826 schermerhorn COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY MIRIAM AND IRA D. WALLACH FINE ARTS CENTER FALL 2016
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826 schermerhorn
COLUMBIA U N IVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ART H ISTORY AN D ARCHAEOLOGY
MI RIAM AN D I RA D. WALLACH FI N E ARTS CENTER
FALL 2016
f r o m t h e c h a i r ’s o f f i c e
Dear Students, Colleagues, and Friends,
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We proudly start the 2016–2017 academic year with a newly strengthened faculty in the Early COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Modern European fields. In addition to Meredith Gamer and Michael J. Waters, whose arrival was DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
announced a year ago but who both began teaching with us this fall, we are joined by Eleonora MIRIAM AND IRA D. WALLACH FINE ARTS CENTER
Pistis. A specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture and urban planning, FALL 2016
Eleonora took her PhD at the Università Iuav in Venice, where she wrote a dissertation on Nicholas
Hawksmoor, also the subject of her first book. One of her primary interests is in the education of 4 16
architects and the architectural education of amateurs, a topic that has led her to study a community New Faculty Introductions Diane Bodart named to the
of letters that extended across Europe. Before moving to Columbia, she taught at Oxford University MEREDITH GAMER, ELEONORA PISTIS, David Rosand Professorship
and at Grinnell College. MICHAEL J. WATERS
17
We are also delighted to report that our 5 Professor Kellie Jones named
colleague Ioannis Mylonopoulos has been Renowned Barnard Professor MacArthur Fellow
Keith Moxey Retires ANNE HIGONNET
awarded tenure. Ioannis anchors a curriculum
ALEXANDER ALBERRO
in architectural history that now stretches 18/19
from antiquity through the middle ages to the 6 Biennale Cultures in Africa
The Mary Griggs Burke Center Z. S. STROTHER
modern world, though his expertise in ancient for Japanese Art
Greek religious history has made him a leading Immersed: A Mellon Postdoctoral
MATTHEW McKELWAY
Fellows Symposium
thinker on a wide range of other topics as well,
7 JOSEPH SALVATORE ACKLEY
including sacred landscape, the ritual use of Kyoto-Nara Painting and Disrupting Unity and Discerning
objects, the practice of human sacrifice, and Architecture Field Seminar 2016 Ruptures: Focus Aleppo
the changing identities of a wide variety of MATTHEW McKELWAY
DARE ANNE S. BRAWLEY
deities. Not least, Ioannis carries on Columbia’s 8 Global Latin America
great tradition as a center for archaeology; Interview with Rosalind E. Krauss NICHOLAS MORGAN
the excavation he leads at Onchestos is the NOAM M. ELCOTT
Cambridge-Columbia Symposium
university’s first ever in Greece. 10 MARGOT BERNSTEIN
From left: Holger A. Klein, Ioannis We are sad only to see the retirement of our dear Barnard colleague Keith Moxey, who leaves Travels to a “City of Knowledge”
Mylonopoulos, Michael J. Waters, MATTHEW GILLMAN 20
us at the height of his powers: his most recent book, Visual Time: The Image in History, appeared in
Meredith Gamer, Francesco de Co-Curating Van Dyck: The Anatomy
Angelis, Vidya Dehejia, Michael Cole, English just three years ago, and already it has been translated into French and Spanish. Students 11 of Portraiture
Branden W. Joseph, Kellie Jones,
will miss his famous courses on Brueghel and on the Reformation, as well as his recent proseminar Virtual Reality Tours ADAM EAKER
Stephen Murray, Eleonora Pistis, STEFAAN VAN LIEFFERINGE
Rosalind E. Krauss, Barry Bergdoll, on the methods of art history. 21
Anne Higonnet, Alexander Alberro, The 2015–2016 academic year saw the most successful fundraising in the department’s history. 12/13 Faculty Highlights
Stefaan Van Liefferinge. Photograph Lines of Flight – MODA Curates
by Gabriel Rodriguez. Not included A $13 million gift from the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation has allowed 22
KATHERINE COHN, DAVID CRANE, LEAH HARTMAN
in the picture are: Zainab Bahrani, us to establish the new Burke Center for Japanese Art, to be led by Matthew McKelway. We also
Frédérique Baumgartner, Diane
Book Excerpt: Artificial Darkness
completed fundraising for the David Rosand Professorship of Italian Renaissance Art History, The Expanded Subject NOAM M. ELCOTT
Bodart, Jonathan Crary, Noam M.
JOSHUA I. COHEN, SANDRINE COLARD,
Elcott, David Freedberg, Robert E. naming Diane Bodart as the incumbent chairholder. GIULIA PAOLETTI 24
Harrist, Jr., Elizabeth W. Hutchinson,
Janet Kraynak, Matthew McKelway, Among the faculty and students accorded honors this past year, two stand out: in February, Fellowships, Dissertation Defenses,
Finesse Undergraduate Awards and Prizes
Jonathan Reynolds, Simon Schama, Rosalind E. Krauss received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award
LEAH PIRES
Avinoam Shalem, Z. S. Strother.
for Writing on Art. And this September, Kellie Jones won a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. This is the 27
14/15 Alumni News
second MacArthur in the department’s history: the first went to its founder, Meyer Schapiro.
Classical Studies Graduate Program
The past year was as busy as ever in the department, with a conference on “Global Latin FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS 30
America,” sponsored by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art; a conference on “Biennale Advisory Council Members
MA in Modern and Contemporary Art
Cultures in Africa”; a new installment of our Cambridge-Columbia Graduate Student Symposium; JANET KRAYNAK 31
a series of talks on moments of rupture in the historiography of Islamic art; and a memorable group With Thanks
MA in Art History
of Bettman Lectures among the highlights. We hope to see you at an event in the months to come. FRÉDÉRIQUE BAUMGARTNER
With best wishes,
Background: Amanohashidate, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Photograph by Valerie Zinner.
Front and back covers: Detail of Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons, Japan, Momoyama Period (1573–1615),
second half of the sixteenth century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Purchase, Mrs. Jackson
Michael Cole Burke and Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation Gifts, 1987.
Professor and Department Chair
3
n e w fa c u lt y
MEREDITH GAMER
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
ELEONORA PISTIS
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century
MICHAEL J. WATERS
Renaissance Architecture, Prints,
Renowned Barnard Professor
European Art European Architecture and Drawings
Keith Moxey Retires
I am thrilled to As an architectural It is with much
be joining the historian, the excitement and P R O F E S S O R K E I T H M OX E Y, the longstanding chair
Department of opportunity to join delight that I of the Department of Art History at Barnard, retired in July.
Art History and the Department am joining the Professor Moxey completed his primary and secondary educa-
Archaeology at of Art History department as an tion in Buenos Aires and went on to receive degrees from the
Columbia this fall and Archaeology assistant professor. University of Edinburgh (MA, 1965) and the University of
as assistant profes- at Columbia is I am an architectur-
Chicago (MA, 1968; PhD, 1974). Prior to joining the Barnard
sor of European the fulfilment of al historian whose
art, 1700–1900. a lifelong dream. work focuses on and Columbia art history departments in 1988, he taught at
My research I grew up reading the Renaissance Tufts University and the University of Virginia. He has also
centers on the visual and material culture publications by the great scholars who period. My current book project rethinks served as a visiting professor at Northwestern University, the
of Britain and the British colonial world. have taught at Columbia over the years— architectural production in fifteenth- and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Folger Institute,
My current book project, The Sheriff’s Hilary Ballon, Barry Bergdoll, Joseph early sixteenth-century Italy, focusing on Williams College, and various other institutions over the
Picture Frame: Art and Execution in Connors, Robin Middleton, and Rudolf issues of materiality and exploring the sig-
years.
Eighteenth-Century Britain, draws together Wittkower, to name just a few. nificance of building materials, methods
a wide range of sources— from simple The department is currently rebuild- of facture, processes of construction, and Professor Moxey began his career as a specialist in the art
woodcuts and graphic satires to history ing Columbia’s traditional strength in the the development of building technology. of the Northern Renaissance, publishing his dissertation on
paintings and human-cast anatomical history of architecture across all periods, It also investigates questions of architec- Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer, Antwerp painters of
models—to trace the connections and I cannot express my own excitement tural mimesis, and how architecture was the sixteenth century, and a book on the role of popular prints
between rituals of capital punishment and in joining the faculty at this point in its shaped by other modes of artistic produc- in the propaganda wars of the German Reformation. Later
practices of art-making in Britain’s long history. I have been trained as both an tion. Furthermore, my project seeks to
identified with what became known as the “new art history,”
eighteenth century. I am also at work on architect and an architectural historian, resituate spolia within a broader dialogue
a shorter study of the material history of and my approach to architecture is also of contemporary architectural practice he turned attention to issues of method and interpretation in
William Hunter’s richly illustrated obstet- closely allied with cultural history. and the material revival of antiquity. volumes such as The Practice of Theory (1994) and The Practice
rical atlas, The Anatomy of the Human My research projects and publications I have also worked extensively on of Persuasion (2000), both of which probed the symbiotic
Gravid Uterus (1774). span European architecture and urbanism the study of antiquity as well as the use relationship between historical and theoretical approaches to
My work has been published in edited of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- and transmission of architectural prints, the study of art.
volumes on the representation of slavery turies, with a focus on Britain, Italy, and drawings, and treatises. In 2011 I co-cu-
With his partner, Michael Ann Holly, Professor Moxey
in European art and on the sensory France. I am currently working on two rated Variety, Archaeology, and Ornament:
culture of religion, as well as online as part book manuscripts: one on the architect Renaissance Architectural Prints from directed summer institutes addressing art theoretical issues
of Tate Britain’s JMW Turner: Sketchbooks, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and the other on Column to Cornice with Cammy Brothers for the National Endowment for the Humanities (1987–1989)
Drawings and Watercolours. In 2014, with the antiquarian Scipione Maffei. My cur- at the University of Virginia Art Museum. and the Getty Foundation (1998–1999). These collabora-
Esther Chadwick and Cyra Levenson, I rent major research project, which I start- I am excited to return to this material tions resulted in publications such as Visual Theory (1991),
co-curated Figures of Empire: Slavery and ed at the Italian Academy for Advanced at Columbia, and to once again utilize Visual Culture (1994), The Subjects of Art History (1998), and
Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Studies last year, investigates the rise of a the incomparable resources of the Avery
Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies (2002). Most recently,
Britain at the Yale Center for British Art. global architectural history in Europe at Architectural and Fine Arts Library, a
This exhibition explored how portraiture the beginning of the eighteenth century. second home to me as a doctoral student Professor Moxey became interested in the temporal dimen-
became—and remains—an important Over the years, I have consulted Avery at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. It is sion of art historical studies, an exploration that culminated
means negotiating the relationships and Architectural and Fine Arts Library often my intention to offer several seminars in Visual Time (2013).
tensions that arose with the institution of for research projects, and each time its that explore the vast holdings of Avery Professor Moxey remains active on the public lecture
slavery, both in Britain and its colonies. architectural collection has exceeded my Classics and other New York collections. circuit and maintains a robust research agenda. He will spend
At Columbia, I look forward to wildest expectations. I look forward to I look forward to teaching a wide variety
the 2016–2017 academic year at the Getty Research Institute in
teaching courses on print culture, the using this unsurpassed library as a teach- of courses, including Introduction to
visual culture of empire, and Europoean ing tool; my spring graduate seminar on Architecture and Art Humanities, and Los Angeles working on a historiographic essay that mobilizes
Top: Professor Keith Moxey speaking at the colloquium “Las tres eras de la
art history—as well as, of course, Art Giovanni Battista Piranesi could not be a becoming involved in the Columbia imagen: actualidad y perspectiva en los Estudios visuales” in Mexico City, literature, history, philosophy, and art history to explore what
Humanities. better start. Summer Program in Venice. 2015. Bottom: Professor Alexander Alberro (left) and Professor Moxey on might be described as “post-global” history.
the Barnard Campus, November 2014. Photograph by Elisabeth Sher.
ALEXANDER ALBERRO
Modern and Contemporary Art
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major gift for new center t r av e l s e m i n a r
The Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art Kyoto-Nara Painting and Architecture Field
Seminar 2016
THANKS TO AN EXTR AORDINARILY GENEROUS GIFT of $13
million from the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Founda- In May 2016, Professor Matthew McKelway and a group of five students
tion, the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art has been established at travelled to Japan for a field seminar on relationships between painting
the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. The and architecture, co-organized with Professor Shimizu Shigeatsu of
Kyoto Kōgei Sen’i Daigaku (Kyoto Institute of Technology). This trip,
Burke Center will support the study of Japanese art at Columbia and advance
funded by the Murase Travel Fund for Japanese Art, was the first of its
the understanding of the art and culture of Japan, examining their relevance kind organized for Columbia students of East Asian art history. For
to other fields of inquiry, including Japanese history, religion, and literature, as ten intensive days, the group—which also included art history and
well as other fields of East Asian art. Mary Griggs Burke, renowned for her collection of Japanese art, was architecture students from K.I.T.—studied temples and shrines in the
a steadfast supporter of the department's programs in Japanese and East Asian art for over three decades, region around Kyoto and Nara. The itinerary included appointments
and it is in the spirit of her generous commitment that the center will shape its activities. A portion of the at Onjōji, Daijōji, Enryakuji, Tōdaiji, Jukōin, and other subtemples at
Daitokuji, as well as visits to the Nara National Museum and Kyoto
gift will endow a new professorship in East Asian Buddhist art. The center will support individual scholars
National Museum. On the final day the group visited Hōryūji, where
through postdoctoral fellowships and invited professorships, as well as provide funding for conferences they were permitted to view the temple’s seventh-century gate from
and workshops and support for related programs and publications. The Burke Center will be located in scaffolding recently erected for conservation work. The students—
Schermerhorn Hall, in space to be vacated by the Wallach Art Gallery in 2017. Professor Matthew McKelway Xiaohan Du, Eric Wong, Cathy Zhu, Valerie Zinner, and under-
will serve as the center’s director. graduate Trevor Menders—gave presentations on their observations
and findings at a symposium on May 24, the proceedings of which
will be published by Kyoto Institute of Technology.
Mary Griggs Burke private collection outside Japan, was divided between the MATTHEW McKELWAY, Japanese Art History
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of
Mary Griggs Burke Art. Her legacy continues with the Mary Griggs Burke Center
(née Mary Livingston for Japanese Art.
Griggs) grew up in St.
Paul, Minnesota. She
spent her entire adult
life in New York City
and earned her MA in Midori Oka
Psychology at Colum- Associate Director of the Burke Center
bia in 1943. In the 1960s
she enrolled in courses Midori Oka comes to the Mary
at Columbia in the Griggs Burke Center for Japanese
history of Japanese art Art from the Metropolitan Museum
with Professor Miyeko of Art, where she was a research
Murase. “Mrs. Burke,” associate for Japanese art. She has
as students knew her, always kept a close connection to held positions at Japan Society,
Columbia. For three decades she provided scholarships, the Peabody Essex Museum, the
underwrote seminar travel to study Japanese art in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
U.S. and abroad, and most importantly, made her col- and the Donald Keene Center at
lection available for research at her homes in Manhattan Columbia University, where she was
and Oyster Bay. Mrs. Burke understood that supporting associate director. She guest-curated the reinstallation of the
the direct study of works of art at the graduate level Asian galleries at the Rhode Island School of Design, which
could contribute to the understanding of her collection, opened in 2014. She received her MA from the University of
as well as to the growth of the field as a whole. Kansas, specializing in later Edo period painting. She brings
Thanks to Mrs. Burke’s vision and encouragement, extensive experience from her career in the museum field to
New York City is home to some of the finest collections her new role as associate director of the Burke Center.
of Japanese art in the world and remains the most active
place for collecting and researching Japanese art, from an-
cient to modern, and in all media. After her death in 2012, Opposite, top: Garden, Shisendō, Kyoto, Japan. Photograph by Eric Wong.
Opposite, bottom: From left to right: Professor Matthew McKelway, Cathy
her private collection, which spanned five millennia and Zhu, Eric Wong, Xiaohan Du, Valerie Zinner, Trevor Menders, Kuma Yutaka,
which was considered the largest and most important and Professor Shimizu Shigeatsu. Image courtesy of Matthew McKelway.
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Noam Elcott interviews Rosalind Krauss, recipient of CAA’s 2016
Lifetime Achievement Award
Noam Elcott: You have just received the Distinguished Lifetime idea is to resist authoritarian restrictions of an absolute Either/Or Benjamin Buchloh codified its teachings in the Thames & against the grain of the certainties
Achievementent Award for Writing on Art from the College (the Complex), with the permissiveness of a Maybe (the Neutral). Hudson textbook Art Since 1900. What was the deficiency you of modernist art history. The idea
Art Association. In its citation, CAA affirmed that: “No area of The expansion was able to weave earthworks, site-specific work, aimed to redress? of opticality (disembodied vision)
contemporary visual art is unmarked by [your] writing, and and minimalism into a logical whole. At least I hoped so. is challenged by Duchamp’s solicita-
[your] work constitutes a legacy of unavoidable positions we RK: When I first came to Columbia I was asked to teach the tion of the bodily response to
must negotiate, shaped by them—whether we agree or dis- NE: In 1976 you co-founded October, a journal that, in your twentieth-century art survey. Having come from the CUNY his Rotoreliefs and in Ernst’s work’s
agree—in our writings, our histories and our studio practices.” words, aimed to forge a relationship between contemporary Graduate Center, where I only taught seminars, this move to an appeal to what Jean-François
I count myself among the legions of students shaped by your concerns and scholarship and to practice criticism as an act undergraduate course was perplexing. But then I thought about Lyotard calls the “figural”—the
writing and hope to revisit with you the broad contours, dra- of opening the history of modernism to theory—that is, to an Meyer Schapiro, who had changed the lives of so many Columbia realm of unconscious vision—in
matic transitions, and punctual interventions in your work. examination of its fundamental premises. Can you speak to the students through his course on the twentieth century. So I put my Discourse, Figure (1971). It is
moment when you recognized the need to found a new journal? shoulder to the wheel. It was a very heavy wheel, indeed, because also challenged by the idea of
In addition to your pioneering books on sculpture—Terminal there was no decent textbook, which meant that students had no “formlessness” taken from Georges Bataille’s notion of l’informe.
Iron Works: The Sculpture of David Smith (1971) and Passages in RK: My exasperation with the idea image repertoire to study from. It was Yve-Alain Bois, first contact- Formlessness is a rejection of the march of modernist art toward
Modern Sculpture (1977)—and groundbreaking exhibitions and of “pluralism” was heightened by ed by Thames & Hudson, who raised the project with us. Luckily abstraction, since abstract art must be formally ballasted by a
catalogues—such as L’amour fou: Photography and Surrealism my work on Artforum where my we had as a model the Harvard survey of French literature by self-referential appeal to the work’s support.
(1985) and Richard Serra: Sculpture (1986)—a steady stream of co-editors on the board used it all Denis Hollier. It is divided up into little entries by date (e.g., 1959: The last chapter of the book is a savaging of Clement Green-
revolutionary essays, many of them collected in The Originality the time. When I started at Artforum, André Malraux becomes Minister of Culture under de Gaulle). berg’s reading of Jackson Pollock in particular and of Greenberg’s
of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (1985), were a the editor-in-chief was the brilliant We liked the flexibility of this format—abandoning the monotone character in general. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday,
touchstone of your early career. Among these, perhaps none Phil Leider, who unfortunately left at of a single authoritative voice reciting just one version of history. Harvard University organized a conference devoted to him. I was
has had as vast a cultural impact as your essay “Sculpture in the the end of the ’60s to be succeeded by I dislike the title—Art Since 1900—but that was Thames & to speak at it. I thought, “I just can’t tear him apart; what I say must
Expanded Field” (1979), with its famous Klein Group diagram. John Coplans, who became hopelessly Hudson’s choice, not ours. be respectful, after all.” On the train to Boston, I remembered the
Can you speak to impetus behind that essay? “politicized” by Max Kozloff and introduction to Barthes’s Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971), where he
Lawrence Alloway. After Annette NE: Your curriculum vitae reads like a chronicle of the triumphs differentiates the writing style of each author by reference to its
Rosalind Krauss: “Sculpture in the Michaelson and I jumped ship to found October, he told the Village of modern art theory and criticism. And yet you have also specific “charms.” I will speak of the “charms” of Clem’s writing, I
Expanded Field” came about because Voice in an interview that “we have purged the formalists.” The encountered setbacks and disappointments along the way. thought. A writing so careful, succinct, accurate.
one of the words commonly used “formalists” wanted to do several things to which Coplans was Can you speak to any of the bumps in the road? I began with Clem’s “How Art Writing Earns Its Bad Name,”
by art critics to characterize certain allergic: to publish important essays from the advanced French pointing out that Greenberg was allergic to Latinate words and
periods of contemporary art—plu- theoretical discourse and to write essays at the length we thought RK: When I was considering The Optical Unconscious (1993), so art writing is substituted for criticism. The charm of this is
ralism—exasperates me. I agree with the subject deserved (at Artforum the editorial space was hope- intended to deconstruct the teleological progression of modern that art writing captures and repeats the separation Lessing’s
Heinrich Wölfflin, who famously lessly compressed by the massive amount of advertising). The first and contemporary art in postwar criticism (Clement Greenberg Laocoön makes between the sequential character of writing and
wrote: “Not everything is possible in issue of October published Michel Foucault’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe, and Michael Fried), I suddenly realized that I must disassemble the instantaneousness of vision—at the source of Greenberg’s own
every period.” The idea of the Klein in English. We also announced that we would run NO ads. the conjoined forms of neatly inevitable exposition paired with the insistence on modernism’s separation of the two in its drive toward
Group to produce the expansion came homogeneous writing style such neatness requires. The disjunctive the specificity of each medium.
from Fred Jameson’s book The Political NE: Once a renegade, October has become a standard bearer styles I admired were Roland Barthes’s and Denis Hollier’s. The Perhaps The Optical Unconscious is important within the history
Unconscious—the last chapter on Conrad’s Lord Jim. Jameson cre- in modern and contemporary art criticism and scholarship. A idea of starting a whole book with the phrase “And what about . . . ?” of modernism, and I believe in it fully. It has not been successful,
ates a Klein Group expansion based on the binary labor/value. The little over a decade ago, you, Hal Foster, Yve-Alain Bois, and was very appealing in its insouciance. The book’s argument goes however; perhaps it is too eccentric—especially in its style.
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u n d e r g r a d u at e news from the media center
t r av e l s e m i n a r
Travels to a “City of Knowledge” Virtual Reality Tours – The Media
OV E R T H E 2 016 S P R I N G B R E A K , Professor Avinoam
Center’s Support for Research and
Shalem visited Jordan with the students of his undergraduate Teaching
seminar Cities of Knowledge: Displaying Archaeological Knowledge in
the Public Spaces of Amman. They were joined by graduate students T H E M E D I A CE N T E R F O R A RT H I STO RY
Olivia Clemens and Matthew Gillman, Gabriel Rodriguez from continued pursuing its vocation to explore and apply technolo-
the Media Center for Art History, and, for much of the week, gies for education and research in art history and archaeology.
Professor Holger A. Klein. Last spring, Professor Avinoam Shalem’s travel seminar in Jordan
Their focus was Amman, a city whose present form is scarcely one provided a wonderful opportunity to gather visuals of some of the
century old but whose foundations are among the most ancient in finest artistic and archaeological sites in the Near East. The Media
the world. Seminar sessions, both in New York and on site, took an Center’s growing collection of resources will be updated to feature
interdisciplinary approach to the city and its environs, combining three-dimensional renderings and high-resolution images of the
archaeology, architectural history, historiography, museology, and remnants of the great Umayyad palace of Mshatta near Amman, a
urban studies. Students discussed strategies by which the material virtual tour of the Umayyad bath at Qusayr ʿAmra, and 360-degree
past becomes embedded within the urban fabric as well as in the photography from inside the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, one of the
civic and national consciousness. most sacred sites in Islam.
Much of the first two days was spent on Jabal al-Qalʿa, the Columbia students have already discovered the strengths of
hilltop site of the biblical city Rabbath-Ammon, which is home these resources: for the fall 2015 seminar, Architecture of the 11th and
to a Roman temple to Hercules, a small Byzantine basilica, and an 12th Centuries in the Digital Age, the Media Center experimented
Umayyad gubernatorial palace. On the first afternoon, the group with head-mounted displays and virtual reality tours to explore
descended into the historical downtown to visit a Roman-era buildings in Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Students’
fountain (Nymphaeum) and theater. Subsequent days included enthusiastic reception of this technology indicates that we must
trips beyond the city to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, a site of further our efforts to develop new means of integrating art into
Christian and Muslim legend; Mshatta, a late Umayyad palace; the teaching. To this end, the Media Center has provided support for
desert castles of Qasr Kharana, Qusayr ʿAmra, and Qasr al-Azraq; two new faculty projects this year, developing a collaborative plat-
mosaics and early churches in Madaba and Mount Nebo; and the form with graduate student Isabella Lores-Chavez for Professor
sprawling, remarkably preserved Roman city of Jerash. Michael Cole’s Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas project, and
In Amman, students gave on-site presentations and met with a virtual tour of Notre-Dame of Amiens with Professor Stephen
a series of professionals including Dr. Mohammed el-Khalili, Murray and graduate student Emogene Cataldo.
in charge of the Nymphaeum’s ongoing restoration; Dr. Yosha The Media Center’s web-based platform Art Atlas, developed in
al-ʿAmri, curator at the recently founded Jordan Museum; Dr. 2014, geographically and chronologically presents images of art and
Barbara Porter, archaeologist and director of the American Center architecture from faculty members’ ongoing collaborative research
of Oriental Research; and Yanal Janbek, manager and librarian of projects at international sites. Professor Zainab Bahrani’s Mapping
Darat al-Funun, a modern art gallery occupying a series of homes Mesopotamian Monuments project continued its documentation of
from the British Mandate. Jawad Dukhgan, a curator at Columbia’s endangered monuments from Iraq and Turkey, and now includes
Studio-X Amman, led a walking tour on the final day of the high-quality visual materials collected during a trip to eastern Turkey
trip. Guiding the travelers down one of Amman’s “seven”—now along with archival materials contributed by associate research
nineteen—hills into the city’s longtime axis, a river valley (wadi), scholar Helen Malko. Professor Holger A. Klein’s Istanbul Research
he discussed issues of rapid urban development since the early and Documentation Project was updated with entries prepared by
twentieth century, tying together many threads of discussion from graduate student Ayse Ercan; postdoctoral research fellow Georgios
the trip. Makris joined the team in fall 2016 and has further shaped the proj-
Toward the end of the week, participants met with staff from ect’s profile and online representation. To help analyze field results
the Columbia Global Center in Amman and were hosted for from Professor Francesco de Angelis’s excavations at Hadrian’s
dinner by a group of local alumni. The students, mostly seniors, Villa, the Media Center developed a component that renders the
called the visit a “capstone experience” to their Columbia educa- connections between related stratigraphic contexts. Also developed
tion. Such a fruitful trip was made possible through the generosity Top: Travel seminar students with Professors Avinoam Shalem and Holger A. Klein
this year, a tailored version of the Art Atlas platform allowed the stu-
of the Riggio Program Fund for Undergraduate Support. (at left and right, respectively) and Dr Mohammad El-Khalili (middle) at the dents of Professor Diane Bodart’s spring 2016 seminar Scribbles and
Nymphaeum in Amman, Jordan. Students (left to right): Jonah Goldman-Kay, Ellie Scribbling in the Renaissance to analyze and classify images of little
Dominguez, Kolleen Ku, Aidan Mehigan, Hannah Vaitsblit, Eyvana Bengochea,
Sarah Rohrschneider, Abigail Thacher, and David Alexander; TAs Matthew Gillman
known and under-studied scrawls.
and Olivia Clemens. Middle: The travel seminar group inside Qusayr ʿAmra,
fifty-three miles east of Amman, an eighth-century Umayyad structure famous for Top: Amman, Jordan. View north from the Amman Citadel. Bottom: St. George’s STEFAAN VAN LIEFFERINGE ’06 PhD
its frescoes. Bottom: Jerash, Jordan. The Propylaeum, gateway to the Temple of Church, Madaba, Jordan. Fresco map of the Holy Land, detail of Jerusalem.
MATTHEW GILLMAN, PhD Candidate Artemis, built ca. 150 CE. Photographs by Gabriel Rodriguez.
Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Media Center
Photographs by Gabriel Rodriguez.
for Art History
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s t u d e n t s c u r at e at t h e w a l l a c h a r t g a l l e r y
Lines of Flight — MODA Curates The Expanded Subject: New Perspectives in
Photographic Portraiture from Africa
Lines of Flight, presented April 20 to June artists who use serial methods to posit a new Sarah Diver ’16 MA. The pair took a cue
4, 2016 in the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach form of subjectivity as a means to explore from Deleuze and Guattari’s life work,
Art Gallery, encompassed three related issues of race, sexuality, history, and the which explored all manners of learning From September 7 to December 10, 2016, clearly defined locales, creating effects at
projects—two exhibitions and one series body. The artists included Bethany Collins, and communication that might disrupt the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery once disorienting and vaguely familiar.
of educational programming—curated by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Wade Guyton, dominant educational models and create presents The Expanded Subject: New Identifiable contextual elements serve to
MODA students Katherine Cohn, David Leslie Hewitt, Ragnar Kjartansson, Emily a collaborative space. Each episode aimed Perspectives in Photographic Portraiture reinstate subjectivity, albeit uneasily, while
Crane ’16 MA, and Leah Hartman ’16 MA. Kloppenburg, and Glenn Ligon. to contextualize pedagogical debates from Africa. Curated by Joshua I. Cohen at the same time posing critical questions
The three co-curators faced the chal- Contemporary Ruins: Resistance to that arise when the fields of art and ’14 PhD, Sandrine Colard ’16 PhD, and about the nature of photographic repre-
lenge of transposing their research into the Spectacular Image, curated by Leah education intersect. Hosts and guests Giulia Paoletti ’15 PhD, The Expanded sentation.
the physical space of the gallery, and their Hartman, featured a selection of artists included Bethany Collins, David Crane, Subject features the work of four pho- Saïdou Dicko (b. 1979, Burkina Faso)
dialogues revealed distinct points of view, who engage with the aestheticization of Marit Dewhurst, Jasmin Eli-Washington, tographers—Sammy Baloji, Mohamed captures the shadows of people on sunny
allowing unforeseen resonances to take cultural heritage destruction and its recep- Daniela Fifi, Edith Gwathmey, Leah Camara, Saïdou Dicko, and George streets in West Africa, thus unsettling the
shape between the projects. Each project tion by the global media. Works on view by Hartman, Pablo Helguera, Jessica Holmes, Osodi—who have produced experimen- conventions of portraiture while manag-
investigated ruptures within current Lida Abdul, Kader Attia, Tammam Azzam, Emily Kloppenburg, David Levi-Strauss, tal portraits over the past fifteen years. ing to capture his subjects’ expressiveness
discourses in order to propose intersec- Wafaa Bilal, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Yujin Michelle Marques, Ann-Marie Mott, and Whereas African photo-portraits are most and individuality and making reference to
tions between the art-historical, the Lee responded to the spectacle of modern Allison Freedman Weisberg. The podcasts commonly understood as windows into the photographic recording of light and
political, and the educational, as developed iconoclastic imagery, encouraging visitors are available at the Wallach Art Gallery African realities, the exhibition presents shadow.
in the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix to consider more closely where mediated website. highly inventive photographic composi- Photographs by George Osodi (b.
Guattari. The exhibition aimed to draw images of violence and destruction fall tions that elude the expected documenta- 1974, Nigeria) are grounded in a strong
previously unexamined links between art within the intersection of art, propaganda, tion of social identity. social and political commentary whose
and the world in which we live. and documentary. KATHERINE COHN, MODA Student The practice of Sammy Baloji (b. 1978, targets range from the oil industry to with the Walther Collection took place
Life Serial, organized by David Crane, Katherine Cohn presented the podcast DAVID CRANE ’16 MA Democratic Republic of Congo) involves corruption in African politics. Osodi’s on October 21, and a fully illustrated
presented the work of a diverse group of “Lines in Real Time” with co-producer LEAH HARTMAN ’16 MA transposing colonial portraiture—pictures pictures consistently include a subject— catalogue with texts by the curators and
taken by and for colonizers in the former often anonymous or fictional—who an introduction by Professor Z. S. Strother
Belgian Congo—into alternate backdrops: dominates the composition but reveals is co-published by Hirmer Verlag and the
the post-colonial site of an abandoned thought-provoking dissonance with his Wallach Art Gallery.
mine, or landscape paintings by colonial or her surroundings.
explorers. Baloji’s series repurpose the Viewed together, these works
colonial archive, activate historical aware- complicate prevailing Western notions
ness, and challenge common assumptions of portraiture from Africa and offer
about photographic authority. new ways of imagining portraiture and JOSHUA I. COHEN ’14 PhD
Pictures by Mohamed Camara (b. subjectivities, whether in or beyond SANDRINE COLARD ’16 PhD
1985, Mali) remove their subjects from Africa. A symposium in collaboration GIULIA PAOLETTI ’15 PhD
Finesse
“It is no longer a matter of trying to subvert or intrude. Those Their approach rests on the premise that those attuned to the
strategies are now recognized and invited. Now it is a matter of codes and relations that reproduce a system are best positioned to
finessing, which is certainly not enough,” the artist Louise Lawler transform it from within.
observed in 1994, reflecting on the shifting relationship between The exhibition, curated by doctoral candidate Leah Pires and
artists and institutions in New York at the turn of the 1980s. At a accompanied by an illustrated publication, will bring together
moment when the rise of neoliberalism increasingly foreclosed site-specific and newly commissioned work by Lucy McKenzie,
the possibility of an “outside” to the system, inherited notions Carissa Rodriguez, and Karin Schneider alongside works by Pia
of critique were productively thrown into crisis by an emerging Backström, Phoebe D’Heurle, Emma Hedditch, and Jill Magid.
generation of artists. It will complement the retrospective glance of WHY PICTURES
A group exhibition at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gal- NOW, a large-scale exhibition of Lawler’s work at MoMA opening
lery from January 18 to March 11, 2017 will explore the continued in April 2017.
Above: Emily Kloppenburg, Rumination (White Castle, December 20, 2014; October 12, 2015), 2016. Installation resonance of Lawler’s observation for younger artists whose work,
photograph by Gerald Sampson. Top right: Leah Hartman at Argot Studios, New York, conducting a phone inter-
view with David Levi-Strauss. Production photo from the recording of “Lines in Real Time” podcast episode two like hers, insistently finesses the relationship between the artist
on March 11, 2016. Photograph by Sarah Diver. Bottom right: Wafaa Bilal, Lovely Pink: David I, II, and III, 2015. and the institutional and social structures he or she occupies. LEAH PIRES, PhD Candidate
Installation photograph by Gerald Sampson.
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g r a d u at e p r o g r a m s : n o t e s f r o m t h e d i r e c t o r s
Classical Studies Graduate Program of their links with other disciplines such as comparative literature,
political theory, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. The global
MA in Art History Samantha Deutch lectured on Digital Humanities. This session
was complemented by workshops intended to familiarize partici-
(CLST)
I
class offered through CLST at Hadrian’s Villa, for example, uses n spring 2016, first-year MA students participated in the pants with essential digital tools, such as citation management and
archaeology as the common ground for the study of social and Practices of Art History colloquium. Integrated into the curric- image management, in order to prepare students in the best possi-
I n fall 2016, the Department of Art History and Archaeology
began hosting the Classical Studies Graduate Program. Clas-
sics-centered but not classicizing, CLST addresses the challenges
economic history, the history of art and architecture, the history
of technology, and religion studies.
Among the initiatives organized by CLST is The Classical
ulum the previous spring, this course, which examines the range
of careers involving art history, was designed to help MA students
ble way to continue in academia or enter the job market after they
graduate. MODA students, as well as Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
imagine and shape their professional paths. Each year, leading art students enrolled in the Dual MA Degree Program, were invited
posed by the rapidly changing intellectual and scholarly landscapes Dialogues, a successful “author meets critics” series that discusses to take part in these workshops. Two Paris 1 students and one
professionals are invited to share their expertise on topics such
of the present world, using them as an opportunity to expand innovative work in ancient studies as well as in fields bearing Columbia student graduated from the Dual MA Degree Program
as curatorship, conservation, museum education, provenance re-
and reshape the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the theoretical and methodological relevance for the understanding of in 2016 after having spent one semester at the partner institution
search, connoisseurship, art writing, and digital humanities. Guest
cultures they were in contact with. The program’s interdisciplinary classical antiquity. Recent meetings have addressed Greek theories during their second year of study. The Dual MA Degree Program,
presenters this year included Colin Bailey, director of the Morgan
scope is reflected in the wide range of research interests of its of color, tombs and burial customs in third-century Rome, Stoic which is part of the Alliance Program and allows selected Paris 1
Library & Museum; Deborah Cullen, director and chief curator
PhD and MA students, who work with faculty members across notions of time, and Inkan iconoclasm. and Columbia students the unique opportunity to earn MA
of the Wallach Art Gallery; Mecka Baumeister, conservator at the
Columbia and constitute a vibrant intellectual community that The new chair of CLST, Professor Francesco de Angelis, degrees from both institutions, entered its sixth year this fall.
Metropolitan Museum of Art; Rika Burnham, head of education
strengthens and enriches the bonds among the four departments succeeds Professor Katja Vogt (Philosophy) and will continue at the Frick Collection; MaryKate Cleary, research director at Art
that participate in the program: Art History and Archaeology, to build on the program’s potential. Recovery Group; Susan Schulman, dealer of Old Master European
Classics, History, and Philosophy.
and American prints; Prudence Peiffer, senior editor at Artforum;
The history of ancient art and the study of material culture are
and Samantha Deutch, assistant director of the Center for the FRÉDÉRIQUE BAUMGARTNER
among the core areas of CLST. The program variously supports FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS History of Collecting at the Frick Collection. With Carole Ann Director, MA in Art History
art historical and field research, and encourages the investigation Classical Art and Archaeology Fabian, director of Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Art
MA in Modern and Contemporary
Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies
(MODA)
T he MODA program enjoyed a busy and productive 2015–
2016 year. In fall 2015, Director Janet Kraynak led a group of
second-year students on a workshop trip (the third international
trip in the program’s history) to view the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Students viewed the main exhibitions of the Biennale, including
internationally acclaimed curator Okwui Enwezor’s All the World’s
Futures, in addition to numerous off-site pavilions throughout
Venice, including the Armenian pavilion on the Island of San
Lazzaro degli Armeni. The group also visited several important
museums, such as the Punta della Dogana and the Peggy Guggen- MODA students David Crane, Sarah Diver, Anne Cicco, Elleree Erdos, Leah Hartman,
heim Collection. At Columbia, the fall 2015 Critical Colloquium Maria Filas, and Natasha Rosenblatt in Venice. Photograph by Janet Kraynak.
hosted guest lecturers Jason Farago, U.S. art critic for The Guardian
and editor of the new journal Even, and art historians Liz Kotz
’02 PhD (Comparative Literature) and Siona Wilson ’05 PhD. MODA is pleased to announce that Page Benkowski, Taylor
The spring 2016 Curatorial Colloquium welcomed guest speak- Fisch, and Georgia Horn each had their exhibition proposals
ers Carlos Basualdo, senior curator of contemporary art at the selected for MODA Curates, to be held at the Wallach Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art; David Platzker, curator of drawings Gallery in spring 2017. Fellow MODA students Inesa Brasiske
and prints at MoMA; and independent curator and critic Joseph and Zhuofan Huang will be organizing a symposium, tentatively
Wolin, who curated Open This End: Contemporary Art from the titled The Post-Socialist Object, to be held during the CAA
Collection of Blake Byrne, which was on view at the Wallach Art conference in February 2017.
Gallery last spring. The Curatorial Colloquium also visited a
number of NYC-area exhibitions, including Open Plan: Andrea
Fraser at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where students
attended a special session with MODA graduate Megan Heuer JANET KRAYNAK
’06 MA, now director of public programs and public engagement Director, MA in Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical First-year MA students Sarah Eisen, Basak Araz Nalbantoglu, Laura Polucha, Emma Le Pouésard, Manabu Yahagi, Amy Chang, Roxanne Smith, Pierre Von-Ow, and John
at the museum. and Curatorial Studies Webley at the Frick Collection on April 22, 2016, following a session on museum education led by Rika Burnham and Professor Frédérique Baumgartner. Photograph by
Frédérique Baumgartner.
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h o n o r i n g p r o f e s s o r d av i d r o s a n d
Diane Bodart named to the David Rosand Professorship of Professor Kellie Jones named
Italian Renaissance Art History MacArthur Fellow
D I A N E B O DA RT WA S A P P O I N T E D the David
Rosand Assistant Professor of Italian Renaissance Art History T H E D E PA RT M E N T O F A RT H I STO RY
in April 2016. Bodart is a specialist of sixteenth- and seven- and Archaeology celebrates the award to Kellie Jones of a
teenth-century art in Italy, France, and Spain. She is particularly MacArthur “genius” grant. We are not entirely surprised,
known for her work on Venetian painting, including Tiziano because as both a curator and a historian, Jones has
e Federico II Gonzaga (1998), now the standard reference on reshaped what we know about modern art. She has asked
Titian’s relationship with his key early patron, and her prize-win-
the most fundamental questions our field is responsible
ning Pouvoirs du portrait sous les Habsbourg d’Espagne (2011), a
substantial part of which was dedicated to Titian’s portraits for for, with passion and with rigor. What conditions make
King Charles V. In addition to her teaching on campus, Professor art possible? How does art express individual and
Bodart has taught for the past two summers in Columbia’s collective identities? What is the relationship between
Summer Program in Venice. art and history?
David Rosand, a revered scholar of Italian Renaissance art Jones has gone to the heart of the American experi-
and Meyer Schapiro Professor Emeritus of Art History, left an history majors. Ellen Rosand, together with her sons, Jonathan
and Eric, made a leadership gift in support of the professorship ence to find great artists and great art. Looking where
indelible mark on the Department of Art History and Archaelogy
and on his field more broadly. Such is Rosand’s legacy that follow- fund as did the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund. David's graduate race blinded us, she has retrieved individual careers
ing his passing in August 2014, his family, friends, students, and students also vigorously supported this effort, including generous and entire movements from ignorance and neglect.
colleagues came together to honor his memory by raising funds gifts received from Arianna Packard Martell ’06 MA, ’13 PhD and Jones’s essays, many of them collected in her 2011 book
for an endowed professorship, programming in Venice at Casa Francesca Price-Assetto ’04 MA and her husband Marco Assetto EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art, vividly
Muraro, and a memorial fund to support special opportunities ’04 MBA. Finally, Art History Advisory Council members Steven
dismantle one unquestioned assumption after another.
within the department. A lead gift to launch the campaign for Schwartz ’70 BA and Leo Swergold ’62 BA made contributions to
the professorship and spearheaded a fundraising initiative among Among the artists whose work she has brought to a
the professorship came from Don and Sally Anderson, longtime
friends of Rosand and his widow, Ellen. The contributions toward members of the department’s Advisory Council. More than $3 wide public are Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons,
the professorship notably also included a significant commit- million was donated to the professorship fund by Rosand family Martin Puryear, Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar, Lorna
ment from Bob Berne ’60 BA, ’62 MBA, who was, like Rosand, a members, friends, and Columbia alumni. Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Columbia College alumnus. Berne and Rosand first met as art Jones’s many exhibitions, some of them undertaken
Professor Kellie Jones in her office in Schermerhorn Hall. Image courtesy of the
even before she became a graduate student, have reached John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
I N DAV I D R O S A N D ’s H O N O R , Otto Naumann ’73 MA T H A N K S TO T H E G E N E R O S I T Y of a number of public audiences across the country. Her 2006 Studio
and Robert Simon ’73 BA, ’75 MA, ’82 PhD organized a special donors, namely Ellen Rosand, John G. and Carol Finley ’83 BA, Museum in Harlem exhibition and catalogue Energy /
exhibition, In Light of Venice, at the Otto Naumann Gallery in ’86 JD, ’87 MBA, Caroline A. Wamsler ’98 MA, ’06 PhD and Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction, 1964-1980 1981 BA is from Amherst College. She has held curatorial
New York City in January 2016. The exhibition featured import- DeWayne N. Phillips, and the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund, asked us why we expect African diaspora artists to make positions at the Studio Museum in Harlem (1981–1983),
ant works from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Otto the department has established endowment, fellowship, and
art about race. Her 2011 exhibition and catalogue Now Jamaica Arts Center (1986–1990), and Walker Art Center
Naumann and Robert Simon graciously opened their doors to current use funds to benefit academic programming, structural
many alumni, faculty, and friends throughout the exhibition, upgrades, and renovations at Casa Muraro—the house and library Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 revealed a (1991–1998); was U.S. Commissioner for the Bienal de
sharing their love of Venetian painting and their devotion to of David Rosand’s teacher and colleague Michelangelo Muraro— major urban art scene. With her 2014 Brooklyn Museum São Paulo (1989); and was a curator of the Johannesburg
David Rosand’s memory. In addition to showcasing beautiful which was bequeathed to Columbia in 2003 and has served as the exhibition Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties, Biennale (1997).
Old Master paintings, Otto and Robert generously donated a physical heart and spiritual center of Columbia’s Summer Program she demonstrated the vital role of art in the struggle for Jones has always been a scholar with a plan to chal-
portion of the sales to benefit the David Rosand Tribute Fund. in Venice ever since. Embodying the welcoming spirit Muraro American equality. In all her work, Jones has explored lenge. Systematically, she has devoted one project after
showed Rosand in introducing him to the art, history, and culture
how art has been constrained by injustice, analyzing the another to expanding the boundaries of art history, to
of Venice, Casa Muraro will be transformed into a Columbia
Center for Venetian Studies in the coming years, providing stu- effects of race and gender and how art can sometimes reaching new public audiences with beauty they did not
dents and scholars with research interests in the art and culture of transcend its circumstances. anticipate. The department looks forward to what comes
Venice and the Veneto with rich resources and opportunities for At Columbia, Jones has recently been valiantly next. Prepare to be surprised.
scholarly exchange. serving the department as director of undergraduate
studies. She is also a veteran of Art Humanities.
Giovanni Bellini and Before coming to Columbia in 2006, she taught at ANNE HIGONNET
Workshop, Venus at Her Yale University, where she received her PhD in 2009. Her
Toilet, oil on panel, Nineteenth-Century Art
26.5 x 34 inches
(67.3 x 87 cm)
17
16 826 SCHERM ER HOR N
c o n f e r e n c e s • l e c t u r e s e r i e s • s ym p o s i a
Bienniale Cultures in Africa Disrupting Unity and Discerning Global Latin America
Ruptures: Focus Aleppo
S ince 1985, various African constituencies have organized
O rganized by Professor Alexander Alberro in collabora-
D
biennales as a means to participate in the world dialogue on eveloped jointly by Professor Avinoam Shalem and the tion with Graciela Montaldo of the Department of Latin
contemporary art and to nourish local imaginaries. Professor Center for Spatial Research at GSAPP, this spring 2016 lec- American and Iberian Cultures, the April 8, 2016 conference
Z. S. Strother partnered with Maureen Murphy (University of ture series addressed the historiography of Islamic art by looking Global Latin America, sponsored by the Institute for Studies on
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and the Institute of African Studies at significant moments of rupture in its development. Focusing on Latin American Art, brought invited scholars to Columbia to
to explore this phenomenon in Biennale Cultures in Africa, an the city of Aleppo, Syria, invited speakers addressed topics from speak on the region’s relationship to globalization.
international symposium which took place at Columbia on March the middle ages to our contemporary moment: Yasser Tabbaa George Yudice opened with a presentation of the work of
4, 2016. The event was a runaway success and testifies to the ever spoke on the remaking of Aleppo in the medieval period; Heghnar several collectives that critically address globalization in Latin
rising profile of African artists in the global contemporary. Watenpaugh on Ottoman Aleppo and depictions of urban space; America and its local effects. Ana Luiza Nobre examined the way
Toma Muteba Luntumbue opened the day in conversation Patrick Ball on contemporary human rights concerns; and Sussan nineteenth-century photographs of Rio de Janeiro depict the turbu-
with Sandrine Colard ’16 PhD. As artistic director, Luntumbue Babaie on urbanity and the houses of Aleppo. lent process of the city’s modernization. Her panel talk was paired
made it his mission to anchor the fourth edition of the Biennale The series ran in conjunction with a graduate seminar, Conflict with Adele Nelson’s presentation on Mario Pedrosa, the Brazilian
in Lubumbashi in the complex reality of the Democratic Republic Urbanism: Aleppo, taught by Laura Kurgan, director of the Center art critic whose role in the evolution of twentieth-century Latin
of the Congo, rather than produce an additional contemporary art for Spatial Research, and provided historical and art historical American art is increasingly a subject of scholarly attention.
“comptoir” (trading post) for the globetrotting international art context for the examination of the urban and cultural cost of civil A second panel featured a presentation by Heloisa Espada
world. He drew on site-specific artworks, an important contingent war. The multidisciplinary seminar was first in a series that will be on midcentury abstract photography in São Paulo, followed by
of Congolese artists, and the integration of a local audience— offered as a part of the multi-university Mellon Foundation initia- Tatiana Flores’s talk surveying contemporary art practices that
particularly school students—to create a genuine and produc- tive in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities. can broadly be considered Caribbean and drawing upon works by
tive encounter between the local and the global, in phase with Recordings of all lectures are available through the Center for artists that may be included in her upcoming exhibition.
Edouard Glissant’s conception of “meteoric realities” that was Spatial Research website. Many thanks to the co-sponsors of the Both panels suggested that an array of interdisciplinary and
the curatorial rationale of the event. lecture series: the Department of Art History and Archaeology, art historical approaches are necessary to conceptualize the idea
Three academic papers explored specific histories in fran- the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Spatial Research. of a “global Latin America,” whose very meaning remained a
cophone Africa. Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi (co-curator, dialectical spur to discussion.
eleventh edition of Dak’Art Biennale; curator of African art, Hood DARE ANNE S. BRAWLEY
Museum of Art, Dartmouth College) argued that Dak’Art made Adjunct Assistant Professor, GSAPP NICHOLAS MORGAN, PhD Candidate
strategic use of a loose pan-Africanism to achieve a distinctive
profile for itself in the global circuit of biennales and had been Cambridge-Columbia Graduate
successful in launching the careers of an impressive number of Immersed: A Mellon Postdoctoral Student Symposium
African artists and curators. Murphy examined the fascinating
conflict between two biennales in Bénin in 2010, which centered
Fellows Symposium
on a debate on the nature and role of French influence. Professor
Strother examined the history of French patronage of the arts
I n a May 3, 2016 symposium, Immersed, this year’s outgoing
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows presented an evening of talks
T he sixth annual Cambridge-Columbia Graduate Student
Symposium on April 8, 2016 featured the work of Cambridge
graduate students Neylan Bağcioğlu, Julien Domercq, Angelica
in Africa as a form of “soft power” and used the Biennale in
highlighting their latest research. Joseph Salvatore Ackley’s talk, Federici, Taylor McCall, Tom Young, and David Zagoury, and
Lubumbashi as an example of how independent artists’ associa-
“Submerged and Swallowed into the Late Medieval German Columbia graduate students Margot Bernstein, Amy Chang,
tions are beginning to find means to assert more control over their
Altarpiece,” explored the technical and visual strategies employed Lindsay Cook, Nina Horisaki-Christens, Hwanhee Suh, and
finances and mission.
by late medieval altarpieces to simultaneously distance and Matthew Teti. While each year’s unique theme affords partici-
In the third section, iconoclastic South African artist Kendell
pull the viewer into the glorified space of the altar ensemble. pants from both sides of the Atlantic an opportunity to present
Geers gave an insider’s view into the success and polemics that
Anastassiia Botchkareva, in “Compelling Contrasts: The Rhetoric their work and exchange insightful feedback, this year’s theme—
drove biennales in Johannesburg in 1995 and 1997. Discussant
of Aesthetic Heterogeneity in Early Modern Persianate Albums,” Reception as Creation, Interpretation, Transformation—seemed
Chika Okeke-Agulu (Princeton University) ended the sym-
theorized how both the viewer and artist of the early modern particularly fitting as it attracted several scholarly papers on cultural
posium by considering the reasons for which biennales have
Persian album could commune via trace, gesture, and sign. In cross-pollination.
gained much greater traction in the Francophone world, whereas
“Outside In: The Immersive Painted Decors of French Royal Following a long day of presentations (interspersed with
repeated efforts in English-speaking countries have not had the
Hunting Interiors,” Catherine Girard reconstructed a rarified delightful coffee breaks), the symposium participants, along
same longevity.
viewing experience, connecting the actual unfolding of a royal with Professor Robert E. Harrist, Jr. and Dr. Alyce Mahon, dined
The day concluded with a well-attended reception hosted by
hunt with its subsequent recollection in painted spaces. The with Dr. John Weber, who generously sponsors the Cambridge-
the Department of Art History and Archaeology.
symposium’s theme exploring immersion and immersive envi- Columbia Symposium each year. The next morning began with
ronments broadly connected each of the fellows’ distinct areas of a walk along New York’s High Line and a visit to the Whitney
Z. S. STROTHER
focus. Museum of American Art, organized by Julia Vazquez, graduate
African Art
student liaison for the event.
JOSEPH SALVATORE ACKLEY
Term Assistant Professor, Barnard College MARGOT BERNSTEIN, PhD Candidate
19
18 826 SCHERM ER HOR NYou can also read
