Meadows of Delight: Metaphor and Denial in Byzantine and Western Medieval Art

Henry Maguire
Professor Emeritus of Art History, John Hopkins University
Thursday, October 11, 5:00pm, Carpenter B21

After the eighth century, motifs from nature, such as animals and plants, were more prominently displayed in Western churches than in those of the Byzantines, sometimes even appearing in the principal apses, in direct imitation of early Christian models.  In Byzantium, there was a rich literary tradition of verbal and written metaphors drawn from nature, especially addressed to the Virgin, but the art of Byzantine churches often excluded all reference to nature from holy images.   This presentation explores the root causes of this division between Eastern and Western art, which is to be found in contrasting attitudes toward the sacred image.  In Byzantium, a fear of venerating nature lingered after Iconoclasm, while in the West, animals and plants lost much of their association with idolatry, becoming, instead, a language for understanding the divine.

Reception immediately following the lecture, London Room, Thomas Hall

This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the University Seminars Program of the Onassis Foundation (USA), The Center for Visual Culture and the Department of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College

The first DVMA meeting of the year will be held on Saturday, September 15th at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

For more information, please  go to :

http://www.dvmamedieval.org/Meetings.html

6pm Reception, Thomas London Room
7:30pm Lecture, Carpenter Library B-21

Co-sponsored by the Department of German

David E. James
“Twenty-nine Pictures Like That: The Elvis Movie”

Friday, February 3, 5:00 pm
231 Fisher-Bennett Hall, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Co-sponsored by the Bryn Mawr College Program in Film Studies and Center for Visual Culture and the Philadelphia Cinema and Media Studies seminar at Temple University, and hosted by the University of Pennsylvania

David E. James is on the faculty of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties (Princeton University Press, 1989), Power Misses: Essays Across (Un)Popular Culture (London: Verso Books, 1996), and The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2006).

ABSTRACT PAINTING AND BEYOND CONFERENCE

February 9 through 11, 2012

@ Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

and Terrace Room, Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania

Preceded by:

ARTIST TALK: CHARLINE VON HEYL

Wednesday, February 8, 2012 6:30 pm

@ Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

Let us say, if only for the sake of argument, that abstract painting began with Manet, and ended with Abstract Expressionism, and that there is a “beyond.” How would we conceptualize this “beyond”? Would we say that it is painting’s own return to figuration (Johns’s Targets and Flags, Warhol’s Marilyns)? The extension of abstraction into other mediums: drawing, sculpture, dance, photography, and digital images? Or is it perhaps something internal to abstract painting itself?something that our critical paradigms did not permit us to see, but that later painters have rendered visible? These are a few of the questions that this conference will address.

Abstract Painting and Beyond is inspired by, and will coincide with, an exhibition of Charline von Heyl’s paintings and drawings at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. The conference will begin with an evening conversation between von Heyl and Kaja Silverman, and continue over the following two days, with talks by a distinguished group of speakers.

SPEAKERS

Elise Archias, Nancy Davenport, André Dombrowski, Darby English, Briony Fer, Rachel Haidu, Michael Leja, Daniel Marcus, Christine Poggi, Anne M. Wagner, and Margaret Werth

For more information and free registration:

http://www.kajasilverman.com/abstract-painting-and-beyond-conference.php

“True Stories”
Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Sq. South, Philadelphia
On view 13 – February 25
http://www.locksgallery.com/exhibits.php?eid=140

Locks Gallery presents True Stories, a video screening curated by Lilly Wei. The show includes Simon Leung’s War After War (2011, 90 min.), showing at 10am, 1pm, and 4pm. Simon Leung will speak about his work in Bryn Mawr’s Visual Culture Colloquium on Wednesday, March 21, at 12:30 pm. Those who are interested are encouraged to view the film prior to his talk.

Simon Leung was born in Hong Kong. He has participated in the Guangzhou Triennial (2008), the Luleå Summer Biennial (2005), the Venice Biennale (2003), the Whitney Biennial (1993), and has also exhibited at MoMA, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Generali Foundation, Vienna; 1a Space, Hong Kong; NGBK, Berlin; and Sala Mendoza, Caracas. In 2008, he received a Guggenheim fellowship and the Art Journal Award for his essay, The Look of Law.

“27 Years without Images (on the possibility of cinema after revolution)”
Screening of Eric Baudelaire’s The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images (2011, 66 minutes), followed by a conversation with the artist and Homay King, Dept. of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College

Monday, February 20, 6:30 pm
Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut St., Philadelphia
Co-sponsored by Slought and the Bryn Mawr College Program in Film Studies and Center for Visual Culture
http://slought.org/content/11491/

Eric Baudelaire has recently had exhibitions at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York, Juana de Aizpuru in Madrid, Greta Meert in Brussels, and is preparing an exhibition at Gasworks in London. His films have been shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and his work is present in several public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Fond National d’Art Contemporain, and the FRAC Auvergne.

Mimbres pottery is one of the great art traditions of ancient North America. Not only are these elegant bowls whimsical and sophisticated, most of them are extremely well executed. We now believe this was because their makers, most likely women, were part time specialists, and the Mimbres society was encouraging the best artists to be creative. Using a large corpus of bowl images, we believe we can recognize the work of the best of these artists. This finding has important implications for how specialization develops in traditional societies, and helps understand how this unique pottery came to exist.

For more information, please contact:

Michael W. Cothren

Scheuer Family Professor of Humanities &
Chair, Department of Art, Swarthmore College

mcothre1@swarthmore.edu