Symposium | The Legacies of Bernard Smith, Sydney, November 2012

The Legacies of Bernard Smith, Sydney, November 2012

Bernard Smith could rightly be called the founder of Australian art history, and his presence and influence in Australian cultural life was immense from the publication of Place, Taste and Tradition in 1945 until his death in September 2011. To explore and celebrate his work and its legacy, the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, together with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, are convening this important two city symposium.

This collaborative symposium will take place over four days in two locations, during which Australian and international scholars, curators and artists will discuss all aspects of Bernard Smith’s wide-ranging work. The Melbourne leg will take place on September 20 and 21, 2012 and the Sydney leg on November 9 and 10, 2012.

The symposium is to be convened by Jaynie Anderson, Herald Professor of Fine Arts, University of Melbourne, Mark Ledbury, Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Sydney and Dr Christopher Marshall, Senior Lecturer in Art History and Museum Studies and Art History Program Chair, the University of Melbourne. Our aim is not only to consider the key questions of Bernard’s scholarship, but to examine what legacy his vision of the world (shaped as it was by pressing twentieth century concerns from the Cold War to post-colonialism) might have for 21st century scholars whose fields - history, anthropology, art history, art criticism - were affected by his pioneering work.

During the symposium we will explore several major themes of Bernard’s work including:

Encountering Australia

Bernard’ s seminal European Vision and the South Pacific (1960) remains perhaps his best-known work internationally, and pioneered a set of questions about power, vision and encounter that shaped studies not only in Australia but worldwide.

Imagining Australia, Defining Australian Art

Smith’s fundamental Australian Painting 1788-2000, much reprinted and discussed, was the first convincing narrative of Australian art, and in other work he pondered what being Australian meant in a cultural sense.

Thinking the Modern and Contemporary

As Bernard was a profound historian of visual encounters with early Australia, so he was an impassioned critic and historian of contemporary art in Australia. From his polemics of the 1950’s to his 1962 Australian Painting Today lecture to his work at the Power Institute, to his later speculations on ‘the formalesque”, thinking the modern and contemporary as a concept was a central part of Bernard’s Smith’s work.

Being with Art

Bernard’s work as a cataloguer of collections (particularly at the Art Gallery of New South Wales) and his exploration of contemporary art in a journalistic and critical mode, was a substantial area of his activity as an intellectual.

Bernard Smith the activist

Under this rubric might come his concern for his community and his involvement in politics from local to global.

Bernard Smith the writer

Bernard was a prose writer of great gifts, not just in criticism and art history. His memoirs, particularly The Boy Adeodatus are important examples of the genre.

Program

Friday 9 November: The Institute Building, City Road, University of Sydney

9.15am | Introduction to the Symposium: Mark Ledbury, Power Institute and University of Sydney; Jaynie Anderson and Christopher Marshall, University of Melbourne
Chair: Mark Ledbury, Power Institute, University of Sydney
Bernard’s Cultural Politics

9:30am | Ian McLean, University of Woollongong
Engaging Aboriginal art from the idea of Australia

10:00 - 10:30am | Sheridan Palmer, University of Melbourne
Ideological conduits and political coat hangers: Bernard Smith on Counihan and Courbet

10:30 - 11:00am | John Arnold, Monash University
Bernard Smith and Jack Lindsay

11:00 - 11:30am | Catriona Moore, University of Sydney
Bias and Partisanship in Bernard Smith’s Place, Taste and Tradition

11.45am - 12.15pm Morning Tea

12.15 - 12.45pm | Alexander Grishin, Australian National University
“Anthropologists have hijacked Australian Art History”: Art History/Anthropology in Bernard and beyond

12.45 - 1:15pm Discussion of Morning Papers

1.15 - 2.15pm Lunch

2.15pm | Chair: Christopher Marshall, University of Melbourne
Bernard Smith the Writer (1) Bernard and the Memoir

2:30 - 3:00pm | Peter Beilharz, La Trobe University
Bernard Smith’s Autobiographical Writings

3:00 - 3:30pm | Juliette Peers, RMIT Melbourne
Pilgrimage to Heidelberg

3:30 - 4:00pm | Anita Callaway, University of Sydney
The Boy Adeodatus goes Bush: But not for long

4.15pm | Chair: Jaynie Anderson, University of Melbourne
Bernard Smith the Writer (2) Biography, Autobiography, Art Writing

4.30 - 5.00pm | John Clark, University of Sydney
Trajectories of the nation in Australian Art Biography: Smith to McQueen

5:00 - 5.30pm | Simon Pierse, Aberystwyth University
Peter Fuller, the Celtic midwife and Some [other] Northern Critics of Southern Art

5.30 - 6.00pm | Paul Giles, University of Sydney
The Antipodean Manifesto Fifty Years Ont

6.00pm approximately Glebe Society talk and reception
Max Solling: Bernard Smith the Activist (TBC)
Followed by a wake with drinks and canapés for Bernard in Glebe.

Saturday 10 November: Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of NSW

9.30am | Introduction to the Symposium: Michael Brand, Art Gallery of NSW TBC
Chair: Andrew Yip, Art Gallery of NSW
Bernard’s Cultural Politics

9.45 - 10.15am | James Berryman, University of Melbourne
Documenting art: Bernard Smith, academic art history and the role of the curator

10.15 - 10.45am | Stephen Miller, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Contingency as the guard dog of history: Bernard Smith and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

10.45 - 11.15am | Ann Stephen, University of Sydney Art Museums
Bernard the Power curator: soixante-huitard or art shopper?

11.15 - 11.30am Morning Tea

11.30am - 12.00pm | Christopher Marshall, University of Melbourne
Mind the gap! Bernard Smith versus the museum, 1961-95

12.00am | Joanna Mendelssohn, University of New South Wales
Bernard Smith and the professional art museum

12.30 - 1.00pm Panel session
Participants: James Berryman, University of Melbourne; Stephen Miller, Art Gallery of New South Wales; Ann Stephen, University of Sydney Art Museums; Christopher Marshall, University of Melbourne and Joanna Mendelssohn, University of New South Wales.

1.00 - 2.00pm Lunch (Self catered, but coffee and tea provided)

2.00 - 4.00pm Round table
Chair: Mark Ledbury, Power Institute, University of Sydney
Beyond Bernard… The Future of Art Writing in Australia
Participants: Christopher Allen, The Australian; Rex Butler, University of Queensland; Andrew McNamara, Queensland University of Technology; Amelia Groom, University of Sydney and Katrina Grant, Electronic Melbourne Art Journal and ‘Melbourne art network’.

4.00 - 5.30pm Closing Reception, Yiribana Foyer, Art Gallery of NSW

The symposium is proudly presented by the Power Institute and the University of Sydney in partnership with the University of Melbourne and the Art Gallery of NSW