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Su Jiankuan was an early twentieth-century artist known for his paintings of antiquities that imitated the effect of composite rubbing. Great changes in the field of Chinese antiquities contributed to the popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime. The collapse of the last Imperial Dynasty transformed art patronage in China, generating an interest in the revival…
Cornell’s plaster cast collection and samples from the dendrochronological laboratory feature in a new book by photographer Danielle Mericle, The Dark Wood (Melbourne: Perimeter Editions). Until 2015, Mericle, who now serves as Curator of Visual Materials at Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Oregon, was Director of the Digital Consulting & Production…
PhD Candidate Lauren van Haaften-Schick and Associate Professor Dr. Cheryl Finley have co-authored an Op-Ed article for Artnet.com, “The Recent Sale of Amy Sherald’s ‘Welfare Queen’ Symbolizes the Urgent Need for Resale Royalties and Economic Equity for Artists.” The article highlights the need for innovative forms of “resale equity” in the art market. It was…
The Byzantine Neighbourhood contributes to a new narrative regarding Byzantine cities through the adoption of a neighbourhood perspective. It offers a multi-disciplinary investigation of the spatial and social practices that produced Byzantine concepts of neighbourhood and afforded dynamic interactions between different actors, elite and non-elite. Authors further consider neighbourhoods as political entities, examining how varieties…
Sadia Shirazi PhD '21, was a recipient of the The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Sadia was one of twenty writers who are the recipients of its 2021 grants, which total $695,000. "The grantees work across three categories—articles, books, and short-form writing—and each will receive an award of between $15,000 and $50,000." See full…
In The City in Time: Contemporary Art and Urban Form in Vietnam and Cambodia, Pamela N. Corey provides new ways of understanding contemporary artistic practices in a region that continues to linger in international perceptions as perpetually “postwar.” Focusing on art from the last two decades, Corey connects artistic developments with social transformations as reflected…
To celebrate Native American Heritage Month 2021, AcademicInfluence.com focuses on 35 scholars from indigenous people groups in North America who have had a profound influence on academia, literature, history, the arts, science, politics, activism, and more:
History of Art and Fine Art alumna Sarah Humphreville has recently curated Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930–1950 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she works as a Senior Curatorial Assistant. Labyrinth of Forms, drawn primarily from the Whitney’s collection, features over thirty works by twenty-seven artists and seeks to highlight the…
History of Art faculty Cheryl Finley and alumnus Derek Murray, PhD ’05 (Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz), present at the Reshaping the Field: Arts of the African Diasporas on Display, online conference: November 4–6, 2021.
This lecture class centers on the formative periods of ancient Greek culture, the centuries from about 800-300 BCE. Its aim is to place Greece within the cosmopolitan networks of the Mediterranean and beyond, while simultaneously looking at specific local traditions. Only within this complex “glocal” frame will it become clear what is unique about Greek…
It is a fundamental part of human activity to dress or cover one’s body and environment. While the symbolic significance of such clothing has long been recognized, the activity of producing fabric itself deserves more attention. By this we do not only mean the various techniques and technological devices involved in spinning, weaving, stitching, or…
How did photography become the world's most dominant kind of visual representation? This course investigates photography's scientific origins and complex relations to painting, portraiture, urban life, war, anthropology, exploration and travel, and labor and industry. By the 20th century we find photography enriched new developments that include its use as a modernist and experimental art…
(ARKEO 4351/ 6351, CLASS 4752/ 7752, MEDVL 4351/ 6351, NES 4351/ 6351, RELST 4351/ 6351, VISST 4351/ 6351)
History of Art alumnus Matthew Hayes, BA ’99, publishes new book The Renaissance Restored.
4305/ 6305 Looking for Love: Visual and Literary Cultures of Love in the Medieval Mediterranean, 1100 – 1400AD (NES 4795)
This course takes a critical perspective on the centrality of Paris to canonical narratives of modernity and modern art and architecture. We will look both at some of the defining art movements of the 19th century and at the influx of people and objects from other cultures—many of whom and which arrived in Paris via…
In her recently published book, The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market, Nadya Bair draws on extensive archival research to unravel the mythologies surrounding the legendary Magnum Photos agency. This talk examines one of the least-known chapters in Magnum’s early history: the agency’s public relations and advertising photography. Shot for American corporations…
Peter Chametzky, Cornell BA '80, and Professor of Art History at the University of South Carolina, authors Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art.
A panel discussion and series of readings from the 2021 anthology Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts. Readings, annotations, and dialogue with editors and contributors Christopher K. Ho, Daisy Nam, Iftikhar Dadi, Rachel Ossip, and Dushko Petrovich Córdova
The contemporary art world has witnessed an explosion of interest in the book form, exemplified by Karkhana [Workshop] (2003-2005), a project in which six artists graduates of the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan modeled their work on the imperial Mughal kitabkhana (library). Taking its cue from such projects, this workshop examines art books…
Ph.D candidate Lara Fresko Madra of Cornell University's History of Art Department has been awarded the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She will join the cohort of 64 fellows selected for The Met’s 2021–2022 Fellowship Program. Fresko Madra was awarded the fellowship to continue her doctoral and curatorial investigations…
This talk presents a close analysis of a Persian text (1760-61CE) in praise of the Maklī necropolis in Sindh, now in modern-day Pakistan. I discuss the intertwining of Ṣufī beliefs with emotions and movement and sociability. The act of walking serves as a critical method for experiencing the sacrality of Maklī, not simply as a…
Developing without the official support of state institutions, 1990s experimental art in China has often been described as “underground” or “independent.” In this talk, I suggest that the term “peripheral” is a much more apt description as it simultaneously refers to the actual spaces in which art has flourished at the urban fringes of the…
Aesthetics and Ethics of Return: Trauma, Militarism and Modernities in Southeast Asia