Online Talk | Fortune and Folly in 1720
Wednesday evening on Zoom, from the BGC:
Nina Dubin, Meredith Martin, and Madeleine Viljoen | Fortune and Folly in 1720: Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy
Françoise and Georges Selz Lectures on Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Decorative Arts and Culture
Online, Bard Graduate Center, New York, 3 March 2021, 6.00pm
This talk will explore The New York Public Library’s upcoming exhibition Fortune and Folly in 1720 (Fall 2021) and its accompanying publication Meltdown! Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy (Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2020). Co-curated and co-authored by Dubin, Martin, and Viljoen, they tell two parallel stories: one of the spectacular rise and fall of the first bubble economy, and another of the enterprising art industry that chronicled its collapse. The Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles, spawning the invention of French banknotes as well as joint-stock companies built on fantasies of New World trade, imposed on everyday Europeans a crash course in new financial products. In turn, a bubbling print market relentlessly caricatured the meltdown of 1720, offering viewers an entertaining primer on the otherwise bewildering realities of modern economic life. Three hundred years later, our current moment offers a uniquely fitting vantage point from which to reconsider the significance of the bubbles and of the artworks that channeled the fears and desires they unleashed.
The event will be live with automatic captions. It will be held via Zoom; a link will be circulated to registrants by 3pm on the day of the event.
Nina L. Dubin is an associate professor of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Specializing in European art since 1700, she has published widely on the production of art within an economy of risk.
Meredith Martin is an associate professor of Art History at New York University and the Institute of Fine Arts. Specializing in European art of the long eighteenth century, she has published widely on gender and architectural patronage as well as maritime art, mobility, and exchange in the early modern world.
Madeleine C. Viljoen is Curator of Prints and the Spencer Collection at The New York Public Library. Responsible for the Library’s collection of prints and rare illustrated books, she has published widely on early modern printed images, with special attention to the goldsmith-engraver, the reproductive print, and ornament.
Exhibition | History in Motion: Tom Judd’s Subway Mural
Installation photo of Tom Judd’s Portal to Discovery mural, 2020, produced for Philadelphia’s 5th Street-Independence Hall Station on the Market-Frankford Line.
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The Woodmere Art Museum hosts a virtual opening reception with the artist this evening (Tuesday) at 7pm, ET:
History in Motion: Tom Judd’s Subway Mural
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, 27 February — 13 June 2021
In connection with the reconstruction of Philadelphia’s 5th Street-Independence Hall Station on the Market-Frankford Line, and as part of SEPTA’s Art in Transit program, artist Tom Judd was selected to create a permanent installation for the station. Titled Portal to Discovery, Judd’s mural on the eastbound and westbound platforms presents figures who contributed to the founding of the United States as well as those who fought for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all. The mural includes portraits of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphians such as Frances E. W. Harper, one of the first African American women to be published in the United States, and Absalom Jones, an African American abolitionist and clergyman who founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787. Juxtaposed with these figures are familiar landscape views of Philadelphia, windows, doors, and other architectural elements of the city. The experience is one of a great historical dreamscape that poses questions and promotes civic dialogue.
The Museum’s exhibition includes preparatory studies for the mural as well as in-process photographs of the installation; the panels were fabricated by Ben Volta Studios and the installation was managed by James Shuster. The project was realized with help from graphic designer Wenlu Bao; David W. Seltzer, transit consultant and catalog producer; SEPTA; Burns Engineering, Inc.; Converse Winkler Architecture; and Marsha Moss, public art curator and consultant. The mural is an important addition to Philadelphia’s rich landscape of public art.
Judd grew up in Salt Lake City and attended the University of Utah from 1970 to 1972. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States, and is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and Woodmere Art Museum. Judd works in a variety of media, including painting, collage, photography, and installation.
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