Sculpture in Arcadia: gardens, parks and woodlands as settings for
sculptural encounters from the 18th to 21st century

February 26th 2007, 11am – 6.30pm
University of Reading, Nike Theatre

This one day symposium will ask about the characteristics of sculpture
planned for Arcadian and pastoral settings. What is the nature of the
sculptural encounter when sculpture is viewed outside the museum or
urban setting, and what are the sculptural meanings generated in such
contexts?
How have gardens and sculpture trails been planned so as to propose
scripts for the visitor's viewing experience? What kinds of audiences
have been imagined for such works? What connections can be traced
between eighteenth-century garden sculpture and their modern
equivalents? How have the uses of terms such as 'pastoral' and
'arcadian' changed? What kinds of connotations - gendered, aesthetic,
political - are invoked when 'nature' and 'sculpture' are brought into
juxtaposition? Papers will explore the settings for sculpture including
architectural structures such as pavilions and plinths, and formal and
informal planting in gardens, parks and managed woodland. While
eighteenth-century gardens and modern sculptures have been studied
extensively in the context of their particular periods, this symposium
aims to trace the connections, continuities and discontinuities
between the earlier period and contemporary pastoral settings for
sculpture, including the contemporary preservation and re-presentation
of eighteenth-century sculpture for modern audiences.

This symposium takes place at the University of Reading, close to some
of the most celebrated eighteenth-century gardens in Europe, Stowe and
Rousham.
Papers cover all periods from the eighteenth century to the present day
in Europe and North America.

Sue Malvern, Eckart Marchand and Gerhard Bissell.
Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Humanities
The University of Reading
Whiteknights
PO Box 218
Reading RG6 6AA

Cost: 40 including lunch, refreshments and wine reception. Concessions
and students: 15 (please supply proof of status at time of booking).

To book, and for details of the symposium venue, please contact:
Nina Leontieff, Administrator, School of Humanities
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Whiteknights PO Box 218
Reading RG6 6AA

Tel: +44 (0)1183788143 Fax: +44 (0)1183788919
Email: n.leontieffreading.ac.uk
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/humanities/

Programme
Registration from 10 am.

11- 1:
Chair: Eckart Marchand
Keynote Speaker
Dr Ulrich Müller, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena,
Rousham's Arcadian Fields

Marcus Becker, Humboldt Universität, Berlin
Meeting Immaterial Gods? Copies of Antique Sculptures in German
Sentimental Landscape Gardens
Robert Neal, University of Essex,
Adorning nature: emblematic sculpture in the early eighteenth-century garden
Agnieszka Whelan, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
On the statuary in the 18th century garden of Pulawy in Poland

Lunch

2-4
Chair: Gerhard Bissell
Keynote Speaker
Dr Patrick Eyres, New Arcadian Press and University of Leeds,
A Peoples' Arcadia: the public gardens of Ian Hamilton Finlay in
relation to Little Sparta

Katie Campbell, University of Bristol
Updating Elysium: Twentieth-Century Memorials: Sculpture and Settings
Rebecca Reynolds, University of Chicago,
The Green Cube: Developing a Site for Minimalism at Storm King in the early
1970s

Tea

4.30 – 6.30
Chair: Sue Malvern
Keynote Speaker
Professor Antje von Graevenitz, University of Cologne,
The Avant-Gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay in “Little Sparta, Stonypath”: an
arcadia - by no means.

Joy Sleeman, Slade School of Fine Art and Nick Alfrey, University of
Nottingham
‘The contemporary “sculpture park” is not - and is not considered to be
- an art garden, but an art gallery out-of-doors.’ Ian Hamilton Finlay

Plenary discussion
Symposium close and reception

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