Fine Arts Society Event

 

Hey Everyone!

Even though it’s only Monday, we’re already looking forward to the weekend! ThisSunday, March 6th we will be heading up to the Neue Gallery to check out the“Munch and Expressionism” exhibition. This is a show you won’t want to miss! If you’re interested in joining us, please RSVP by responding to this email with you full name by 12pm this Wednesday, March 2nd to secure your spot! Space is limited and please keep in mind if you RSVP you will have to be there!

We also have some other great events in the works for March so keep your eyes peeled for more updates!

We hope to see you this weekend!
-FAS

Rosenblum Lecture, March 9

An Archaeology of Image Culture
Michael Leja

The quarter century before the American Civil War encompassed a radical transformation in the national culture:  pictures went from being rare and remarkable to ubiquitous and integral to daily life.  Printed images especially became increasingly essential to marketing, political persuasion, the circulation of information, social interaction, and routine amusement.  A new image ecology emerged as new print media disrupted traditional hierarchies and as established media adjusted to reconfigured opportunities.  This lecture will draw from a book-length study of this transformation to outline a range of watershed events and focus more closely on one or two case studies, including the 1840 presidential election.  The campaign of William Henry Harrison marked the first time pictures figured significantly in American presidential politics, and the resemblances to 21st-century practices do not end there.

Wednesday, March 9th, 6:30PM in 300 Silver

Professor Meredith Martin wins ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship!

http://www.acls.org/research/fellow.aspx?cid=1cb05f62-09c6-e511-9430-000c29879dd6

Steinhardt Symposium featuring Professor Michele Matteini

True, Good, Beautiful: Politics and Forms of Virtue in Xi Jinping-Era China Friday, February 26, 2016 | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication 239 Greene Street, Floor 8, New York

The phrase zhen, shan, mei—here translated as “true, good, beautiful”–encapsulates total goodness, a phrase used in everything from self-help literature to soap-opera television, associated with both idealism and naiveté. We use it to open a discussion across the bounds of languages and disciplines, on the politics and economics of the forms of virtue in contemporary China. The politics of virtue have once again come to dominate public discourse in China as Xi Jinping’s government pursues the most far-reaching anti-corruption campaign of recent decades, demoting and punishing party officials and aggressively suppressing “subversive” authors and activists. At the same time, Chinese citizens have been seeking truth, virtue, and beauty in a variety of texts, practices, and sites. Confucian ritual, Christianity, Buddhism, as well as medical and psychological self-help, doctrines of “positive thinking,” have all proliferated. Symposium Program [ Breakfast   9:45 AM ] [ Student Roundtable  10:00 AM ] The Chinese in Vladivastok: Capital, Expansion, and Reterritorialization in the Russian Far East Joseph Livesey, Anthropology, NYU From Practical Jokes to Practical Interventions: Video and Transitional Artistic Practices in the early 1990s Katie Grube, East Asian Studies, NYU Woman-Man on Chinese Social Media Meiying Li, Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU “Baoba”: Post-comments and Discourse Chronotopes on Tieba and Weibo Yalong Chen, Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU [ Lunch  11:30 AM ] [ Film Screening  12:30 PM ] We Are Here (我们在这里) with Directors Jing Zhao and Shi Tou What happens when 300 lesbians from around the world attend the largest United Nations conference? How did two busloads of lesbians headed to an underground nightclub help spark the birth of a lala (LBT) movement in China? At the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the first ever lesbian tent at an UN NGO Forum was created. At the tent, ideas were shared, connections were made, identities were assured … with a growing emergence of energy for change. Moderated by Zhang Zhen, Associate Professor, Cinema Studies; Director and Founder of the Asian Film and Media Initiative at Cinema Studies, NYU [ Panel I   2:15 PM ] The Forms of Virtue: “Late-Socialist” Antinomies of Aesthetics and Ethics Lily Chumley, Assistant Professor, Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU Soups: Gifts of Flavor and the Beauty of Good Tastes Lai Lili, Assistant Professor, Peking University (Visiting UNC-Chapel Hill) and Judith Farquhar, Professor Emerita, Anthropology, University of Chicago The Virtuous Museum of Guiyi: Realizing True Filiality Through Story and Object Angela Zito, Associate Professor, Religious Studies and Anthropology; Co-Director of the Center for Religion and Media, NYU Belief and Moral Authority in a Post-Belief Society John Osburg, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Rochester Absolute Privacy or the Moral Irony Liu Xin, Professor, Anthropology, UC Berkeley [ Coffee Break  3:45 PM ] [ Panel II   4:00 PM ] One-Dimensional Networked Visibility: Narrating the “False, Evil, and Ugly” Bai Ruoyun, Associate Professor, Media and Communication, University of Toronto The Return of the Staged Confession: Reflections on neo-Stalinist Self-incriminations Magnus Fiskesjo, Anthropology, Cornell University Transmission of “Positive Energy”: Citizenship and Democratic Culture in China’s New Media Environment Wang Jing, PhD Candidate, Media and Communication, Rutgers University “Rational, Neutral, Objective”: Demobilizing Emotions in Chinese Cyberspace Yang Guobin, Professor, University of Pennsylvania [ Discussion + Reception   5:40 – 6:30 PM ] Moderated by Michele Matteini, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, NYU Hosted by the NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication Lecture Series. Funded by a grant from the NYU Center for the Humanities with co-sponsorship from the NYU Departments of Anthropology; Religious Studies; the Center for Religion and Media; and the Asian Film and Media Initiative.

Professor Miriam Basilio to Speak on March 24

THEODORE:ART
56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
theodoreart.com  212 9664324  theodoreart@gmail.com

Michelle Vaughan
Generations

February 26 – April 3, 2016
Reception for the artist – Friday February 26, 6-9 PM

GALLERY HOURS FRIDAYS 1-8, SATURDAY-SUNDAY 1-6 PM

Exhibition talk with the artist and Miriam M. Basilio,
Associate Professor of Art History and
Museum Studies, New York University
Thursday, March 24 at 7 PM

I am just a copy of a copy of a copy
Everything I say has come before
– Nine Inch Nails “Copy of a”

Theodore:Art is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by New York-based artist Michelle Vaughan. This will be Vaughan’s first solo show at the gallery.

Vaughan’s oeuvre investigates topics such as power, politics and history, with every possible ramification and aspect brought into play in aesthetic form. A museum obsessive, Vaughan peers through the lens of “important” and lesser works of art to examine deep topical issues that connect art to uncovered histories. Diego Velázquez, and his apprentices, Juan Carreño de Miranda and Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, created portraits of the family of King Philip IV (1605-1665) that have seduced and dazzled viewers for centuries, but the lesser-known aspect of the Habsburgs, as well as much of European nobility of that era, is for Vaughan the most fascinating and the most horrifying.

New information can create contradictions to everything known before. As European countries expanded and ruled much of the Western World, the nobility in command played with genetic fire and their own survival in the quest for the purest blue blood. Tightly woven intermarrying over several centuries was no accident — it served to strengthen, not weaken, the power of the court. The Habsburgs were committed to keeping control of Europe, whatever the cost.

Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bavarians and leading houses of Europe arranged all marriages and many were first cousins. But the 17th c. Habsburg family had extraordinary high levels of shared genetics — there were two sequential uncle-niece marriages after a strain of intermarrying prior to these unions. As a result, their inbreeding coefficient numbers ranged higher than offspring produced by a brother and sister. Genetically it is problematic to be over 25% inbred, but some of this family was 50%-75%.

Vaughan’s exhibition consists of digitally manipulated portraits of the family of King Philip IV — ten members of the Spanish-Austrian Habsburg dynasty spanning four generations, as well as grids depicting uncle-niece unions, animated GIFs of the original portraits, and drawings which are copies of those GIFs. The work is a series of copies; Vaughan selected web images where the original source is often unknown, then removed digital information and copied multiple times, in different media.

This process mirrors the activity of reproducing offspring with high inbreeding coefficients due to intermarrying. Chromosome strands show repeated genetic information, creating a degraded immune system and a much higher chance of disorder and disease.  The development of this body of work also replicates the reproduction of court portraits in the atelier. The artist’s apprentice copied an original, then the workshop of the artist produced more of those copies, attributed to “The Studio of …” But after distribution, lesser artists continued the copying, and several of those interpretations still remain, copies of copies of copies.

Michelle Vaughan received her BFA at UCLA. Her art practice focuses on political or historical subjects: she examines topics and then deconstructs and reinterprets the material through her work. Vaughan has had solo shows at Dumbo Art Center and the South Street Seaport, where she was awarded fiscal sponsorship from the New York Foundation of the Arts for Sea Warriors: A Public Art Project, in 2009. Vaughan was born in Anaheim, California and lives in New York City.

For information and images please contact the gallery at 212 966 4324 ortheodoreart@gmail.com

News From Historic and Sustainable Architecture in London: Snape Maltings Project!

The nine NYUL students on the Masters course on Adaptable Re-use of Historic Buildings have had a unique opportunity to contribute to a real building project.  Part of the beautiful Snape Maltings was converted into a concert hall for Aldeburgh Music in the ‘60’s.  The hall has the finest acoustic in England and is enormously popular with musicians from all over the world.  This was a very early and famous example of the adaptable re-use of an industrial building.  The hall was followed a few years later by the conversion of other buildings into a world class music school.  Recently Aldeburgh Music bought the rest of this large industrial site, and the current question is how to alter the buildings to provide a range of new uses – student rooms with common rooms and bars; rooms for visiting musicians, including big orchestras; recording studios; and even holiday lets.  This project was given to the NYUL students to see what they might come up with – 60,000 sq. ft. of potential space in about eight buildings of varying size and construction.  They visited the site twice, took many photos, and had workshops in one of Aldeburgh Music’s studios and also in a nearby 15^th century manor house.  They divided into three teams of three and took on different buildings on the site, and produced a composite Powerpoint presentation of their ideas. Following a very positive review they are currently working together to produce one report for all the derelict buildings.  This will be given to Aldeburgh Music, and it is hoped will help the Trustees to see what might be possible.

Fine Arts Society Event on February 20

 

Hey Everyone!

We hope you’re all staying warm and enjoying your day without classes! We’re planning a FAS event for this Saturday, February 20th! We will be going the the Met to see the Vigée Le Brun exhibition! We will be meeting at 11am around thegeneral information desk in the Main Hall. If you’re having trouble finding us on Saturday, text or call Ozana at 908 797-7637. Don’t forget to bring your NYU ID! Feel free to email us with any questions! We hope to see you this weekend!

-FAS

Pepe Karmel in Conversation at the Grey Gallery

Valerie Jaudon, Ostinato, 2014. Oil on linen, 78 x 78 in. Courtesy the artist

 

Conversation Valerie Jaudon and Pepe Karmel Tuesday, February 16, 7:00 pm Silver Center, Room 301 (enter at 32 Waverly Place) Valerie Jaudon, artist, and Pepe Karmel, associate professor of art history, NYU, will discuss her work, including her involvement in the Pattern and Decoration movement, with its interest in abstract Persian ornamental forms such as arabesques. Co-sponsored by NYU’s Department of Art History and Grey Art Gallery. Free of charge, no reservations, capacity limited. All programs are subject to change. Photo ID required for entrance to NYU buildings. Offered in conjunction with the exhibition Global/Local 1960–2015: Six Artists from Iran, on view at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery January 12–April 2, 2016. For more information on the exhibition, please visit greyartgallery.nyu.edu

 

Piero news from Professor Geronimus

You probably remember this.

And now there is this:The exhibition catalogue Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence (accompanying the show of the same title at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2015), co-edited by Gretchen Hirschauer of the National Gallery of Art and Dennis Geronimus, has won an honorable mention in the prestigious 2016 PROSE Awards, in the Art Exhibitions category. The PROSE Awards are sponsored by the Professional & Scholarly Publishing division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). This past year, the PROSE Awards received a record-breaking 551 entries — more than ever before in its 40-year history — from 70 publishers around the world.  https://proseawards.com/winners/2016-award-winners/#body

A Chair that Conquered America History of Thonet Bentwood Furniture: Design-Technology-Production

Prof. Jiří Pelcl, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM), Prague

Wednesday, February 17, 2016, 6:30 pm

New York University

Department of Art History

Silver Center 301

100 Washington Square East

(entrance on Waverly Place)

Michael Thonet (1796-1871) patented in Germany a process of heat bending of several layers of wood veneer glued together and laminated. He also developed a method of bending solid wood. His bent solid and laminated beech chairs remain among the most successful industrial designs of all time. Josef Hoffmann, Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos used Thonet’s bentwood technology in their furniture designs. Le Corbusier later used Thonet furniture in his Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 Paris Exhibition. Painters Auguste Renoir and Toulouse Lautrec featured Thonet chairs in their paintings and drawings, and Pablo Picasso had one in his studio.

Thonet settled in Bohemia in 1856 to open his first factories, and by 1900 Thonet’s furniture was a smashing success in the USA. His Chair No.14 became the best-known and most manufactured model. It is still produced in its original design in the factory in the Czech Republic.

Jiří Pelcl is a prominent personality in the field of design in the Czech Republic. Aside from applied design work for industrial manufacturing, he also teaches design and is the head of Furniture and Interior Design Studio at UMPRUM in Prague, where he was a rector in 2002–2005. His design work has received many awards and is represented in permanent design collections around the world. Currently, he is a visiting Fulbright Masaryk Scholar at the Pratt Institute researching history of the Shaker furniture style. www.pelcl.cz

Sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians, New York Metropolitan Chapter; NYU Department of Art History, Urban Design and Architecture Studies; and Czech House, NYU Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, in cooperation with Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences

 

–Free and open to the public–