CFP: Staged Production (RSA, New York, 27-29 Mar 14)

Deadline: May 22, 2013

Staged Production

While performance art has developed into one of the primary genres of contemporary practice, with its own history, subgenres, styles, and intellectual problems, the performance of making by Renaissance and Baroque artists is largely unexplored. This panel aims to investigate how facture was viewed as an activity staged for an audience in the early modern period. We are interested in papers that explore a range of visual and textual material in order to reveal how the presence of viewers during the act of production contributed to the ways in which artists experimented with process, from using different tools to developing an artistic persona as they worked. How did these scenarios of production provide the space from which artists and their public began to converse about images, materials, and the artist's body? How was the artist's workspace spatially conceived and/or furnished so as to engage with visitors? What form of participation did witnesses take in the act of production? As both participants and observers, how did the posing of sitters or models factor into process? Was viewing as performative as making?

Please submit an abstract (max. 150 words) and a brief CV to Nicole Blackwood nicoleblackwoodpost.harvard.edu, and Carolina Mangone, caro.mangoneutoronto.ca, by May 22, 2013.