CALL FOR PAPERS

Art and the City
A Conference on Postwar Interactions with the Urban Realm

Amsterdam, 11-12 May 2006

Since the Second World War, the metropolises of Europe and the United States
have undergone a period of enormous growth, in some cases followed by an
almost equally rapid decline and eventual rebirth. Even today, in an era of
supposed globalization, cities continue to generate and project a unique
identity. In all cases, these developments have brought with them not only
economic and social change, but also significant cultural transformations,
which have found their reflection in the visual arts, literature, film and
music. The physical city - its streets, sidewalks, cafés, buildings and
transportation systems - as well as its mental spaces have proven a fertile
breeding ground for art in general. The products of this interaction, as
well as its precise mechanisms, are the subject of this conference. How have
artists, writers, filmmakers, composers and musicians dealt with the
singularity, complexity and diversity of their urban surroundings
What is
the city they create or reveal
In what ways does the metropolis contribute
to their work
How have they absorbed and transformed their various
environments
And how, in turn, do these works alter the city and our
perception of it
What do they tell us about how we live, or can live, in
the places like New York, London, Paris or Berlin

In addition to papers examining the "imaging" of the city in diverse media
(visual arts, film and photography, but also architecture, design,
advertising, performance, literature and music), we are also seeking papers
on the following:
use of the material objects and aspects of the city;
communication and interaction with the city's inhabitants;
fetishization of the urban realm;
utopias and/or heterotopias;
transformative and performative practices in the public sphere;
the artist's "civic" body;
the urban unconscious and/or repressed, etc.
Central to all these themes should be the artistic interaction with the city
as a physical entity and a mental space. Moreover, the committee is
interested in papers that discuss the challenges this research object poses
on current historical and analytical research methods.

Subject line: Art and the City Conference
Deadline: 1 September 2005

Organizing Committee:
Rachel Esner
Margiet Schavemaker
Esther Cleven

Instituut voor Cultuur en Geschiedenis
Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Universiteit van Amterdam
Spuistraat 134
1012 VB Amsterdam
icg-fgwuva.nl <mailto:icg-fgwuva.nl>
www.hum.uva.nl/ich <http://www.hum.uva.nl/ich>

Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis
Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Universiteit van Amterdam
Spuistraat 134
1012 VB Amsterdam
asca-fgwuva.nl <mailto:asca-fgwuva.nl>
www.hum.uva.nl/asca <http://www.hum.uva.nl/asca>

--
Dr. Rachel Esner
Assistant Professor
University of Amsterdam
Institute of Art History
Herengracht 286
1016 BX Amsterdam
Tel. +31 (20) 525 3101
r.esneruva.nl