Clark Conference 30 April and 1 May 2004 : The Lure of the Object

Clark Conferences explore what and where Art History is, bringing together
academics, critics, curators, and philosophers to explore pressing issues
and debates which shape the nature and direction of the discipline today.
This year's Clark Art Institute Conference is entitled

The Lure of the Object

A lure is something that tempts or attracts with the offer of pleasure or
reward, a promise sometimes false, sometimes kept and sometimes broken.
The conference will ask how art history finds, loses, or gives itself away
in the face of its objects.

Our contributors, who include curators, conservators and academics drawn
from several different disciplines in the humanities, will explore how
artists, the public and art historians encounter objects --painted, drawn,
and sculpted; lost, found, and readymade; exhibited and conserved; made
and unmade -- and ask what difference this encounter has made to the
conception and practice of Art History.

Speakers will include the cultural historian Professor John Brewer, on
the subject of connoisseurship, commerce and ownership of 'prized' objects
in art history, Christian Scheidemann, Chief Conservator at the unique
'Contemporary Conservation', who has often been charged with the difficult
practical task of preserving the material integrity of the contemporary
art object, as well as curator-academics Helen Molesworth (of the Wexner
Center) and Malcolm Baker (of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the
University of Southern California) on the Sculpted object, and Professor
Margaret Iverson, (of the University of Essex) one of the world
authorities on the Surrealist object.

The fees for the conference are $25 for general public admission, $15 for
members and students with ID. More details, a full program and speaker
list, and a downloadable registration form can be found on our website at
http://www.clarkart.edu/research_and_academic/content.cfm?ID=264

Dr. Mark Ledbury
Associate Director, Research and Academic Program
The Clark Art Institute
225 South Street, Williamstown
MA 01267 USA
mledburyclarkart.edu
413 458 2303 x 336
Direct Dial 413 458 0536