Call for Papers | UAAC/AAUC 2019, Québec

Posted in Calls for Papers by Editor on May 20, 2019

Universities Art Association of Canada / l’association d’art des universités du Canada
Hilton Hotel, Québec, 24–27 October 2019

Proposals due by 31 May 2019

Every fall UAAC hosts Canada’s professional conference for visual arts based research by art historians, professors, artists, curators and cultural workers. The conference is held at a different location each year, normally at a Canadian university or college, and the sessions and panels address issues and subjects in art history, theory and practice from a variety of methodological approaches. We’re pleased to announce that UAAC-AAUC’s next conference will be held in beautiful Quebec City at the Hilton Hotel from October 24 to 27, 2019.

A selection of sessions potentially related to the eighteenth century, including the HECAA panel, is provided below. A full list of panels is available as a PDF file here.

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HECAA Open Session (Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture)
Chair: Joan Coutu (University of Waterloo), joan.coutu@uwaterloo.ca

HECAA works to stimulate, foster, and disseminate knowledge of all aspects of visual culture in the long eighteenth century. This open session welcomes papers that examine any aspect of art and visual culture from the 1680s to the 1830s. Special consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate innovation in theoretical and/or methodological approaches.

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Au préalable : œuvre(s) préparatoire(s) et processus créatif aux temps médiévaux et modernes
Chair: Audrey Adamczak (Institut catholique de Paris), audrey.adamczak@videoton.ca

Nous proposons d’interroger l’œuvre préparatoire du Moyen-Age et de la première modernité quels que soient sa forme, sa destination ou le médium utilisé, en privilégiant les études qui aborderont les processus de création mis en jeu pour générer et fabriquer une œuvre d’art, qu’elle soit individuelle ou collective : pratiques d’atelier, changements/modifications de la première intention de l’artiste, reprise ou réemploi d’un modèle antérieur, etc. Nous accorderons une attention toute particulière aux propositions touchant aux domaines souvent peu étudiés tels que la gravure, l’illustration, l’enluminure, l’art du vitrail, la sculpture et les arts décoratifs, l’architecture et le décor.

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What Was History Painting and What Is It Now?
Chairs: Jordan Bear (University of Toronto), jordan.bear@utoronto.ca; and Mark Phillips (Carleton University), Mark.Phillips@carleton.ca

The dominant visual language of European painting from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, history paintings were formidable in their monumental scale, ambitious moral lessons, and intricate narratives. With the rise of modernist avant-gardes, the genre receded from the forefront of artistic production into the realm of nostalgia. Yet history painting cast a shadow that would subtly colour even the works that sought to displace it.
This session invites presentations that explore the fortunes of this distinctive mode of visual representation. Papers might engage with any number of themes, including the creation of an audience attuned to the genre’s didactic aims, the entry of history painting into the marketplace of commercial art and attractions, or the reimagination of the mode in response to the edicts of modern and contemporary art and decolonization. We are eager to investigate the genre in its full range of geographical and chronological variety, and to consider both the tradition and the vibrant ways in which it resonates through the art of the present.

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Exhibiting Animals in the Long Nineteenth Century
Chair: Elizabeth Boone (University of Alberta), betsy.boone@ualberta.ca

Animals, both wild and domesticated, were regularly exhibited during the long nineteenth century. They appeared on canvas and as sculpture in fine art exhibitions; as public art works marking fair grounds, parks, and zoos; mounted through the art of taxidermy; and live in circus performances and at agricultural fairs. Some animals—usually those known for their performance abilities, noteworthy value, or bloodlines—appear in named portraits, while others functioned as type, to evoke particular emotions, or to communicate societal values and attitudes about these non-human beings. This session invites papers from scholars interested in exploring the current state of animal studies and the representation of animals in an exhibitionary context.

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Domestic Encodings through Craft Objects
Chairs: Ruth Chambers (University of Regina), Ruth.Chambers@uregina.ca; and Mireille Perron (Alberta University of the Arts, former ACAD University), Mireille.Perron@acad.ca

Desire, fear, pleasure, projection, and uncertainty loom large in concepts of home and domesticity. Craft objects in particular have sustaining connections with home and with the production of domestic space; how and what kind of space is produced through crafted objects is of renewed concern for many historians, curators, craft persons, and artists. Examples of recent scholarship and practice include, but are not limited to: Craft, Space and Interior Design 1855–2005, Sandra Alfody ed.; Breaking and Entering: The Contemporary House Cut, Spliced, and Haunted, Bridget Elliott ed.; and the works of Ann Low, Laura Vickerson, Shannon Bool, Carmen Laganse, Amy Malbeuf, Luanne Martinau, Judy Chartrand, and Lindsay Arnold, to name but a few Canadian artists. Following, but not restricted to investigations of these leads, we will offer Craft practice, theory, discourse, and history as ways to uncover, transform, validate, and better understand our production of domesticity. All historical, methodological and material approaches are welcome.

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Making Sense of the Senses: Evaluating the Sensorium in Visual Culture
Chair: Samantha Chang (University of Toronto), samantha.chang@mail.utoronto.ca

The classification, discrimination, and individuation of the senses have long been a topic of discussion among scholars in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Although the paradigm of the five senses can be found in philosophical texts from Ancient Greece and China, the sensory categories defined differed significantly between the two regions. This disparity of sense perception informed the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies and following the sensory turn of the 1990s, led to a profusion of sense-specific subfields, especially those related to visual culture. While the invention of visual culture collapsed the hierarchy of high/low art (Berger 1972; Baxandall 1972; Alpers 1983), the proliferation of visual culture studies further entrenches the hierarchical division of the senses (Howes 2018). This panel seeks to explore interpretations of the sensorium in visual culture and evaluate the cultural and social connections/implications of the senses in art.

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On Performance, Exhibitions, and Archives
Chairs: Barbara Clausen (Université du Québec à Montréal), clausen.barbara@uqam.ca; and Erin Silver (University of British Columbia), erin.silver@ubc.ca

This panel, which springboards from Clausen’s research on performance’s representational politics as a hybrid art form in the tension field of the live and mediated, and Silver’s research on the superimposition of embodied movement and political movements, examines how these practices find their various modes of existence within and beyond the framework of the institutional spaces they occupy. Bridging the recent fervour for dance’s representational and political potential within gallery spaces, to performance’s status as one of the most dominantly promoted art forms today, this panel asks: how do movement- and performance-based practices operating at the intersection of the exhibition and the archive contribute to and shape concepts of agency, site specificity, and immediacy in the cultural sphere? We invite submissions in French and English that explore notions of the performative in relation to the museum and new formats of curating, archiving, and digital mediation.

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Séance Ouverte (Réseau Art et Architecture du 19e siècle) / Open Session (Research on Art and Architecture of the 19th Century)
Chairs: Peggy Davis (Université du Québec à Montréal), davis.peggy@uqam.ca; and Ersy Contogouris (Université de Montréal), ersy.contogouris@umontreal.ca

L’objectif du Réseau Art et Architecture du 19e siècle (www.raa19.com) consiste à promouvoir le renouveau des recherches globales et interdisciplinaires sur le 19e siècle en histoire de l’art et de l’architecture. Cette session ouverte invite des propositions théoriques ou des études de cas qui couvrent des corpus issus du long 19e siècle, de 1789 à 1914. Une attention particulière sera donnée aux propositions qui font ressortir de nouvelles problématiques ou des méthodologies novatrices.

The aim of the RAA19 (Research on Art and Architecture of the 19th century; http://www.raa19.com) is to encourage innovative studies of nineteenth-century art and architecture. This open session welcomes papers that examine theoretical issues or case studies that focus on any aspect of the art and architecture of the long nineteenth century, from 1789 to 1914. Special consideration will be given to papers that propose innovative issues or methodologies.

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Perspectives on the Dutch Golden Age
Chairs: Stephanie Dickey(Queen’s University), stephanie.dickey@queensu.ca; and Amy Golahny (Lycoming College), golahny@lycoming.edu

We propose a session on the historiography and reception of Dutch art produced in the period c. 1575–1700, exploring how artists, admirers, and critics have responded to the art of the period known as the ‘Dutch Golden Age’ from the seventeenth century to the present. We welcome case studies that reflect on, for example, theoretical appraisals of Dutch art and artists; literary adaptations of artists’ lives for the popular audience; print reproductions of Dutch painting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; emulation of Dutch artists in nineteenth century France; the rediscovery of Vermeer; poetic responses to Dutch art; the changing reception of Rembrandt and other artists; Dutch art through the lens of methodologies such as feminism or post-colonialism; the collecting and connoisseurship of Dutch art in Canada and elsewhere; and other topics.

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Interconnections in the Long Nineteenth Century
Chairs: Mitchell Frank (Carleton University), mitchell.frank@carleton.ca; and Alison McQueen (McMaster University), ajmcq@mcmaster.ca

This panel invites papers that examine the significant roles assigned to visual culture in understanding global connections in the long nineteenth century (c.1789–1914). Connections between places and power relations raise important questions, and transnational approaches offer a means of disrupting histories, including those centred on national identities. Papers may consider the following questions: What roles did visual culture play in communicating, reinforcing, enacting, complicating, and/or disrupting imperial power structures and settler- colonial narratives? What issues of agency, or factors inhibiting agency, faced imperial subjects and/or citizens as creators, patrons, or spectators? How did they traverse or negotiate between geopolitical realms, such as the metropole, provinces, or colonies? How can the social history of art raise new questions about interconnections in the long nineteenth century? How does a transnational approach enrich and expand current conceptions of nineteenth-century art and reconceptualize its parameters? What does it promise and are there drawbacks?

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The Art of Camouflage
Chairs: Claudette Lauzon (Simon Fraser University), lauzon@sfu.ca; and T’ai Smith (University of British Columbia), tai.smith@ubc.ca

Camouflage is a technique of obfuscation that operates in the realm of visibility. Mimicking the patterns of its environment, an animal becomes at once transparent and opaque. A product of branding, the fashionista is constantly adapting, continuously changing and exchanging her appearance for another to fit the mode of her surroundings. The hoodie is at once a target, an icon of protest, and a method of hiding. Terrorists, sports fans, politicians, and bank robbers all wear baseball caps. Meanwhile, drones are disguised as hummingbirds. This panel will consider the art and politics of camouflage in material and online environments. We invite contributions that address camouflage from historical, theoretical, and/or artistic perspectives. Topics may include counter-surveillance and camouflage; the politics of race and opacity; camouflage in/and animal studies; visual cultures of war and conflict; costume and fashion; biometrics; and feminist strategies of invisibility.

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À la croisée des chemins : réflexions sur les relations interespèces en art
Chairs: Anne-Sophie Miclo (Université du Québec à Montréal), miclo.anne-sophie@courrier.uqam.ca; and Valérie Bienvenue (Université de Montréal), valerie.bienvenue@umontreal.ca

Si la part de l’animal non humain est considérable au sein du processus artistique, elle est cependant assez peu questionnée. Qu’il s’agisse de sa représentation, de sa présentation (vivant ou taxidermisé) ou encore de la composition même des œuvres (par le biais des colles, pinceaux et pigments), force est de constater que cet « autre » a maintes fois pris part à la création. Pourtant, son impact sur la relation humain/animal en art reste à reconnaître : comment les rapports interespèces sont-ils réfléchis par cette présence non humaine dans les œuvres? Par ailleurs, l’artiste qui « utilise » les animaux peut-il être vecteur de revendication ou de changement dans les façons d’interagir avec eux historiquement et maintenant? Ce panel, souhaitant ouvrir la question de l’animal en art à des angles d’approches des plus variés, invite à la réflexion à partir de n’importe quelles périodes historiques ou contextes culturels et géographiques.

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Environnements artificiels au 19e siècle (Séance du Réseau Art et Architecture du 19e siècle : RAA19)
Chairs: Étienne Morasse-Choquette (Université du Québec à Montréal), morasse-choquette.etienne@courrier.uqam.ca; and Christina Contandriopoulos (Université du Québec à Montréal), contandriopoulos.christina@uqam.ca

Le 19e siècle est marqué par l’instrumentalisation grandissante de la nature. Face à un monde devenu abstrait, l’art du paysage naturalise l’emprise sur le territoire en produisant des images fantasmatiques, sauvages ou primitivistes, alors que l’architecture émule les mécanismes de la nature par des moyens artificiels (jardins d’hiver, atmosphères contrôlées, éclairage artificiel, illusions spatiales). Si certaines tentatives relèvent d’intentions spirituelles ou purement poétiques, d’autres s’inscrivent dans une démarche rationaliste ou instrumentale. Dans tous les cas, l’expérience esthétique et l’imagination sont appelées à jouer un rôle de première importance. Cette séance invite les propositions d’études de cas variées et d’approches théoriques qui nous permettent de réfléchir à l’esthétisation de la nature durant le long 19e siècle. Qu’il s’agisse d’espaces ou d’images, comment les arts participent-ils à la création de « paradis terrestres » ou d’autres environnements artificiels ?

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The Art of Visualizing Others: Early Modern Cultural Encounters
Heather Muckart (Columbia College), muckart@mail.ubc.ca

The early modern period marks a moment of accelerated cultural contact, exchange, and trade. Despite this essential feature of the period, art historical studies that examine such encounters and the ways they were represented, negotiated, and understood though art and visual culture are only recently gaining traction. This session proposes to examine the representations that such encounters generated, as well as any preexisting works that informed such moments of contact. Papers are invited that examine one or more facets of this global network of early modern encounters and their related artworks and objects. Sites of contact can include, but are not limited to: the British Empire (including British America), First Nations, Ming or Qing China, Mughal or Maratha India, Safavid Persia, the Spanish Empire (including Spanish America), or the Venetian Republic. Papers that interrogate or challenge academic notions such as acculturation, appropriation, hybridity, and liminality are particularly encouraged.

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Artifacts and the Digital Archive
Barbara Rauch (OCAD University), brauch@faculty.ocadu.ca

This panel invites papers that address issues within the field of critical digital humanities. We will attend to contradictions and criticism in the field of digital humanities to further address the impact and politics of digital technologies on our diverse practices, i.e. art, design, craft, and media. While we have announced the era of the post-material, the post-digital, and the post-studio, contemporary practitioners find themselves returning to their studio, negotiating materiality, physical and digital that is, as we have declared data as material. Visualizing and/or materializing data, results in products; our objects demand exposure, documenting, and finally, storage. The boundary object, the hyper object, the emotive object all declare specific material research including the tacit knowledges that the maker inserts in the object. In particular, with digital objects and algorithmic work, the code that is embedded in the object is also an object, yet, how do we archive and narrate these distinct materials; we question further, does the digital archive provide for much diversity?

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Open Session: National Network for the Study and Promotion of Latino Canadian Art and Latin American Art in Canada
Chairs: Alena Robin (Western University), arobin82@uwo.ca; and Analays Hernandez (University of Ottawa), analays.alvarez@gmail.com

This open session welcomes proposals that seek to foster and disseminate knowledge in Canada of all aspects of Latino Canadian art and Latin American art, from pre-Columbian and colonial periods to modern and contemporary art. The objective of this session is to bring together collaborators and proposals for the creation of a national network for the study and promotion of Latino Canadian art and Latin American art in Canada. We accept proposals in French and English/Nous acceptons les propositions en français et en anglais.

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Museums and Celebrity Culture: Historical and Critical Perspectives
Chairs: Maria Silina (Université du Québec à Montréal), silina.maria@gmail.com; and Lynda Jessup (Queen’s University), lynda.jessup@queensu.ca

This session is a reflection on museums and the phenomenon of celebrity culture. Museums are institutions that channel celebrity culture as a part of the global creative industry and mass culture. Today, it is evidenced in the boom in blockbuster exhibitions and large-scale collaborations of museums with film and fashion industry. In history, too, exhibitions and artworks on display had already served as an attraction to the enlightened public. Museums are also celebrity institutions in their own right. There is an ongoing mutual interest between museum curators and celebrities from other cultural domains (Wes Anderson in Vienna, Beyoncé and Jay-Z at the Louvre). Finally, this evolution of museums raises new concerns for the strategic management (acquisition, public criticism) of artistic celebrities in museum collections in the time of the #MeToo movement, increasing calls to decolonize cultural institutions, and the vital importance of actively engaging underrepresented artists and communities into museums.

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Locating Textiles in Global Art Histories
Julia Skelly (Independent Scholar), julia.skelly232@gmail.com

In the introduction to Art History in the Wake of the Global Turn (2014), Aruna D’Souza writes that the book is meant to address some of the ways “that a global art history troubles, even explodes, the very concepts on which the discipline is based by forcing us to see differently, to recognize the unrecognizable, to authorize the formerly unacknowledged” (xxi). D’Souza’s words strike me as particularly resonant for the study of textiles. This session will highlight new scholarship on ‘global’ textiles, with ‘global’ signifying any location in the world not typically identified as an ‘art centre’. The objective of the session will be to demonstrate anew how we as art historians can ‘explode’ the very discipline of art history by rigorously studying textiles as well as makers from a range of global contexts. Papers may discuss textiles produced during any time period.