Enslavement and Art: Forced Labor in the History of Art.
Conference of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Conveners:
Eva Ehninger (Berlin)
Ittai Weinryb (New York)

Forced labor is a broad category all too often taken to comprise a human condition whose only shared feature is broadly defined as the control over another human, especially in regards to their labor and reproductive capacities (categories of ‘slavery’, ‘forced labor’ as well as ‘unfree’, ‘enslaved’, and ‘indentured human condition’ are still poorly defined in this context). Forced labor was and continues to play a central role in the intimate entanglement of aesthetics and commerce. Art production and patronage were part of networks that unfree humans aided in financing. These networks continue to echo in the collections, libraries, and museums, many built through the profit of unfree humans, that hold premodern and modern art today. This conference seeks to expand our current understanding of the role forced labor played in the world of art making and consumption. It challenges concepts of heritage and their corresponding attributions of identity, representation and ownership, and looks at transformations of value, from the perspective of forced labor. Hopefully, this conference will therefore prompt comparative thinking to uncover the foundations, the structures, the practices, as well as the sustained consequences and current realities of forced labor in relations to art.

Registration: Admission is by registration only. To participate on-site or via Zoom, please register using the following link: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/enslavement-and-art-forced-labor-in-the-history-of-art

PROGRAM

17 JUNE 2024
Humboldt Labor at Humboldt Forum (Schloßplatz 1, 10178 Berlin)

09.00-09.30 Coffee

09.30-10.00 Introduction
Eva Ehninger (Berlin) and Ittai Weinryb (New York, NY)

10.00-12.15 Space
Valika Smeulders (Amsterdam): “… Placing a Moor Next to Young Girls”: The Colonial World Order in Dutch Art
Meredith Martin (New York, NY): Neoclassicism and Pro-Slavery Ideology in Paris and Saint-Domingue
Burcu Dogramaci (Munich): Remembering Forced Labor: DP Artist Exhibitions in Munich in 1947 and 1948
Moderation and Response: Elisaveta Dvorakk (Berlin)

12.15-14.15 Lunch Break

14.15-16.00 Capital
Anna Arabindan-Kesson (Princeton, NJ): Mobile Enclosures: Cultivating Plantation Life Across the British Empire
Carrie Pilto (Amsterdam): Someone Is Getting Rich
Moderation and Response: Johanna Függer-Vagts (Berlin)

18.00-19.45 Kino Central (Rosenthaler Str. 39, 10178 Berlin)
Other Women Stopped Work and Joined Us: Filmic Re-imagination of Work in Yugantar‘s Molkarin
Film Screening and Conversation with Pallavi Paul (New Delhi) and Nicole Wolf (London)
Organization and Moderation: Aisha Allakhverdieva, Franziska Blume, Justine Ney and Hanna Steinert (Berlin)

18 JUNE 2024
Humboldt Labor at Humboldt Forum (Schloßplatz 1, 10178 Berlin)

10.00-12.15 Materiality
Jennifer Chuong (Cambridge, MA): An Unforced Production: Dox Thrash and the Invention of Carborundum Engraving
Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Washington, D.C.): Concealing/Revealing: Depictions of the Enslaved in Late Antique Furnishing Textiles
Matthew Rampley (Brno): Modern Architecture and Global Material Extraction
Moderation and Response: Juliette Calvarin (Berlin)

12.15-13.45 Lunch Break

13.45-16.00 Body
Ana Lucia Araujo (Washington, D.C.): Iron: The World Enslaved Blacksmiths Made in the Americas
Mahalakshmi Rakesh (New Delhi) and Sneha Ganguly (New Delhi): Artisanal Production and Agency: Regulations and Control in Early India
David Joselit (Cambridge, MA): Disfiguration and Survivance
Moderation and Response: Katja Müller-Helle (Berlin)

16.00-16.30 Closing Remarks