CALL FOR PAPERS

International Symposium
The Lives of Form: Abstract Art and Nature
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany
August 14-16, 2008

In 1942, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock met Hans Hofmann. Hofmann asked
Pollock „do you work from nature“? Pollock’s famous reply was „I am
nature.“ Hofmann?s response to this is less well known, but just as
interesting. He said „Ah, but if you work by heart, you will repeat
yourself.“ This exchange sets out, implicitly, the two extremes between
which abstract art has developed, on the one hand, the desire to tap into
the formative power of nature itself, and on the other hand, allowing
this drive to be regulated by reference to natural form. Our symposium
will explore these extremes and the complex space of creative
possibilities which exists between them. We will address different ways
in which art has been created by consciously abstracting from nature, and
the varying ways in which nature?s formative non-objective core – and
cognate notions such as the Unconscious - have been addressed through
abstract idioms. As well as considering specific bodies of artistic
practice, our symposium will also look at those accompanying theoretical
and critical narratives which seek to justify abstract art on the basis
of a special relation to nature, or in the deliberate attempt to transcend
it entirely. We will also be interested in the possibility - or otherwise
- of their relevance for a general theory of meaning for abstract art.
The time span covered will be from Kandinsky’s, Malevich’s, and
Mondrian?s innovations after 1910, down to Postmodernism. We welcome
contributions from art historians, philosophers, scientists, and other
interested parties.

Session 1: Abstracting from Nature

The origins of abstract art are found in artists who transform the
appearance of nature and artifacts, either by emphasizing their more
basic geometric structures, or by altering familiar relations between
contour and colour (or both). This session will discuss the variety and
scope of these transformations, and the different meanings assigned to
them in different historical contexts of creation and reception.

Session 2: The Other Side of Abstraction: Nature and Formative Processes

A recurrent vindication of abstract art has been the claim that it offers
a more direct visual expression of those forces which shape the structure
and evolution of nature. The forces in question have been understood in
many different terms - metaphysical, religious, and scientific. This
session will analyze the relation between abstraction and the forces
which shape nature, describing the different historical contexts in which
this relation has been posited, the critical questions it has raised, and
its more general intellectual viability.

Session 3: Abstraction and the Unconscious

One of the most important justifications of abstraction has been its
possible link with the ultimate ?natural? element in human cognition -
namely that „unconscious“ dimension which manages to shape conscious
thought processes, but which is, fundamentally, not shaped by them. The
session will investigate possible linkages between this and those
processes of „automatic“ creation which have been so important for the
making of some abstract works, most notably „action painting“.

Session 4: Beyond Nature? Abstraction in Late Modernism

From the late 1940's onwards, new forms of radical abstract painting and
sculpture have emerged. These range from colour-field works, through
(later on) post-painterly abstraction, minimalism, and land art. Does the
large physical scale of some of these works, or the lack of autographic
emphasis or suppressions of artifactual identity in others, mean that we
are meant to regard them as if they were on a par with natural objects
and formations? Or is a more radical antithesis between abstraction and
nature also involved?

We welcome 200-word abstracts for 20-minute papers to address these and
related questions. Please submit your proposal as well as a short CV (1
page) by email to abstractionjacobs-university.de by October 31, 2007.
Please indicate also in which of the four sessions you would like to be
placed.

--
Prof. Dr. Isabel Wünsche
<i.wunschejacobs-university.de>

National Humanities Center Fellow, 2007-2008
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Tel: 919-549-0668 ext. 209
Fax: 919-549-9001

Associate Professor of Art and Art History
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Tel. +49-421-200-3311
Fax: +49-421-200-49-3311