The Art of Evolution: Charles Darwin and Visual Cultures

Thursday 2 - Saturday 4 July 2009

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

In this Darwin bicentenary year, the full impact of the research and
theories of the naturalist who spent most of his life at Down House,
Kent, is coming to the fore. Few intellectual disciplines have remained
untouched by the thought of Charles Darwin, as revealed by visual
cultures in the form of art, anthropological, medical, and scientific
imagery, as well as the popular images that feature in the press. This
is the subject matter of the conference and events to be held under the
title, The Art of Evolution: Charles Darwin and Visual Cultures, at The
Courtauld Institute of Art, 2-4 July 2009.

The Art of Evolution: Charles Darwin and Visual Cultures will explore
the impact of Charles Darwin on visual cultures through the examination
of aesthetics, the museum, slavery and concepts of indigenous people, as
well as the representation of animals. It will investigate the
repercussions of Darwin\'s theories upon images of the body, eugenics
and genetics, sexualities, Surrealism, film and contemporary art.
Including exhibitions and film screenings, the conference will conclude
with a reading of Justin Fleming\'s provocative new play, Origin,
directed by Wayne Harrison.

The book, The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms and Visual Culture,
co-edited by Barbara Larson and Fae Brauer, will be launched at this
conference.

The conference is also offered in conjunction with a lecture by
Professor Dame Gillian Beer FBA (University of Cambridge). Her lecture,
organised in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, is entitled The
Backbone Shiver: Darwin and the Arts, and will take place 6.45 - 7.45pm,
Wednesday, 1 July 2009, at the Henry Wellcome Auditorium, Wellcome
Collection Conference Centre, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE. See
website for details and booking form:
www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/calendar.shtml

To book a place: Conference only: £70 (£30 students/concessions).
Gillian Beer lecture only: £10. Please complete a booking form
(available at www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/conferences/darwin). The
form can be used to book either the lecture or the conference or both.
Send the form with a cheque made payable to ‘Courtauld Institute of Art’
to: Research Forum Events Co-ordinator, Courtauld Institute of Art
Research Forum, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN. For credit card
bookings call 020 7848 2785/2909. For further information, send an
e-mail to ResearchForumEventscourtauld.ac.uk

Organised by Fae Brauer, Barbara Larson and Gavin Parkinson

PROGRAMME

Thursday, 2 July

09.15 - 09.45: Registration
09.45 - 10.00: Welcome: Professor Deborah Swallow (Director, The
Courtauld Institute of Art)

SESSION 1 – Darwin and Aesthetic Theory
Chair: Barbara Larson (University of West Florida)
10.00 - 10.30: Barbara Larson (University of West Florida), Darwin,
Burke, and the Sublime
10.30 - 11.00: Marsha Morton (Pratt Institute), Art’s “Competition
with Nature”: Darwin, Haeckel, and the Scientific Art History of Alois Riegl
11.00 - 11.30: Sabine Flach (Zentrum für Literatur-und Kulturforschung
Berlin), Reflections on the Development of a Theory of Representation in
the Work of Darwin and Warburg
11.30 - 12.00: Discussion

12.00 - 13.30: BREAK FOR LUNCH

12.45 - 13.15: The Courtauld Gallery – tour available of selected works.
Please note places are limited (maximum 20 people) and can be booked at
registration.

SESSION 2 – Darwin and the Museum: Curating Darwin/ism
Chair: Barbara Larson (University of West Florida)
13.30 - 14.00: Arthur MacGregor (formerly of the Ashmolean Museum),
Delayed Reactions: Early Responses and Non-Responses to Darwin in the Museum
14.00 - 14.30: Pat Simpson (University of Hertfordshire), Representing
Darwin: Art, Taxidermy, and Bio-politics at the Darwin Museum Moscow,
1907-2009
14.30 - 15.00: Monique Scott (American Museum of Natural History),
Color-Coding Darwin in the Museum
15.00 - 15.30: Discussion

15.30 - 16.00: TEA/COFFEE BREAK

SESSION 3 – Darwin, Slavery and Indigenous Peoples
Chair: Jeanette Hoorn (University of Melbourne)
16.00 - 16.30: Cannon Schmitt (University of Toronto), The Mirror of
Evolution: Fuegians, Orang-utans and Other Reflections
16.30 - 17.00: Sarah Thomas (University of Sydney), Slavery, a
“Scandal to Christian Nations”: Charles Darwin, Augustus Earle and the
Compass of Morality
17.00 - 17.30: Jeanette Hoorn (University of Melbourne), Tom Roberts’
Portrait of Charlie Turner and Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in
Man and Animals
17.30 - 18.00: Discussion

18.00 - 20.00: RECEPTION
including Book Launch: The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms and
Visual Culture, co-edited by Barbara Larson and Fae Brauer (The
University Press of New England, 2009. 344 pp. 85 illus. 6 1/8 x 9 1/4”.
$50.00 Cloth, 978-1-58465-775-0)

Friday, 3 July

09.10 - 09.40: Registration

SESSION 4 – Becoming Animal
Chair: Fae Brauer (University of East London; The University of New
South Wales)
09.40 - 10.10: Maria P. Gindhart (Ernest G. Welch School of Art and
Design, Georgia State University), Apes and Ape-men: Frémiet, Kupka, and
the Jardin des Plantes
10.10 - 10.40: Serena Keshavjee (University of Winnepeg),
‘L’Esthétique et les Squelettes d’Animaux’: Eugène Carrière and
Evolutionary Theory at the Comparative Anatomy Gallery in Paris
10.40 - 11.10: Rikke Hansen (Tate Britain), “Almost the Same\":
Animals, Ambivalence and Mimicry
11.10 - 11.40: Giovanni Aloi (Editor in Chief of Antennae, The Journal
of Nature in Visual Culture; Queen Mary University of London), Different
Becomings: The Work of Marcus Coates and Oleg Kulik
11.40 - 12.00: Discussion

12.00 - 14.15: BREAK FOR LUNCH
including: Book Fair in The Courtauld’s Front Hall
12.30 - 14.15: Film Screening: Max, Mon Amour, directed by Nagisa Oshima

SESSION 5 – Darwin and Surrealism
Chair: Gavin Parkinson (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
14.15 - 14.45: Marion Endt (Henry Moore Foundation), The Coral of Life
14.45 - 15.15: Donna Roberts (independent scholar), Darwin and
Surrealism: Instinct, Play and the Nocturnal Face of Nature
15.15 - 15.45: Gavin Parkinson, (The Courtauld Institute of Art),
Surrealism and King Kong: A Tale of Darwinian Exoticism
15.45 - 16.15: Discussion

16.15 - 16.45: TEA/COFFEE BREAK

SESSION 6 – Darwin and Sexualities
Chair: Whitney Davis (University of California, Berkeley)
16.45 - 17 .15: Whitney Davis (University of California, Berkeley),
Homoeroticism, Sexual Selection, and the Sense of Beauty
17.15 - 17.45: Jeremy Melius (Yale Center for British Art), Pleasure
as Pain in Grant Allen’s Darwinian Aesthetics
17.45 - 18.15: Caroline Arscott (The Courtauld Institute of Art),
Plugged Burrows: Aestheticism and Earthworms
18.15 - 18.45: Discussion

19.00 - 20.00: Keynote: Barbara Creed (University of Melbourne),
Darwin’s Pre-Cinematic Eye: Evolution and Metamorphosis in Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde

Saturday, 4 July

09.30 - 10.00: Registration

SESSION 7 – The Darwinian Body: The Biocultures of Eugenics and Genetics
Chair: Fae Brauer (University of East London; The University of New
South Wales)
10.00 - 10.30: Fae Brauer (University of East London; The University
of New South Wales), The Fitness Imperative: La Culture Physique,
Eugenics and the Darwinian Body
10.30 - 11.00: Christina Cogdell (University of California, Davis),
The Gene in Context: Organic Complex Systems as a Model for Generative
Architecture
11.00 - 11.30: Suzanne Anker (School of Visual Arts, New York City),
Darwin and the Complete Makeover
11.30 - 12.00: Discussion

12.00 - 13.30: BREAK FOR LUNCH
including: Book Fair in The Courtauld’s Front Hall
12.45 - 13.15: The Courtauld Gallery – tour available of selected
works. Please note places are limited (maximum 20 people) and can be
booked at registration.

SESSION 8 – Photography and the Darwinian Screen
Chair: Barbara Creed (University of Melbourne)
13.30 - 14.00: Barbara Creed (University of Melbourne), The Hollywood
Musical as Darwinian Mating Game
14.00 - 14.30: Jonathan Smith (University of Michigan, Dearborn),
Darwin, Photography, and the Expression of Emotions
14.30 - 15.00: Phillip Prodger (Peabody Essex Museum), Laughing and
Crying, Kicking and Screaming: Babies as Blank Slates in Darwin\'s
Photographs
15.00 - 15.30: Discussion

15.30 - 16.00: TEA/COFFEE BREAK

SESSION 9: Darwin and Contemporary Art
Chairs: Sara Barnes and Andrew Patrizio (Edinburgh College of Art)
16.00 - 16.30: Bergit Arends (Natural History Museum, London), After
Darwin: Contemporary Expressions
16.30 - 18.00: Tania Kovats and Phyllida Barlow in Conversation

18.30 - 20.00: Play Reading: Origin, by Justin Fleming, directed by
Wayne Harrison, taking place in Portico Room, First Floor, Somerset House

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The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
tel +44 207 848 2909 web
http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml

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