Enfilade

A selection of AAH panels of potential interest for dixhuitièmistes, though please also consult the full Call for Papers:

Association for Art Historians Annual Conference
University of York, 9–11 April 2025

Proposals due by 1 November 2024

The Association for Art History’s annual conference brings together international research and critical debate about art history and visual culture. A key annual event, the conference is an opportunity to keep up to date with new research, hear leading keynotes, broaden networks, and exchange ideas. The conference attracts around 400 attendees each year and is popular with academics, curators, practitioners, PhD students, early career researchers, and anyone engaged with art history research. Members of the Association get reduced conference rates, but non-members are welcome to attend and propose sessions and papers. We actively encourage applications from candidates who are Black, Asian, minority ethnic, or from other groups traditionally underrepresented within art historical roles in the UK, as well as new partnerships from those representing these groups.

To offer a paper, please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenor(s). You need to provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 20-minute paper (unless otherwise specified), your name and institutional affiliation (if any). Please make sure the title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper because the title is what appears online, in social media, and in the digital programme. You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks.

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Art Histories of Experience
Stephen Whiteman (Courtauld Institute of Art), stephen.whiteman@courtauld.ac.uk; and Peyvand Firouzeh (University of Sydney), peyvand.firouzeh@sydney.edu.au

This panel explores the experience of spatial environments as an art historical question. Experience is multivalent, subjective, and above all ephemeral. Our experience of the built environment, designed landscapes, and the world at large is highly mediated and contingent, connected to both individual perspectives and cultural framing. It is, moreover, a subject that lies at the complex intersection of the humanities and the sciences, as the senses, emotions, perception, and memory incorporate objective and subjective elements of cognition. What contributes to our experience of a site or space? How do textual, visual, spatial, and cognitive elements interact to create experience? What sources can help reconstruct that experience? How does experience change across different cultural contexts, and how should our methods change in response? How can digital tools, such as mapping, 3-D modelling, or augmented reality, aid our understanding of experience?

We invite proposals for papers and presentations that explore historical experience of landscape and the built environment through art historical and interdisciplinary means. Papers may focus on experience of a specific site, take up a range of examples, address broader methodological issues, or pursue other approaches. We welcome submissions employing analog and/or digital methods and are eager to create conversation across the two. We also warmly encourage proposals from scholars working on pre-modern materials, and outside Euramerican contexts.

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Burning Matters: The Limits of the Image in a ‘World on Fire’
Elsa Perryman Owens (University College London), elsa.owens.15@ucl.ac.uk; and Jacob Badcock (University College London), jacob.badcock@ucl.ac.uk

In the context of rising global temperatures, raging wildfires, blazing conflict in the Middle East, and ever more incendiary political speech in Western liberal democracies, the politics and aesthetics of fire have become an increasingly important area of study, crucial to understanding a world caught in the throes of environmental crisis and unrest. This panel considers the role of representation in a ‘world on fire’. When the flames abate, they leave behind a world changed, but this change needs nuance. How are images of fire deployed in art and media and what are the limits of these images in representing this new reality? How do the frames of art and artworks conflict with and appease the boundaries of representation? Is it possible for burning to be a generative and transformative process, as well as a destructive one? What does studying burnt matter and fire-affected objects reveal about the wider social causes of disaster, both contemporary and historical, and what challenges do they present to the art historical method?

We invite papers addressing modern and contemporary or historical topics (we encourage those concerning pre-1900 material) including but not limited to the aesthetic politics of fire, fire and non-human agency, fire and environmental politics, fire and conflict, the language of fire and burning, burnt matter as art and/or testimony, and the conservation and care of fire-affected objects within the archive.

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For a History of Artists’ Models
Raisa Rexer, Vanderbilt University, Raisa.Rexer@Vanderbilt.edu; and Colette Morel (Université de Grenoble-Alpes / LARHRA (Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes), colette.jeanne.morel@gmail.com

In his Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, Pierre Larousse wrote that the model must “contribute to the perfection of the work.” Yet despite the model’s implied significance, the terms of their contribution to art, and the toll it exacted on the men and women who made it, have remained shrouded in controversy and anonymity. This panel seeks to confront the history of the model by exploring both the conditions of their contribution to creative work and their personal agency.

The history of the model is fundamentally rooted in a feminist history of art, even as methodological approaches have shifted over time. Early scholarship focused on the invention of the ‘sexually available’ model as a social type (Waller 2006; Lathers, 2001), access to live models as fundamental to the training of 19th-century artists (Nochlin 1977) and tracing the biographical paths of these female contributors (Seibert 1986, Lipton 1992). More recent historiography has shifted towards empowering the model, moving beyond the modernist myth of the ‘muse’ and the artist. These approaches have situated the model within the study of the live model and the anatomy courses given in art academies and drawing schools since the 17th century (Lahalle 2006; Brugerolles 2009; Guedron 2003); coexisting studio trades (Fugier 2007; Nerlich 2013), the history of the body and of gender (Solomon-Godeau 1997; Comar 2008), colonisation (Murell 2018), networks of sociability (Marsch 2019; Robert 2023; Morel 2023), and early photography (Rexer, 2021, 2023).

Building on these historiographical shifts, the panel solicits contributions exploring the methodological challenges of writing the history of models. Proposals may include:
• Typology of the model and its representation
• Epistemological issues raised by biographical/prosopographical approaches (anonymity, identification, sources)
• Social and economic history of work (precariousness, working conditions, interconnected socio-professional worlds: theatre, dance, prostitution, etc.)
• Networks of sociability framing the profession (modelling agencies, collective action, circulation between workshops, etc.)
• Production and circulation of photographs of models (marketing of images produced for artists, studio collections, nude magazines, library and university collections, overlap with pornography, etc.)

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How Was It Made? How Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Material Culture Studies and Art History Can Unlock New Avenues of Knowledge
Rebecca Klarner (University of Leeds), fhrlmk@leeds.ac.uk; and Julia Tuveri (University of Leeds), ml17jm@leeds.ac.uk

Traditionally in art history, the study of material culture and decorative arts has been relegated to a subordinate role. Only more recently, objects and their materiality have received more rigorous attention: from Smith’s interdisciplinary project ‘Making and Knowing’ to work by e.g. Yonan, Adamson, Scott, etc.
While object-based and technical art history approaches do consider the material knowledge of curators, conservators, heritage scientists, and others, rarely is the knowledge and material intelligence of makers considered through this art historical lens.

‘How was it made?’ With this question as our starting point, this panel argues that material literacy should be an art historical priority. New avenues of knowledge can be unlocked through interdisciplinary collaboration when we consider the material processes of an object, combining the unique and often tacit knowledge of craftspeople and artists with the knowledge of conservators, art historians, heritage scientists, and curators. As such this panel will demonstrate how historic objects in art history can be further interrogated by extending the object biography approach and by also encompassing an even earlier point of material processes and specialist knowledge leading up to the object’s very creation.

As professional curators and conservators we invite professionals of various disciplines, including the above, working with and in various media, across all time periods to explore the question ‘How does our understanding of material and manufacturing processes enhance our understanding of an object’s historical value?’ and ‘What can material literacy and material intelligence offer the study of art history today?’

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The Art of a Nation: British Culture on the Continent, 1625–1900
Daniela Roberts (Institute of Art History, University of Würzburg), daniela.roberts@uni-wuerzburg.de; and Gerry Alabone (National Trust Knole / City Guilds of London Art School)

For decades, the state of self-reflection about English or British identity and cultural values had not reached such heights as it did during the Brexit referendum, reinforcing a feeling of national belonging in an entire nation. This provides the occasion to reappraise how Englishness or Britishness in terms of artistic innovations has been understood and defined in the past and has contributed to European culture. There is generally no doubt that the English landscape garden, Gothic Revival or the Arts and Crafts Movement have had a great impact on the artistic evolution and on aesthetic ideas in Europe. However, we know far less about the recognition of British art, the extent of its influence, the mechanisms of contribution, the processes of appropriation and the intentions or motivations behind them.

This session aims to explore continental engagement with British art and architecture through their processes of transfer, adaptation, and interaction with local art production. To this end, we seek to examine how British art was conceived and understood as foreign innovation, and for which qualities and cultural attribution it was selected. How did contemporary reviews judge on the significance and status of British Art? What role did aristocratic networks, politics, economic ties, the art market, and Grand Tour tourism play as decisive factors in activating the transfer process. To discuss these topics, we welcome case studies on understudied examples of artistic transfers including interior design, furniture, and ceramics as well as studies on collecting British art and art historiography.

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The Artist as Art Historian
Melissa L Gustin (National Museums Liverpool), melissa.gustin@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk; and Susie Beckham (University of York), susie.beckham@york.ac.uk

The earliest art historians were also artists, or perhaps rather artists who were also art historians. The relationship between theory, historiography, and practice is often led and taught from the historian’s perspective, rather than artists’. This panel considers the multivalent approaches to art history by artists/practitioners, from Vasari, to Ruskin, to contemporary artists and exhibitions. While the expression of an art historical perspective across media and methods has changed in response to contemporary pressures, art history within artmaking has been a consistent practice for centuries. This panel invites contributions for 20-minute papers that ask what relevance historic art and historiography have to the past and present. We especially welcome artists whose practice incorporates art historical research. How have artists used art history to better understand their practice and thus engaged in art history across media? How have artists used their practice to teach or better understand art history to contextualise their work and that of others? How can these art historical manoeuvres activate new understanding of historical contexts including colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, or more? What do recent exhibitions such as Entangled Pasts or I Preraffaeliti: un Rinascimento Moderno and the works therein offer for this kind of art historical-artist perspective? How have art historical artists been involved in creating a ‘canon’ or ideas of ‘canonicity’ in the first place through their valorisation of certain names and involvement in institutions like the Royal Academy, or in reaction against it? How does art history cross borders and temporality for artists? This session invites papers from the Renaissance to the present day and expects to include a wide range of historical and geographic areas.

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The Visual Display of Art Historical Information
Allison Stielau (University College London), a.stielau@ucl.ac.uk

The translation of visual and material phenomena into verbal form is usually framed as the central challenge of art historical method. Yet this translation often takes place alongside visual forms of description, quantification, and analysis. Models, didactic drawings, graphs, tables, reconstructions: such visual displays of art historical information (to paraphrase Edward Tufte’s classic study of data visualisation) have played a central, if underexamined role in the formation of the discipline. They include ‘family trees’ of artistic schools, graphic analyses of composition, diagrams identifying iconography and explaining perspectival systems, among other formats. Building on a recent interest in the diagram as image across art historical fields, this session turns to art historians’ own use of graphic elements to communicate information seemingly unavailable in reproductive illustration. How have these contributed to, or undermined, the scientistic underpinnings of art history and mediated its vexed relationship to “objectivity”? How do diagrams or schematic drawings allow for different modes of analysis, synthesis or criticism? The expanding use of big data in the humanities has brought with it new visual models. What might the longer history of the discipline’s relationship to ‘data visualization’ teach us about the affordances and pitfalls of these analytic forms?

Papers exploring these and other questions should focus primarily on a single example and be 10 minutes in length. Pairs of papers will be followed by a 5-minute response, ending with a 25-minute panel discussion. Ideally contributions will consider art historical practice in a wide range of fields and across geographies, from prehistory to the present.

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Visualising Human-Animal Relations: Animals in Visual and Material Culture, 1750–1900
Luba Kozak (University of Regina), kozak20l@uregina.ca; and Kate Nichols (University of Birmingham), e.k.nichols@bham.ac.uk

The ‘animal turn’ has gained traction in the humanities and social sciences, bringing animals to the forefront of academic discourses. Visual culture can offer new insights into the animal turn, opening up new ways of reading animals in art, and revealing nuanced human-animal relations. 1750–1900 was a crucial period in human-animal relations, yet representations of animals in both visual and material culture remain underexplored. This session aims to reevaluate animals in 18th and 19th-century artworks to shed light on human-animal relations through interdisciplinary perspectives. It encourages papers which integrate perspectives from the animal turn to critically rethink how animals are represented, understood, and treated. We invite art historians, researchers and museum professionals to explore ways of challenging anthropocentric perspectives and empowering animal narratives.

Papers might consider:
• Animals as art materials
• Trade and mobility of animals across global networks
• Pet culture and pet-owner relationships
• Conflicting categories of animals (ie. pets vs. pests or livestock)
• Menageries and animal collecting practices
• Animals and science
• Anthropomorphism and blurring human-animal identities
• Recognizing animal individuality, subjectivity and agency
• Moral and ethical shifts in attitudes towards animals, including animal welfare
• Visual cultures of meat and/or vegetarianism
• Animal cruelty and suffering
• Religious and spiritual beliefs on shaping human-animal relations
• Connections between nationalism and attitudes towards animals
• Methodological reflections on animal studies and art history

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What Is Architectural Scenography?
Paul Ranogajec (Independent), pranogajec@gmail.com

Can scenography be a generative category for studying the history of architecture and urban design? As a descriptive term, scenography concerns the design of framed views and raises questions of spectatorship and public ceremonial. In a more interactive sense, it also identifies the choreography of space, the ways in which architectural and urban forms foster distinctive bodily and somatic experiences. While architectural writers including Rudolf Wittkower, Michael Fried, and Kenneth Frampton have occasionally invoked scenography, there are no shared understandings about its definition or scope in the literature. In fact, there have been few sustained studies of architectural scenography as a design mode in specific historical circumstances. Does the theatrical understanding of scenography as ‘setting the scene’, of staging the fictional within a performance space, translate to architectural scenography?

Two touchstones will help orient the panel’s scope. One is Daniel Savoy’s Venice from the Water (Yale, 2012), a book analysing ‘water-oriented urbanistic practices’ as part of the city’s civic ceremonial and contributing to the symbolic construction of the ‘myth of Venice’. Another, A Civic Utopia (Drawing Matter Studies, 2016), identifies scenography in 18th- and 19th-century France as related to the “very fabric [of cities], so that … the sight of the town itself would provide pleasures in its aspects and a ready awareness of its civic, social and commercial life.” This panel invites papers exploring the design elements, spatial dynamics, and historical significance—social, political, or economic—of architectural scenography from the early modern period to the present.