Call for Papers:

"Exploring the Ephemeral"

2008 Art History Graduate Student Symposium,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Keynote Lecture: TBA
Friday November 7, 2008

The concept of ephemerality has come to evoke a broad range of associations,
from the transience of individuals, objects, and events, to the complexities
of memory, transformation, displacement, replacement, and restoration. This
symposium seeks to provide a forum for exploring how ephemerality relates
not only to the work of art itself, but also to the larger nexus of medium,
artistic practice, viewership, community, the market, and institutional
frameworks.

Participants are encouraged to consider all modes and forms of ephemerality.
Possible paper topics include: the tension between artworks that are
short-lived by intention and those that become ephemeral unintentionally,
the role of conservation, exhibition, and display in curtailing or
prolonging the lifespan of objects and sites, the relationship of
ephemerality to commodity status, and the challenge of documenting and
studying short-lived works and projects, performance art, land art, or sites
where the "art" is no longer present. Topics pertaining to all time periods,
cultures, and media are welcome.

Please send a brief abstract (maximum 300 words) and CV as email attachments
to
MichiganEphemeralitySymposiumgmail.com by April 15, 2008. Presentations
should be no longer than 20 minutes in length. Presenters will be notified
by April 25.