Tag: University of Melbourne

Lecture | Alpha and Omega, or The Boundary of Our Orient – Alexander Nagel | University of Melbourne

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Image: Raphael, School of Athens (detail). Vatican Museum, Vatican City.

In this lecture Professor Nagel will present his recent research on ideas of Asia and America in Renaissance Europe. The decades after 1492 brought Asia closer to Europe than it had ever been. The art, cartography, and literature of the period we call the High Renaissance expanded to imagine a new convergence of worlds where East rejoined West and New neighboured Old. Alexander Nagel is Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City. His research is focused on early-modern Italy, but he is also engaged with Modernist and contemporary art. His most recent books include Medieval Modern (2012), The Controversy of Renaissance Art (2011), and, with Christopher Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (2010). He is a contributor to both Cabinet magazine and the London Review of Books, and recent essays and debates have appeared in Artforum,…

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Symposium | Myth and Emotion in Early Modern Europe | University of Melbourne

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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Greek and Roman classics became increasingly central to the European literary imagination, being referenced, translated, adopted and reshaped by a huge range of authors. In turn, current criticism of early modern literature is ever more concerned with the period’s reception and appropriation of the classical past. Greek and Roman myths held a two­fold appeal for authors: they were ‘known’ stories, culturally iconic and comfortingly familiar to the educated reader, but readerly knowledge could also be manipulated, and the myths reshaped in emotionally provocative and iconoclastic ways. This one day symposium at The University of Melbourne will be an investigation into early modern use of classical myths, asking how myth was used both ‘privately’, to excite emotional effect, and ‘publicly’, to respond to political, religious, or social events. This symposium will focus on how…

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Lecture | The Pleasures of Allegory: Rethinking ‘Susanna and the Elders’ – Patricia Simons | University of Melbourne

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Image: Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders. Circa 1555. Vienna, Kunsthistorsiches Museum.

‘Susanna and the Elders’ is commonly read as a case of male voyeurism, in subject and purpose, or as mere moralizing allegory. This lecture moves away from each reductive extreme by re-examining the story’s history and visual effect. Professor Patricia Simons is Professor of Art History, University of Michigan. Her field of study includes the art of Renaissance Europe (primarily Italy, France and the Netherlands) with a special focus on the representation of gender and sexuality Date: Wednesday 9th March, 5:30–6:45PM Venue: Theatre 1, Alan Gilbert Building, University of Melbourne Free to attend. Registrations can be made on the university website.  

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Call for Papers | Conference: ‘Human Kind: Transforming Identity in British and Australian Portraits, 1700-1914’

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Inspired by the outstanding collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, this interdisciplinary conference will be the largest gathering of international and Australian scholars to focus on portraits. It will provide a unique opportunity to explore both British and Australian portraits through a dynamic interchange between academics and curators. September 8-11 2016, University of Melbourne and National Gallery of Victoria Call for papers Papers are invited that focus on British or Australian portraits between 1700 and 1914, which can be interpreted as separate fields or as overlapping or comparative studies. The portraits may be in any public or private collection worldwide, but in particular in the National Gallery of Victoria. They may be in any medium, including painting, print, drawing, sculpture and photography. The conference aims to be both informed and provocative and to provide a robust forum for new…

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Lecture | Scorn, Greed, Malevolence & Mischief: Goya’s graphic expression of emotions – Deanna Petherbridge | University of Melbourne

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This presentation will examine the consummate skill with which Goya represents emotions in his late private albums and some of the print series associated with these drawings. From 1795-6 Goya borrows the figure of the bruja or witch as an historically subversive topos for portraying his disgust with a corrupt clergy, monarchy and cruel social order. As the proportions of his figures change in the album drawings so his ability to suggest subtlety of facial and bodily emotions in his brush and pen work deepens. Language also becomes more intense for Goya, isolated by his total deafness, and the texts appended to drawings and prints are variably metaphoric, playing with language/visual puns or seeming blocks to clarity of meaning. Like his drawings the titles become sparer but more esoteric, especially in his late self-imposed exile to Bordeux. The relationship between…

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Conversation | Collecting thoughts: Suhanya Raffel & Gene Sherman in dialogue | University of Melbourne

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Suhanya Raffel, Deputy Director, Art Gallery of New South Wales and curator of Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection and Gene Sherman, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation – share ideas on their stimulating and fruitful collaboration in realising an exhibition from the Sherman collection. This conversation will provide a glimpse into the genesis and shaping of the Sherman collection, as well as identifying the curatorial role in framing artworks for national and international audiences. Suhanya Raffel is Deputy Director and Director of Collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Previously, she was at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, where she held many senior curatorial positions since 1994, including deputy director of curatorial and collection development from 2010 and acting director during 2012. She was instrumental in building its contemporary Asia Pacific collection…

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Symposium | Art Curatorship Now and Beyond | University of Melbourne

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Art Curatorship Now & Beyond: A symposium celebrating 25 years of Art Curatorship at The University of Melbourne Thursday 17–Saturday 19 September 2015 This symposium celebrates 25 years since art curatorship was first offered as a degree at The University of Melbourne. As well as recognising this legacy through reflection and debate, the symposium program provides the opportunity to construct a new roadmap for contemporary curating through dynamic interaction and the exploration of new ideas. Engage with professional colleagues from a range of Australia’s leading art museums and visual arts institutions to examine past, present and future directions in art curatorial research, teaching, and the career development of visual arts professionals. The symposium welcomes academic colleagues, professional peers, art curatorship students and graduates of the course, as well as Arts Faculty alumni and members of the wider public. Participants Keynote lectures by: Dr…

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Lecture | Herzschmerz – Love And Pain: Representing the Heart in Early Modern Art | Dagmar Eichberger

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This paper investigates the contexts in which the image of a heart-shaped object could be used in order to evoke a range of different meanings. Human love and magic, divine love and faith, the passion of Christ and the sorrows of the Virgin Mary are some of the most prominent associations invoked by the heart in the early modern period and beyond. The heart can also be used in a more allegorical context to signify wrath and envy. Thus the heart is often employed as a symbol for compassion (or lack of compassion), a tradition that continued well into the modern period as Wilhelm Hauff’s novel Cold Heart and other literary texts convey. Dagmar Eichberger is part of an EU-funded research project, Artifex, at the University of Trier and is Professor in the Department of Fine Arts in Heidelberg. With Charles Zika she edited Dürer and his Culture (1998). She is the author of Leben mit Kunst –…

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Melbourne Masterclasses: The Life and Legacy of Catherine the Great

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The Faculty of Arts at The University of Melbourne proudly presents a four-part masterclass series in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great is the most famous and longest-ruling female monarch of Russia. Her passion for education, the arts and culture heralded the Golden Age of Russia during the Enlightenment era. As a patron of the arts, Catherine amassed a vast art collection over her thirty-four year reign, which ranged from Old Master of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the newest contemporary art of her day. Within a relatively short time Catherine had amassed a collection that rivalled many of the greatest collections in Europe. It was this collection which formed the basis for the State Hermitage Museum, founded in 1764 by Catherine and today…

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Lecture | The Artist as Collector: Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Collection of Art | Donato Esposito

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Dr Donato Esposito will present a lecture on Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the first and most famous President of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, focussing upon his activities as a collector of art. Dr Donato Esposito was a curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, London (1999-2004). He co-curated the exhibition “Sir Joshua Reynolds: the acquisition of genius” at Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery in 2009. He was recently an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He is currently working on a monograph on Reynolds as an art collector. Date: Wednesday 29th July, 6:30pm Venue: theatre D, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne Parkville Website: https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/5480-the-artist-as-collector-sir-joshua-reynolds-and-his-collection All Welcome. Free to attend.  

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Conference | ST Gill and the colonial world conference | State Library of Victoria

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In this free conference, curators and art historians discuss the art, life and times of the nineteenth-century Australian artist ST Gill, whose work is showcased in the Australian sketchbook: Colonial life and the art of ST Gill exhibition (17 July to 25 October 2015). The conference will feature papers and discussions presented by Professor Sasha Grishin, art historian and curator of Australian sketchbook; David Hansen, Associate Professor, Centre for Art History and Art Theory, Australian National University; Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, National Gallery of Australia; Angus Trumble, Director, National Portrait Gallery; Daniel Thomas, art historian and curator; Dr Isobel Crombie, Assistant Director, National Gallery of Victoria; Alisa Bunbury, Curator, National Gallery of Victoria; Associate Professor Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne; Shane Carmody, University of Melbourne; and Professor Andrew J May, University of Melbourne. Keynote lecture | Sheila O’Connell George Cruikshank (1792-1878):…

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Lecture | Conrad Rudolph – Faces, Art, and Computerized Evaluation Systems | University of Melbourne

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FACES (Faces, Art, and Computerized Evaluation Systems) is a project that, after two years of research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has established proof of concept for the application of face recognition technology to works of portrait art. In the application of face recognition technology to photographed human faces, a number of difficulties are inherent in a real or perceived alteration of appearance of the face through variations in facial expression, age, angle of pose, and so on. With works of portrait art, not only do all these problems pertain, but these works also have their own additional challenges. Most notably, portrait art does not provide what might be called a photographic likeness but rather one that goes through a process of visual interpretation on the part of the artist. After establishing the initial parameters of…

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Melbourne Portrait Group Seminar | Dr Vivien Gaston | Double Identity: William Orpen’s portrait of George C. Beresford (c. 1900)

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The Melbourne Portrait Group Seminar is starting up again for 2015. The first paper will be given by Dr Vivien Gaston on ‘Double Identity: William Orpen’s portrait of George C. Beresford (c. 1900) in the National Gallery of Victoria’. Date: Thursday 30 April 2015, 6:45pm. Venue: University of Melbourne, Baillieu Library, Dulcie Hollyock Room. Website: http://melbourneportraitgroup.wordpress.com

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News | A New Museum of Contemporary Art for Melbourne University

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News that Melbourne University has received a $26 million gift of contemporary art from the property developer and art collector Michael Buxton. The collection will be housed in a new purpose-built museum on the VCA Southbank campus. The museum will operate in conjunction with the University’s Ian Potter Museum of Art. Director, Kelly Gellatly said, “The Collection, which has been established with curatorial rigour, will enable the establishment of an extraordinary museum. It will showcase exhibitions that embrace experimentation and explore some of the major concerns of the 21st Century. Through the activities of the Potter’s Academic Programs unit – unique within Australia – the museum will facilitate object-based learning for undergraduate and graduate students from the University’s diverse faculties and different campuses.” From the university The Buxton Collection is one of the most important private contemporary collections in Australia,…

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Ursula Hoff Dinner | University of Melbourne

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The Art History discipline at the Faculty of Artsis hosting a dinner to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Dr Ursula Hoff’s arrival in Australia from London in December 1939. Dr Hoff was sponsored by the University Women’s College (now University College), at the University of Melbourne. Dr Hoff went on to have a distinguished career at the University and at the National Gallery of Victoria. This dinner is an opportunity to acknowledge Dr Hoff’s unique contribution to Australian culture. During the dinner, Kelly Gellatly, the Director of the University’s Ian Potter Museum of Art, will speak on Dr Ursula Hoff’s legacy with regards to collection building and the role of collection curators. She will also discuss how the demands of the contemporary museum have shaped collecting activities in recent decades. The Ursula Hoff Art History Scholarship is administered by the…

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