Sculpture & Touch

Friday, 16 and Saturday 17 May 2008

Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml

"Marble comes doubly alive for me then, as I ponder, comparing, / Seeing
with vision that feels, feeling with fingers that see". (Goethe, Roman
Elegies)

Since the Renaissance, at least, the medium of sculpture has been linked
explicitly to the sense of touch. Sculptors, philosophers and art historians
have all related the two, often in strikingly different ways. In spite of
this long running interest in touch and tactility, in recent decades vision
and visuality have tended to dominate art historical research.

This symposium aims to introduce a new impetus to the discussion of the
relationship between touch and sculpture by setting up a dialogue between
art historians and individuals with fresh insights working in disciplines
beyond art history. The programme reflects this ambition by bringing
together an international and truly diverse set of speakers who will tackle
subjects ranging from prehistoric figurines to the work of contemporary
artists, from pre-modern ideas about the physiology of touch to tactile
interaction in the museum environment, and from the phenomenology of touch
in recent philosophy to the experimental findings of scientific study.

To book a place: GBP 35 (GBP 15 students and Courtauld staff). Please send a
cheque made payable to 'Courtauld Institute of Art' to: Research Forum
Events Co-ordinator & Administrator, Courtauld Institute of Art Research
Forum, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, clearly stating that you
wish to book for the 'Sculpture & Touch conference'. For credit card
bookings call 020 7848 2785/2909. For further information, send an e-mail to
ResearchForumEventscourtauld.ac.uk

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml

PROGRAMME

Friday 16 May

9.30 - 10.00 Registration

10.00 - 11.30 Session 1

Geraldine Johnson (History of Art Department, University of Oxford): A
Taxonomy of Touch: Tactile Encounters in Renaissance Italy

Charles Spence (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Oxford): Making Sense of Touch

Andrew Benjamin (Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies,
Monash University, Australia): Endless Touching: Herder and Sculpture

11.30 - 12.00 COFFEE/TEA

12.00 - 13.30 Session 2

Michael Paraskos (Director of Programmes, Cyprus College of Art): Bringing
into Being: Vivifying Sculpture Through Touch

James Hall (independent art historian): Michelangelo and the Cult of the
Left Hand

Toby Juliff (School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies,
University of Leeds): Untouched Sound: Ventriloquism and the 'Touch' of
Sculpture

13.30 - 14.30 BREAK FOR LUNCH

14.30 - 16.00 Session 3

Francesca Bacci, (Centro Interdipartmentale Mente e Cervello, Università di
Trento, Italy): Either Touch or Look: When One Sense is Better than Two

Carmen Windsor (Philosophy, University of Reading): Proprioception and the
Aesthetic Appreciation of Sculpture

Arie Hartog (Curator, Gerhard-Marks-Haus, Bremen, Germany): Look as if You
Touch

16.00 ­ 16.30 COFFEE/TEA

16.30 ­ 18.00 Session 4

Julia Cassim (Helen Hamlyn Centre, Royal College of Art): Touch and the Non-
Visual Imagination - Case Studies from the Japanese Museum Experience

Rosalyn Driscoll (contemporary artist, USA): Crossing Boundaries of Self,
Time and Space

Fiona Candlin (Birkbeck College, University of London): Licit and Illicit
Touching in the Museum

Saturday 17 May

9.30 ­ 10.00 Registration

10.00 ­ 11.30 Session 5

Robert Hopkins (Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield):
Sculpture, Vision and Touch

Claude Heath (contemporary artist, UK): Islands of Clarity: Drawing
Sculpture with a Blindfold

Sebastiano Barassi (Curator of Collections, Kettle¹s Yard, University of
Cambridge): The Sculptor as a 'Blindman': Constantin Brancusi's 'Sculpture
for the Blind'

11.30 ­ 12.00 COFFEE/TEA

12.00 ­ 13.30 Session 6

Linda Ann Nolan (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für
Kunstgeschichte, Rome): Popular Devotion at St. Peter's Basilica: The Bronze
St. Peter and Pope Paul V

Caterina Y. Pierre (Department of Art, City University of New York at
Kingsborough Community College): The Pleasure and Piety of Touch in
Aimé-Jules Dalou¹s 'Tomb of Victor Noir'

Michael Petry (contemporary artist, UK and Curator, Royal Academy Schools
Gallery): U TOUCH ME: The Body Transposed

13.30 ­ 14.30 BREAK FOR LUNCH

14.30 ­ 16.00 Session 7

Hagi Kenaan (Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, Israel):
Narcissus' Touch: Sculpture and the Phenomenology of the Body

Alison Wright (Department of History of Art, University College London):
'Toccare il vero'? Playing on Touch in 15th-century Florentine Sculpture and
the Case of Desiderio

Shir Aloni (Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London): 'Textures of
Memory': Touch and Remembrance in the Works of Mona Hatoum, Doris Salcedo,
and Anne Wilson

16.00 ­ 16.30 COFFEE/TEA

16.30 ­ 17.30 Session 8

Douglass Bailey (School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University):
Small Things in the Hand: Miniaturism, Figurines and Body-objects

Anne Cranny-Francis (Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie
University, Australia): Touching Bodies: Ron Mueck's Exploration of
(Sensory) Being

17.30 ­ 18.00 Concluding Remarks

Organised by Peter Dent

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml