Hiding Making - Showing Creation
Strategies in Artistic Practice from the 19th to the 21st Centuries

7-8 January 2011
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
Rijksakademie, Amsterdam

Scientific Board: Wouter Davidts (VU University Amsterdam), Rachel Esner
(University of Amsterdam), Sandra Kisters (Radboud University, Nijmegen and
VU University Amsterdam), Ann-Sophie Lehmann (Utrecht University)
Organization and Supervision: Sandra Kisters (Radboud University, Nijmegen
and VU University Amsterdam)

Much research has been devoted in recent years to the artist's studio.
Thanks to archival and historical research, we now know fairly precisely how
nineteenth-century studios actually looked what sort of furniture and
objects d'art they contained and which works were hung on the walls. Similar
investigations are being undertaken for studios of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries. In addition, a number of publications and
conferences have sought to shed light on the theoretical implications of the
studio as a space for the production not only of works of art but of
meaning, and how it functions in the economy of artistic self-understanding.

Without abandoning the latter in particular, Hiding Making/Showing
Creation aims to focus attention away from the space of the studio and onto
the activities that take place there. The nineteenth century further
polarized two long-standing notions of artistic practice, perhaps best
expressed in Kersting's depiction of the empty studio of Casper David
Friedrich and the opulent salon-studios of the "painter-princes" of the fin
de siècle. Such images clearly stand for two very different conceptions of
the artistic modus operandi: neat, designed, planned out, withdrawn and
intellectual on the one hand, and messy, spontaneous, worldly, and emotional
on the other. Both are constructions that can be traced back to the art
theoretical discourses of the early modern period (disegno/colore) and even
further back to the almost ungraspable process we now describe as the
emancipation of the visual arts from craft. Such notions shaped the
discourse on artistic practice (and its visualization) well into the
twentieth century and are still acute today.

The aim of Hiding Making/Showing Creation is thus twofold. In the first
instance, we seek to trace the Nachleben of these topoi from the nineteenth
century to today, in particular focusing on how artists have employed them
as strategies for showing certain aspects of their practice (above all those
which perpetuate the notions of artistic genius and autonomy) while
carefully hiding others from view (routine, failure, craft). In the
twentieth century, such notions also acted as a foil against which to create
one's artistic self, so that contributions will also examine the various
ways these fundamental notions have been transformed, challenged, and even
reversed throughout the twentieth century. Simultaneously, we also seek to
consider how such strategies are related to actual methods and working
procedures, not only by stressing the material and technical aspects of
artistic practice, but also by examining how they are deployed in relation
to the wider systems of the art world (e.g. circuits of exhibition and the
market).

This conference takes place in conjunction with the publication Mythen van
het atelier. Werkplaats en schilderpraktijken van de negentiende-eeuwse
kunstenaar in Nederland (Studio Myths. Workspaces and Painting Practices of
Nineteenth-Century Artists in the Netherlands), edited by Mayken Jonkman and
Eva Geudeker (Leiden 2010), and the exhibition Mythen van het atelier
(Studio Myths), held at Teylers Museum Haarlem until 9 January 2011.

Hiding Making/Showing Creation is supported by the Netherlands Institute
of Art History (RKD), Teylers Museum Haarlem, and the Rijksacademie
Amsterdam, with financial assistance provided by The Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), SNS Reaalfonds, NWO (The Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research), the Institute for Culture and History
(ICG) of the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch Postgraduate School for Art
History, the VU University Amsterdam, and the Department of Art, Religion
and Cultural Sciences of the University of Amsterdam.

Registration:
http://www.mythenvanhetatelier.nl/activiteiten/symposium-hiding-making-showi
ng-creation/registration-form

Information: http://www.mythenvanhetatelier.nl

Contact: Dr. Sandra Kisters (ac.kisterslet.vu.nl) or Dr. Rachel Esner
(r.esneruva.nl)

Program (all speakers confirmed)

Friday 7 January - Teylers Museum Haarlem (aprox. 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.)

Word of welcome by Marjan Scharloo, director Teylers Museum Haarlem

Introduction by Dr. Rachel Esner, University of Amsterdam

Keynote lecture by Professor Dr. Monika Wagner, University of Hamburg,
Studio Matters: Materials, Instruments and Artistic Processes

Session 1: On the Strategic Necessity of the Hiding / Showing Dichotomy
Chair: Dr. Ann Sophie Lehmann, Utrecht University

Professor Dr. Beatrice von Bismarck, Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst
(HGB) Leipzig, The Work of Hiding: Tacita Dean's 'Section Cinema (Homage to
Marcel Broodthaers)' (2002)

Dr. Julia Gelshorn, University of Vienna, Networking and Connecting: Modes
of Showing and Hiding Work in Contemporary Art

Session 2: Hiding Making / Showing Creation I:
Chair: Dr. Rachel Esner, University of Amsterdam

Dr. Matthias Krüger, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Jean-Léon
Gérôme: His Badger and His Studio

Professor Dr. Petra Chu, Seton Hall University, South Orange, What Really
Happened in The Painter's Studio? What we Know (and don't Know) about
Courbet's Working Method

Maarten Liefooghe, Universiteit Ghent, 14, Rue de la Rochefoucauld: The
Partial Eclipse of Gustave Moreau

Introduction to the exhibition Studio Myths and visit to the exhibition

Saturday 8 January - Rijksakademie Amsterdam (aprox. 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.)

Word of welcome by Martijntje Hallmann, Head of Studios, Rijksakademie
Amsterdam

Introduction by Dr. Sandra Kisters, Radboud University, Nijmegen and VU
University Amsterdam

Session 3: Hiding Making / Showing Creation II
Chair: Dr. Sandra Kisters, Radboud University, Nijmegen and VU
University Amsterdam

Terry van Druten, Teylers Museum Haarlem, The Painted Pallet and Other
Artistic Relics

Dr. Frank Reijnders, University of Amsterdam, The Studio as a Work of Art:
Mondriaan, Duchamp and Broodthaers

Dr. Matthias Noell, Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, Anchorage in
Architecture: Theo van Doesburg as a Photographer of his Studios

Session 4: Hiding / Showing in Photography and Film
Chair: Professor Dr. Wouter Davidts, VU University Amsterdam

Mayken Jonkman, Netherlands Institute of Art History (RKD),
Nineteenth-Century Studio Photography

Professor Dr. Michael Diers, Humboldt University, Berlin, The Darkroom as
Atelier: The Photographer's Studio in Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Blow Up'
(1966)

Dr. Eric de Bruyn, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Leiden University, The
Empty Studio: Bruce Nauman's Studio Films

Artist's Talk: To be announced

Concluding remarks by Dr. Ann Sophie Lehmann, Utrecht University