Leila Amineddoleh: Cultural Heritage, the Law, and Looting

Thursday, October 7 at 6:30 PM Via Zoom RSVP here to receive the link

For centuries, sought-after antiquities have been subject to high-profile ownership disputes. From the smuggling of religious artifacts out of the Holy Land to Hitler’s extensive looting of artistic property, cultural objects have been targeted by rapacious collectors and leaders. Whether ownership claims involve private parties or government entities, laws regulating the trade of art and antiquities have evolved over time, and they provide telling clues as to how we value art and cultural heritage.  Amineddoleh’s lecture will examine a number of antiquities disputes and will discuss legal topics related to the trade of artifacts. 

Leila Amineddoleh is founding partner at Amineddoleh and Associates.  She has successfully represented and advised the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Republic of Italy and various private individuals and governmental organizations against practices of looting, forgery and illicit sales of artworks.  Her publications can be found in multiple legal and cultural heritage journals, and she is adjunct professor at NYU and Fordham University.

Islamic Matters in Africa and the Colonial Atlantic

The Launch of the Islam, the Humanities, and the Human Working Group Featuring Prita Meier (NYU) and R.A. Judy (University of Pittsburgh) Friday, October 1, 2021 at 11:30 AM EST on Zoom  The Islam, the Humanities and the Human Working Group seeks to contribute to the development of a transformative Humanities at Rutgers-Newark by offering a space for faculty and students to engage with the breadth and depth of Islamic history and Muslim societies. During the 2021-2022 year, the faculty seminar will hold a series of readings, conversations, and invited lectures around the inaugural theme, “Islamic Matters in Africa and the Colonial Atlantic.” The inaugural speakers are: Prita Meier, New York University“Portrait Photography in Muslim East Africa: Aesthetic Practice and the Limits of the ‘Islamic’ Label” Prita Meier is an Africanist art and architectural historian who looks at visual culture and built space through the lenses of circulation, empire and globalization. Her scholarship centers on the spatial and aesthetic politics of coastal cities, ports, and border territories. Her primary research site is the Swahili coast of eastern Africa. Her book, Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere (Indiana University Press, 2016), explores the contested meanings of the built landscape of still-thriving eastern African ports, including Mombasa, Lamu, and Zanzibar.  R.A. Judy, University of Pittsburgh“African/American Muslims, an Old Ongoing Problem for Thought in Arabic: The Case of Lamen Kebe and Ben Ali” R.A. Judy is Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and a member of the boundary 2 Editorial Collective, whose work has spanned the fields of comparative literature and cultural studies, as well as Arabic literature and black studies.  His publications include (Dis)forming the American Canon: The Vernacular of African Arabic American Slave Narrative (Minnesota University Press, 1993) and more recently, Sentient Flesh: Thinking in Disorder/Poiēsis in Black (Duke, 2020).

Professor Meredith Martin has published two critical reviews of Paris’s newest museum,The Hôtel de la Marine

Left Bank/Right Bank: Two Views of the “Indies” in Paris – by Meredith Martin

https://www.artforum.com/slant/meredith-martin-on-the-nouvelles-indes-tapestries-86680

“THE BODY OF THE MERCHANT: ART AND EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION”

Ittai Weinryb, Bard Graduate Center

Wednesday, September 29th, 12:30pm ET

[Online] Silsila Fall 2021 Series

Leaf from a Cocharelli Treatise on the Vices: Frontispiece to the Book of Envy. British Library, Add. 27695, fl. 4

From the early thirteenth century traders from Italian mercantile families started travelling eastward, to the European frontiers, to areas such as Crimea in the northern Black Sea region, where commercial outposts served as markets for trading goods with Eurasia and beyond. The lecture centers on the experience of those traders, focusing on metalwork and the way it shaped discourse regarding art, heritage, and the indigenous, both in the European frontiers and “back home” in Italy’s domestic spaces. 

Ittai Weinryb is an Associate Professor at the Bard Graduate Center. He is the co-founder (together with Caroline Fowler and Princeton University Press) of the book series Art/Work which is set to narrate a new history of art founded in the study of objects, materials, and technology. He is currently writing a book on art and material culture in the Black Sea during the Middle Ages and another one on the sentiment of Hope as a category for artistic creativity. Amongst other publications, he is the author of The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (2016) and curator of the exhibition Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place (2018).
 Date: Wednesday, September 29th
Time: 12:30-2:30pm
Location: Online

This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm ET (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rb2MPFdnRuCJuXzyyrn-AQ

Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.Silsila: Center for Material Histories is an NYU center dedicated to material histories of the Islamicate world. Each semester we hold a thematic series of lectures and workshops, which are open to the public. Details of the Center can be found at: 

http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/silsila.html

If you missed it…watch the discussion of her new exhibition, “Spain, 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith” at The Met Cloisters, led by DAH Alumna and Assistant Curator at The Met Cloisters Julia Perratore

DAH alumna Julia Perratore (B.A. Art History ’03, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania ’12), the curator of the new exhibit at the Met Cloisters Spain, 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith, led a conversation this past Sunday about the history and cultures of Jews in medieval Iberia, contextualizing the exhibit. Participating in the conversation were Professor Katrin Kogman-Appel, who discussed medieval art and architecture of the period, Professor Jonathan Ray, who addressed the social and cultural contexts of different strata of Jewish society, and Professor Peter Cole, who shared his insights into literary culture and also read several poems from Iberia that he translated. The event was organized by Professor Nina Rowe of Fordham University and co-sponsored by Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you missed this exciting event you may view it here.

(This blog text adapted from the Newsletter produced by Fordham University’s Center for Jewish Studies).

Brooklyn Rail Review of Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities by Professor Pepe Karmel

https://brooklynrail.org/2021/09/artseen/Shazia-Sikander-Extraordinary-Realities

Traversing Multiple Realities of Contemporary American and Asian Art: Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander installing her show at the Morgan Library Museum in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, June 15, 2021. Photograph by Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times

Wednesday, September 22, 2021 Livestream at 6:00 PM ET Please note this is a virtual program; advance registration is required.

n conjunction with the exhibition Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities, jointly organized by the Morgan Library & Museum (on view through September 26, 2021) and the RISD Museum (November 12, 2021 – January 30, 2022), IFA Contemporary Asia is excited to present a webinar featuring the internationally celebrated Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander. Having established pioneering conversations since the 1990s between her contemporary art practice and South, West, and Central Asian manuscript traditions, Sikander exploded their storytelling potential within heterogeneous mediums over the past three decades. Sikander’s paintings, video animations, mosaics, and sculptures incisively probe gender roles and sexuality, racial and colonial narratives. Her work playfully critiques Orientalist histories of art and America’s global wars, poignantly centering the violence of empires, past and present, and displaying near and distant geographies as inextricably linked. Professor Dipti Khera, Associate Professor of South Asian Art and Architecture at NYU, will introduce the panel. Following a presentation by the artist Shahzia Sikander, three scholars will discuss the ideas and questions provoked by Sikander’s wide-ranging artistic practice: Dr. Kelly Baum, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Professor Gayatri Gopinath, Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU; and Dr. Brinda Kumar, Associate Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.    This discussion seeks to expand the understandings of Sikander’s practice in relation to broader narratives about contemporary American and Asian Art; the framing of Asian diasporic artists in curatorial practice and museums; and the history of collecting and colonialism that Sikander has intertwined in interrogating migrations of peoples and objects in the longue durée.  For more information on the speakers, please visit our website.  RSVP           Shahzia Sikander (born 1969), Epistrophe, 2021, Gouache and ink on tracing paper, Collection the artist, The Morgan Library & Museum. Artwork © Shahzia Sikander, Photography © Casey Kelbaugh.

Call for Papers, Undergrad Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies

New exhibition at The Met Cloisters, “Spain 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith,” curated by DAH Alumna Julia Perratore

DAH alumna and Assistant Curator at The Met Cloisters Julia Perratore (B.A. Art History ’03, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania ’12) has curated a new exhibition titled Spain, 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith (on view August 30, 2021–January 30, 2022).

Fordham University’s Center for Jewish Studies is hosting two public programs in conjunction with the exhibition. The first one, “The Cloisters and the Jews in Medieval Spain: A Conversation on Art, Literature, and History,” will take place on Sunday, September 19^th. It is organized by Nina Rowe, Professor of Art History, Department of Art History and Music at Fordham University, in cooperation with Dr. Perratore. The panel will feature Peter Cole, a translator of medieval Jewish poetry, art historian Katrin Kogman-Appel, and Jonathan Ray, a scholar of Jewish history in Spain.

Look here for more information about the exhibition, this public program, and other talks and events related to the exhibit.

Fall 2021 Events at Silsila: Center for Material Histories

Silsila: Center for Material Histories  Fall 2021 Series Dear colleagues and friends, Thank you for your support through a difficult and unsettled period globally during the academic year 2020-2021. We are delighted to announce a new season of events with the start of a new semester. With the effects of the pandemic continuing to be felt, our program for autumn 2021 will continue online. Once again, we are extremely grateful to our speakers for agreeing to participate in this format.  As with this past semester, our programming will consist of a mix of Wednesday lectures (held at 12.30-2.30pm New York time) and Friday workshops arranged at varying times to suit both attendees and participants across several continents. Our first event begins on September 15th. The full details are listed below and can also be found on our website:   https://as.nyu.edu/silsila/events.html Only registered attendees will be able to access the events. Links to register for each event can be found on the webpage for each, accessed through the website.   We look forward to welcoming you back to Silsila, virtually, on September 15th.   With best wishes, Finbarr Barry Flood, director, Silsila: Center for Material Histories

Silsila Fall 2021 Series Sep 15th (Wed), 12:30-2:30pm “THE SULTANS’ TOMBS OF BANDA ACEH – A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF INDONESIAN ISLAMIC ART” Mirjam Shatanawi, Reinwardt Academy/Amsterdam University of the Arts Sep 29th (Wed), 12:30-2:30pm “THE BODY OF THE MERCHANT: ART AND EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION” Ittai Weinryb, Bard Graduate Center Oct 15th (Fri), 12:00-2:30pm “MANUFACTURING THE SACRED: OBJECTS OF VENERATION IN THE MODERN ISLAMIC WORLD” Hala Auji, American University of Beirut; Elizabeth Rauh, American University in Cairo; Anissa Rahadiningtyas, Cornell University; Alya Karame, American University of Beirut; Nur Sobers-Khan, Aga Khan Documentation Center MIT Oct 27th (Wed), 12:30-2:00pm “PAINTING IN EARLY MODERN BAGHDAD” Melis Taner, Özyeğin University Nov 5th (Fri), 11:00-1:30pm “ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE MUSEUM” Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard College/Columbia University; Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania; Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, National Museum of Afghanistan; Martina Müller-Wiener, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin; Christian Greco, Museo Egizio, Turin Nov 19th (Fri), 10:00-1:00pm “MATERIAL CULTURES OF ISLAMIC CHINA: NEW PERSPECTIVES” Sylvia Wu, University of Chicago; Eiren Shea, Grinnell College; Jinyi Liu, NYU Institute of Fine Arts; Yu-wen Weng, National Palace Museum, Taipei; Xu Xiaodong, Chinese University of Hong Kong Dec 1st (Wed), 12:30-2:30pm “THE SHADOW OEUVRE OF MOHAMMED RACIM” William Gallois, University of Exeter Dec 8th (Wed), 12:30-2:30pm  “SULTANS OF THE SEA: PIECING TOGETHER SOVEREIGNTY AND MARITIMITY IN THE RED SEA (10th-16th CENTURIES)” Roxani Eleni Margariti, Emory University

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