Enfilade

On the heels of the exhibition on Charles IV as patron and collector, comes this University of North Texas Symposium. From the conference website:

The Politics of Taste in 18th- and 19th-Century Latin America
Meadows Museum, Dallas, 17 September 2010 (organized by the University of North Texas)

As the Bourbon monarchy took the Spanish throne in 1700, the art, architecture, and visual culture of Latin America began a gradual transformation. A defining moment in this evolution was the establishment of the Royal Academy of San Carlos in 1785 in Mexico City, a time that corresponded to the escalation of the Bourbon Reforms across the Indo-Hispanic Americas. The new academy set standards of neoclassicism and buen gusto (good taste) and sought to impose these protocols on colonial society. In Latin America, however, these two domains existed in an ambiguous relationship to one another. For example, good taste did not necessarily refer to neoclassical style. To complicate matters further, the results of artistic reform were not as expected by the proponents of the Academy. Rather than sweeping transformation in the visual arts, Latin American artists and institutions produced works that reveal cultural hybridity, the persistence and assimilation of traditional colonial styles and genres, as well as the transformation of European neoclassical forms themselves into American expressions.

This symposium poses a number of questions to interrogate this period of stylistic transition. By what processes were academic and/or neoclassical art, conforming to standards of buen gusto in Spain, transformed in Latin America? As the term “neoclassical” is not period language, what can examining period notions of buen gusto tell us about the American assimilation of European academic and/or neoclassical styles and genres? How was possessing buen gusto consciously political in Latin American contexts? What are the issues in contexts beyond Mexico City and New Spain, such as Cuba? How was neoclassicism deployed with respect to forced labor in the countryside? How did American antiquity enter discourses about neoclassicism and taste? How were the arts of taste expressed in early national contexts in Latin America? This symposium seeks more contextual understandings of this complex phenomenon in Latin American art history.

Program
9:00  Introduction
9:15   Susan Deans-Smith, University of Texas at Austin
10:00 Ray Hernández-Durán, University of New Mexico
10:45 Kelly Donahue-Wallace, University of North Texas
11:30 Paul Niell, University of North Texas
12:15 Luncheon
1:30  Charles Burroughs, Case Western Reserve University
2:15  Robert Bradley, University of Texas Pan American
3:00  Magali Carrera, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
3:45  Stacie G. Widdifield, University of Arizona
4:30  Discussion

The full program for this international colloquiem is available at the CIERL website:

History of Paris
Musée de la civilisation, Québec, 22-25 September 2010

Colloque international du Cercle interuniversitaire d’étude sur la République des lettres (CIERL)

Qu’il
 s’agisse
 de
 considérations
 sur
 la
 voirie
 ou
 les
 projets
 d’embellissement,
 sur
 les
 aspects
 sociaux,
 économiques
 ou
 poli-ques
 de
 la
 ville,
 sur
 l’architecture,
 la
 naissance
 du
 tourisme
 ou
 l’apparition
 du
 promeneur 
urbain,
 qu’il
 s’agisse 
des 
chroniques 
intimes 
ou
 officielles 
qui
 en 
ont
 scandé
 et 
organisé
 les 
péripétes, 
qu’il 
s’agisse 
encore 
du 
faste 
des
 entrées
 royales 
ou 
de 
la 
misère 
du 
peuple, 
des 
rumeurs 
ou 
des 
modes, 
des peintures 
ou 
des 
fictions
 qui 
l’ont 
mis 
en 
scène, 
le 
Paris 
d’Ancien 
Régime
 a
 fait
 l’objet
 depuis
 plusieurs
 décennies
 de
 nombreux
 travaux
 qui
 ont collectivement
 contribué
 tant
 à
 la
 restitution
 de
 la
 réalité
 «
historique
»
 de 
la
capitale 
qu’à 
la
mise 
au
 jour
 d’un 
imaginaire 
de 
la 
ville
 tissé 
au 
fil 
des
 représentations.
 Sociologues,
 anthropologues,
 historiens,
 spécialistes
 de
 l’urbanisme
 ou
 de
 l’architecture,
 mais
 aussi
 littéraires,
 historiens
 de
 l’art, 
ou 
encore
 spécialistes 
de 
l’histoire
 des 
mentalités 
ont 
ainsi, 
chacun
 selon
 les
 paradigmes
 de
 leur
 discipline,
 les
 champs
 de
 leur
 corpus
 et
 les
 horizons
 de
 leur
 théorie,
 proposé
 un
 contenu
 spécifique
 à
 l’Histoire
 de
 Paris,
 de
 ses 
lieux, 
de
 ses 
monuments, 
de 
ses 
habitants, 
des
 événements,
 heureux 
ou 
tragiques,
 officiels 
ou 
anonymes,
 collectifs 
ou 
individuels, 
qui
 s’y
 sont 
produits. . .