CONFERENCE

Narratives about American Art

Berlin, May 24-26, 2007

An International Conference
organized by the John F. Kennedy Institute for American Studies, Berlin
and the Terra Foundation for American Art
http://jfki.fu-berlin.de

Conference Theme:

Narratives provide the framework and essential justification for
interpreting individual art objects and give them meaning and significance
in a larger context. They supply key remises which guide inter-pretive
choices and conclusions. In effect, without such narra-tives we would have
no object of interpretation: an exhibition or a book presenting unrelated
objects without any narrative link would be considered pointless. Even
where critics argue that art objects do not simply affirm one of these
narratives but subvert or question them through their aesthetic
strategies, the narrative framework itself nevertheless remains the
organizing principle of the argument and decisively influences the way in
which the interpreter approaches a particular work.
In this context, it appears of crucial importance for an understanding of
historic American art and its assessment to analyze, compare, and
historicize the narratives that continue to shape perceptions of American
art before 1945: the melodrama of neglect in which American art of that
period struggles against the fate of provinciality; the “Voyage of
Life”-narrative, in which culture goes through stages of infancy, growth,
and maturity; the liberal narrative of American exceptionalism, now
reappropriated by triumphant neoconservative versions of an American
mission; the “democratic art”- narrative designed to highlight American
art’s potential for dehierarchization and a vernacular modernism; the
“visual culture” narrative, in which the role of art in the naturalization
of power stands at the center; the multicultural narrative of American
diversity intent on providing recognition for minority expressions; and,
most recently, an emerging transnational narrative that emphasizes the
increasingly borderless nature of American culture and, in its most
radical versions, claims that there is no such thing as an American art.

Each narrative of American art offers distinct reasons why we should study
American art and what we can hope to gain (or lose) by doing so. We
therefore invite contributions to the following topics:
a) Canons as results of narrativization, revisions as acts of
re-narrativization: analyses of narratives that have shaped canons and
canon revisions in the study of American art.
b) American exceptionalism and its disciplinary legacy: what are the
disciplinary consequences of the current critique of exceptionalism? Is a
plausible, non-triumphant and non-ideological exceptionalist narrative
possible? Is there life after exceptionalism for American studies? On what
other grounds can a specialization on American art and culture be
justified?
c) Transnational Studies as the solution? If national boundaries and
identities are radically dissolved, where does that leave American art
before 1945? Is there a danger that in drawing on a transnational context,
the “metropolis vs. provinces” narrative will be revived?
d) Alternative narratives: One potential problem for revisionist
narratives like multiculturalism or transnationalism is that they do not
necessarily entail aesthetic criteria. Is it possible (desirable) to come
up with alternatives to exceptionalist narratives that are based neither
on the idea of multiculturalism, nor on that of transnationalism? And what
should be the aesthetic criteria on which to base a multicultural or
transnational narrative?
e) Resistance to narrativization: Narratives are generalizations, but much
recent scholarship aims to resist generalizations that ignore difference.
Can such studies focusing on the regional, the ethnically different, on
gender difference, or on the inner contradictions of an artist’s work,
still be meaningfully discussed as narratives of American art, or do they
present exemplary cases of resistance to narrativization that should serve
as models for future studies of American art?

Conference Locations:

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN
Am Sandwerder 17-19, 14109 Berlin
(S-Bahn Wannsee)

FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN
JOHN F. KENNEDY-INSTITUT
Lansstr, 7-9, 14195 Berlin
(U-Bahn Dahlem Dorf)
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE
Pariser Platz 4, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
(S-Bahn Pariser Plattz)

Program:

Friday 25
JOHN F. KENNEDY INSTITUTE, FREIE UNIVERSITÄT

9.00 AM Introduction by Winfried Fluck
(Freie Universität Berlin)

SESSION 1 AMERICAN ART AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
Chair: Winfried Fluck (Freie Universität Berlin)

9.15 AM
John Davis (Smith College):
“Exceptionalism, Nationalism, Provincialism: Some Thoughts on
Historiography and Present Practices”

10.15 AM
Alan Wallach (College of William and Mary):
“The History of American Art and the End of American Exceptionalism”

11.15 AM Coffee Break

11.45 AM Jochen Wierich (Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art):
“The Quest for Essence in American Art: A German-American Collabo-ration”

12.45 AM Lunch

SESSION 2 AMERICAN ART AND VISUAL CULTURE / “BILDWISSENSCHAFT”
Chair: Ulla Haselstein (Freie Universität Berlin)

2.00 PM Michele Bogart (Stony Brook University):
“Down with the ‘Low’!: Unexceptionalism as American Art”

3.00 PM Michael Leja (University of Pennsylvania):
“A Narrative of Paradox: American Art and the Visual Cultures of Populism
and Commerce”

4.00 PM Coffee Break

4.30 PM W.J.T. Mitchell (University of Chicago):
“Dinosaurs, Deserts, and Terror: A Few American Stories”

WORKSHOP I
Chair: Bettina Friedl (Universität Hamburg)

5.30 PM Laura Bieger (Freie Universität Berlin):
“Both site and sight, image and location: Mediality, corporeality, and the
American landscape”

6.00 PM Edyta Frelik (University of Lublin, Poland):
“How American Is It? Thomas Hart Benton‘s Social History of the United
States”

6.30 PM Harald Klinke (Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe): “The Notion
of Mimesis in
American Art”

SATURDAY 26

JOHN F. KENNEDY INSTITUTE, FREIE UNIVERSITÄT

SESSION 3 AMERICAN ART AND SOCIAL/CULTURAL HISTORY
Chair: Heinz Ickstadt (Freie Universität Berlin)

9.00 AM Sarah Burns (Indiana University):
“Shifting Sands: Context in Context“

10.00 AM Ursula Frohne (Universität Köln):
“‘Homes for America‘ Revisited: Typologies of Domestic Architecture and
Consumer Culture in American Art“

11.00 AM Coffee Break

11.30 AM Andrew Hemingway (University College London):
“Resources of Critique: Marxist Histories of American Art“

12.30 AM Lunch

SESSION 4 TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Chair: Cynthia Mills (Smithsonian Washington)

2.00 PM Angela Miller (Washington University):
“Writing Across Borders: American Arts After Multiculturalism”

WORKSHOP II
3.00 PM Sieglinde Lemke (Universität Freiburg):
“Diaspora Aesthetics“

3.30 PM Susanne Scharf (Universität Frankfurt):
“In Favor of Contextualizing: Looking at Gertrude Fiske‘s Revere Beach”

4.00 PM Coffee Break

4.30 PM Jennifer Raab (Yale University):
“Frederic Church and the Culture of Detail”

5.00 PM Bart Keeton (Duke University):
“Selling the American (?) Landscape Sublime: Western Aesthetics in
Transnational Markets”

5.30 PM Peter Schneck (Universität Osnabrück):
“Just Show and Tell?: Black Faces, White Masks, and the Complexities of
Iconographic Revision“

PUBLIC DEBATE
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE, PARISER PLATZ, PLENARSAAL

7.00 PM “Curating American Art in a transnational context. A Public Debate“
Chair: Veerle Thielemans (Terra Foundation)

Kathleen Adler (National Gallery London)
Stephan Koja (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere)
Pamela Kort (Freie Kuratorin, Berlin)
Ortrud Westheider (Bucerius Kunst-Forum)

Contact:
JOHN F. KENNEDY-INSTITUT
DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN
Lansstr, 7-9
14195 Berlin
Tel. 030-8385 4240
Fax. 030-8385
Mail. kulturzedat.fu-berlin.de
Registration Fee: 30 EUR / 15 EUR Single Day
Please register at kulturzedat.fu-berlin.de
or directly at the conference.

--
Prof. Dr. Winfried Fluck
Abt. Kultur
John F. Kennedy-Institut
Freie Universität Berlin
Lansstr. 7-9
14195 Berlin