Speculation, Imagination and Misinterpretation in Medieval and Renaissance Art
IMAGO annual Conference
March 22-23, 2015

Tel Aviv University
Faculty of the Arts
Art History Department
Mexico Building, room 206A

Art history, as we knew it, had changed in 1989 with the publication of two major contributions: David Freedberg's The Power of Images and Hans Belting's Likeness and Presence. These books redirected our understanding as to the relations between humans and crafted images, in the context of response, ritual, manifestation, and communication. Image production and consumption became a crossroads of cultural practices and forces, projected upon and through, tempting their users to ascribe to them thought, act, and impact.

Rethinking these seminal works, the IMAGO annual conference seeks to explore the role of imagination, speculation, and misinterpretation of images; it attempts to unravel the processes by which phantasy becomes a res, which, in turn, generates an artistic reality and presence. Do images simulate a possible reality, one that could have existed, as advocated by Aristotle? Or, do they generate the reproduction of a distorted actuality? Is the power of imagination synthetic, reflexive, passive, or is it imbued with corporeal intercreative forces? If God was genitum non-factum, were images factum, non genitum, and therefore open to continuously changing speculations? If images produce presence in the form of imaginative actualitas, do they intentionally encourage misinterpretation?

Keynotes Speakers:
Professor Hans Belting, Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe
Professor David Freedberg, Columbia University
Professor Stephen Perkinson, Bowdoin College, Brunswick

Sunday, March 22, 2015

10:15 Greetings
Chair: Assaf Pinkus, Head of the Art History Department, Tel Aviv University
Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, Tel Aviv University
Dorothy Cohen Shoichet

10:45–11:45 Opening Lecture
Chair: Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Recognize Yourself: Reflections on Selfhood and the Macabre in Pre-Modern Europe
Stephen Perkinson, Bowdoin College

11:45–12:15 Coffee Break

12:15–13:45 Session 1
Likeness
Chair: Na’ama Shulman, Tel Aviv University

Speculating on (Self-)Projected Humility in the Memento Mori Memorials of the Late-Medieval English Social and Religious Elite (c1420-1558): Carved Cadavers and the Power of the Crafted Image of the Human Likeness
Christina Welch, University of Winchester

A Site of Imagination: The Imperial Balcony at Mühlhausen
Assaf Pinkus, Tel Aviv University

Portraying the Unportrayable: Somatic Presence and Imagination in a Renaissance Bust
Jeanette Kohl, University of California, Riverside

13:45–15:00 Lunch Break

15:00–16:30 Session 2
Objects Transformed
Chair: Galit Noga-Banai, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“Imagined Miracles, or Manufactured Efficacy? Titian’s Pietà”
Christopher J. Nygren, University of Pittsburgh

From Ariadne’s Sleep to Cleopatra’s Death: the Consequences of Rosso Fiorentino’s Misinterpretation
Sefy Hendler, Tel Aviv University

Eclecticism in Baroque Painting: Reconsidering the Validity of a Label
Daniel M. Unger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

16:30–17:00 Coffee Break

17:00–18:30 Session 3
Factum, non genitum
Chair: Adi Louria Hayon, Tel Aviv University

Factum and Frame. Side Notes to the Iconography of the Vision of Dominic in Soriano
Isabella Augart, University of Hamburg

Creating and Copying a Miraculous Image: the Case of St. Dominic of Soriano
Laura Fenelli, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz

Seven Wonders of the World: How to Remember Destroyed Artworks
Francesco Del Sole, University of Salento

18:30–19:00 Coffee Break

19:00 Keynote Lecture
Chair: Assaf Pinkus, Head of the Art History Department, Tel Aviv University
Greetings: Zvika Serper, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Tel Aviv University
Still Images and Motor Imagination
David Freedberg, Columbia University

Monday, March 23, 2015

10:15–12:15 Session 1
Mirabilia and Miraculous Sites of Memory
Chair: Sefy Hendler, Tel Aviv University

The Sarajevo Haggadah: Medieval and Modern Interpretations and Misinterpretations
Adam S. Cohen, University of Toronto

Memories from Constantinople: Imagining Venetians and Ottomans
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

A Horse and a Groom to Aid the Queen – Secular Figures at the Goldene Rössl
Dafna Nissim, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Holy Sites, Diverse Memories: The Murals of the Resurrection Church at Abu Gosh (Emmaus) and its Audiences
Gil Fishhof, Tel Aviv University

12:15–14:00 Lunch Break

14:00–15:30 Session 2
Making Space,
Chair: Sarit Shalev-Eyni, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Architecture as Imago? Architecture and the Council of Constance. From Art “consecrated” by the Court in the 14th Century to the Municipal Mediality of Architecture in the 15th Century
Richard Nemec, University of Bern

Misunderstanding Vitruvius: Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and the Original Sin of Early Modern Theory of Architecture
Francesco Benelli, Columbia University

The Miscue as a Medieval Hermeneutic Operation (or, the Modern Misreading of the Hereford Map)
Marcia Kupfer, Independent Scholar, EURIAS Fellow, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

15:30–16:00 Coffee Break

16:00–16:30 IMAGO Business Meeting

16:30–18:00 Session 3
Praesentia
Chair: Linda Safran, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies; EURIAS Fellow, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

The Power of the Imagination, Inward and Outward
Berthold Hub, University of Vienna

Innocent Idols and Idolized Innocents
Mateusz Kapustka, University of Zurich

Metempsychosis of Martyrdom: The Eucharist and the Eschatological Concepts of Martyrdom and the Pictorial Idioms at the Ss. Savin and Cyprien Crypt
Ruhama Danziger, Tel Aviv University

18:00–18:30 ICMA Reception
Greetings: Linda Safran, Editor of Gesta (with Adam S. Cohen)

18: 30–19:30 Keynote Lecture
Chair: Bianca Kühnel, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
From Trace to Face. The invention of the Christ Icon
Hans Belting, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design

______________________________
Prof. Assaf Pinkus
Chair of the Art History Department
The Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts
Tel Aviv University
Ramat Aviv
Tel Aviv 69978
Israel