St. George St., Rm. 6036
Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G3
Tel: 416 978 7417
Fax: 416 946 7627