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interested in this forthcoming conference.
America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly
Pavilion Theatre, New Road, Brighton.
Saturday 28th October 2006 10.30 – 18.00
In response to the issues raised by the work being shown at this year’s
Brighton Photo Biennial’s central exhibition Nothing Personal being held at
the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, this conference brings together a range
of internationally renowned speakers drawn from across the fields of art
history, literary and cultural studies to debate the question of the imaging
of America through both historical and contemporary photographic practices.
As Susan Sontag observed in her essay – which gives its title to that of the
conference – the work of many of the most significant American photographers
since Walker Evans has often sharply diverged from the euphoric humanism and
aspirations to the democratisation of culture that once underpinned the
‘American dream’. In the work of the artists included in Nothing Personal
(Evans, Avedon, Warhol, Eggleston, Fusco, Misrach) we find images of America
that are more sceptical or openly critical of the American experience and
which sit uneasily with the dominant vision of a nation and its values as
projected politically both at home and abroad. At a time in which the United
States has assumed an increasingly imperial role on the world stage what the
work of such artists suggests is the continuing existence of a deep seated
malaise at the heart of America, a rift between image and reality, and a
measure of doubt to be set against the proclamations of apparent ideological
certainties.
The conference speakers are:
Alan Trachtenberg is Neil Grey, Jr., Professor Emeritus of English and
American Studies, Yale University. His work and writings have fallen
generally in the field of American cultural history of the 19th and 20th
centuries, with emphases on the analysis of photography, film and
literature, His publications include: Brooklyn Bridge: Fact & Symbol (1965),
The Incorporation of America (1982), Reading American Photographs (1989),
and Shades of Hiawatha (2004). A selection of his essays will entitled
Lincoln's Smile and Other Enigmas will be published next year.
Jonathan Harris is Professor of Art History at the University of Liverpool.
He is the author of Federal Art and National Culture: The Politics of
Identity in New Deal America (1995) and The New Art History: A Critical
Introduction (2001). His most recent book Writing Back to Modern Art: After
Greenberg, Fried, and Clark (2005) further explores some of the broader
intellectual, international, and socio-political contexts in which his
previous studies of American culture and society have been located.
Dr. Caroline Blinder lectures in American Literature at Goldsmiths College,
University of London. She has published widely on the relationships between
literature and photography, and the photo-essay. She is the editor and
contributor to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: New Critical Essays to be
published shortly and is currently completing a book on the intersections
between text and photography entitled ‘Going Home’: Writing American
Photography 1934-1959.
Dr. Nancy Jachec is currently a research fellow in the History of Art
Department, Oxford Brookes University. A specialist in government arts
policy and international cultural diplomacy during the Cold War, she is the
author of The Philosophy and Politics of Abstract Expressionism 1940-1960
and her latest book, Politics and Painting at the Venice Biennale 1948-1964:
Italy and the ‘European Idea’ will be published next year.
Professor Michael Corris is Head of the Department of Art and Photography at
the Newport School of Art, Media and Design, University of Wales. During the
early-1970s, he worked with the Conceptual art group, Art & Language, in New
York and as an individual artist his work has been exhibited internationally
and is included in many major international museum collections. Since 1990
he has concentrated on writing and researching late-modern and contemporary
art. He is the editor and contributor to Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth and
Practice (2004) and his monograph on Ad Reinhardt is to be published shortly.
Dr. Julian Stallabrass is a Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art at the
Courtauld Institute, London. His published work has centred on issues
arising from developments in British art, the history of photography, and
the relationship between fine art and mass culture. More recently, he has
been working in the linked areas of global contemporary art, online art and
culture, and the political role of art. He is the author of Gargantua:
Manufactured Mass Culture (1996), High Art Lite: British Art in the 1990s
(1999), and Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce (2003).
Conference Fee: £30 full; £20 concessions.
For booking contact:
David Green,
School of Historical and Critical Studies,
10/11 Pavilion Parade,
Brighton, BN2 1RA.
Telephone: 01273 643014 (answerphone)
Email: [log in to unmask]
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