Reconstruction of Freud’s Office in the Bergstrasse 19, Vienna, Austria. Freud Museum, London
Much has been written about “The Islamic Carpet”. The great interest in Europe in these luxurious objects of art, from the early moments of their travels westward and of their being documented around the 14th century CE till today, endowed these artifacts with specific labels, all of which highlighted common European modes of taxonomy. Thus, these objects were usually identified not by their specific sites of manufactures (mainly Anatolia) or even sites of trade in the East but rather by their careful and precise renditions – as if portrayed – in European painting. The ‘Lotto’, ‘Bellini’ or ‘Holbein‘ Carpets relate to the masterpieces of the European great artists of the 15th, 16th and the 17th centuries, setting for these artifacts and their Christian beholders new western identities. The title of the paper refers to the modern history of another Anatolian carpet of the 19th century, which made its way to Vienna and landed in Sigmund Freud’s home, in the Bergstrasse 19 in Vienna. Its location above Freud’s couch, the site for Freud’s analytical gaze of human psyche, raises numerous queries about the role of carpets and ornaments as ambassadors and cryptograms of ‘the primal’, especially in Freud’s archaeological travel to the Unconsciousness. Freud’s carpet concomitantly appears as a physical and metaphorical space, which can be compared to, and even transformed into, the psychical entity of Freud’s patient.Avinoam Shalem is an art historian. He holds the Riggio Professorship for the Arts of Islam at Columbia University in New York. His main field of interest is in medieval artistic interactions in the Mediterranean, medieval aesthetics and the historiography of the field. Date: Wednesday, November 30th Time: 12:30pm-2:30pm Location: Online and In Person
This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm EST (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
This event will also be held in person at NYU in room 222, 20 Cooper Square, NY 10003. In accordance with university regulations, visitors must show a valid government-issued photo ID (children under 18 can provide non-government identification). Please use the following link to rsvp as an in-person attendee:
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
The undergraduate Humanities Fellowship Program is a new mentoring program for Juniors and Seniors working in the humanities. The selected Humanities Fellows exploreacademic topicsand other interests (arts, politics, work) in conversation with students from other disciplines. Humanities Fellows meet bi-weekly during the spring semester to engage in structured discussion on issues chosen by the students, and on topical debates. Students also participate in organized field trips and meetings with working professionals in the humanities such as curators, activists, artists and other group activities based on their interests.
We are delighted to announce that the Distinguished Scholar Session at the 111th CAA Annual Conference will honor Edward J. Sullivan.
This session provides an opportunity for dialogue and presentations highlighting his career and impact on the field. This event will be held in-person at the New York Hilton Midtown on February 16, 2022.
Established in 2001, the Distinguished Scholar Session illuminates and celebrates the contributions of senior art historians. The Annual Conference Committee identifies a distinguished scholar each year who then invites scholars to create the session. The Distinguished Scholar Session is a tradition that gives voice to the continuities and ruptures that have shaped art-historical scholarship from the twentieth century into the new millennium.
Many, many thanks to all of our alumni for writing in with so much wonderful news. Hearty and heartfelt congratulations on all of your achievements, activities, and milestones. We hope that you and your loved ones remain well and are staying safe, and we hope to hear from more of you for our next “Alumni News” round-up, which we’ll post sometime in spring, 2023. Great thanks go to departmental faculty Mosette Broderick, Dennis Geronimus, Carol Krinsky, and Jon Ritter for their contributions to this blogpost; to our former Administrative Aide (and Department of Art History alumna) Ozana Plemenitash for sending out the call for news; and to Manager Peggy Coon for assistance putting it together.
Phil Tajitsu Nash (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’78; J.D. Rutgers School of Law–Newark) has been assisting his anthropologist wife for thirty years as they train a new generation of indigenous youth in the Brazilian Amazon to take photos, create videos, and record, transcribe and translate oral histories of the elders to capture the changes seen by the introduction of literacy, money, and other factors. In June, one of their protégés, school teacher Piratá Waurá, was one of 12 indigenous youth worldwide to win a special Pulitzer Center prize in a contest to have indigenous photographers document the effects of climate change. While not a photographer himself, Nash credits his NYU Fine Arts training for helping him to understand enough about photography to help this young man to shoot and curate his photos.
Nancy J. Ruddy (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ‘70s; M.Arch CUNY), a founding partner of the interior design and architectural firm CetraRuddy Architecture, was honored as a Power Woman at Bisnow’s New York Women Leading Real Estate Cocktail Event, held on September 28, 2022. The award celebrates 50 of the industry’s top innovators, dealmakers and thought leaders across various different verticals in the commercial real estate industry. Of the seven honorees in the Construction, Architecture & ESG category, Nancy was the only architect in the group. Pictured below with fellow honorees L to R:
Sara Kendall, Vice President & General Manager, Turner Construction; Gina Bocra, Chief Sustainability Officer, NYC Department of Buildings; Mimi Raygorodetsky, Principal, Langan; Julie Lurie, Senior Managing Director, ESG Chair, Tishman Speyer; Nancy J. Ruddy, Founding Partner, CetraRuddy Architecture
(Not Pictured: Cheryl McKissack Daniel, President, CEO, McKissack; Charlotte Matthews, Head of Affordable Electrification, Google)
Olenka Z. Pevny (B.A. Fine Arts ‘85; M.A., Ph.D. Institute of Fine Arts, NYU ’95) was a keynote speaker at NYU’s Medieval and Renaissance Center Annual Conference, “Leaving Home,” held 4-5 November 2022. Pevny lectured on “The War in Ukraine: Effaced Itineraries of ‘The Other’ in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.” Pevny is a College Lecturer in Slavonic Studies in Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. Previously she was Associate Professor of Byzantine and Medieval Art and served as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Richmond, Virginia.
Tarek Ibrahim (B.A. Fine Arts ‘00) lives in Berlin where he works in the curatorial department at the Humboldt Forum, the rebuilt Royal Palace. He is teaching a course about the Museum Island for NYU Berlin while he works on his Ph.D. at Humboldt University.
Gabriel Wick (B.A. Gallatin/Urban Design & Architecture Studies ‘00; M. A. Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley ‘03; M2 in landscape conservation, École d’Architecture de Versailles ’09; Ph.D. History, Queen Mary University of London ‘17) has curated several exhibitions and advises owners of historic gardens about their conservation. As Gabriel puts it in his “Humanities Commons” bio , his research focuses on political culture in the pre-Revolutionary period, and in particular the meanings attached to English-inflected aesthetics and pastimes.” Among his many publications is his most recent book, Vivre à l’antique de Marie-Antoinette à Napoléon Ier (2021). Gabriel also teaches for NYU Paris.
Michele Saliola (B.A. Art History, Studio Art minor ‘01; M.A. Institute of Fine Arts, NYU ‘03) was promoted to Senior Director of Philanthropy and Grant Management at The Newark Museum of Art and has this update: “Don’t miss out: we are a must-see global collection just minutes from Manhattan by train. Ranked 12th largest collection in the nation, we have always been ahead of the curve in celebrating artists of color and the artistic achievements of under recognized people and cultures.” To plan your visit, visit NMOA’s website. This year, Michele was also appointed to the Historic Preservation and Documentation Committee of Scotch Plains Township in Union County, New Jersey, and currently serves on the Preserve the Shady Rest Committee, a 501c3 which preserves and provides access to the Shady Rest Golf & Country Club in Union County, New Jersey. Founded in 1921 as America’s first country club welcoming Black members, Shady Rest attracted a-list jazz performers, pro athletes and the Black cultural elite through the 1950s. Michele and her fellow Committee members marked Shady Rest’s 100th Anniversary by announcing the Clubhouse’s official listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a place for recreation for diverse families, then and now. Want to get involved? Follow Preserve Shady Rest on Facebook or contact Preserveshadyrest@gmail.com.
Jacob Simpson (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ‘01; M.A. Planning, MIT ‘05) earned his Ph.D. in Planning earlier this year from University College London’s The Bartlett School.
Saskia Verlaan (B.A. Art History ‘02; M.A., Courtauld Institute of Art ‘09; Ph.D. in progress, CUNY Graduate Center) was awarded the 2022-2023 Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize in Modern Italian studies. She is currently in residence at the American Academy in Rome until July 2023, where she is pursuing research on her doctoral dissertation, “Between Drawing and Script: Asemic Writing by Feminist Artists in Italy 1968–1980.” Examining the work of Irma Blank, Dadamaino, Betty Danon, and Maria Lai, Verlaan’s project analyzes asemic writing as a semiotic, Italian-feminist, and immigrant project and argues for its distinctiveness in relationship to international practices of conceptual art.
Lydia Mattice Brandt (B.A. Art History ‘04; M.A./Ph.D. University of Virginia, 2011) is a Professor in the School of Visual Arts at the University of South Carolina. Her most recent article, co-authored with Philip Mills Herrington of James Madison University, and published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81, 1 (2022): 63–84, is “The 1960s Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain, Georgia.” As the authors write, “The publication of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind in 1936, followed by the release of its landmark film adaptation in 1939, inspired a generation of readers and moviegoers to yearn to travel to Tara, the fictional Georgia home of Mitchell’s pampered heroine, Scarlett O’Hara. Opened in 1963 at the new Stone Mountain Park, 15 miles northeast of Atlanta, the Antebellum Plantation catered to tourists wishing to catch a glimpse of the storybook Old South” (p. 63). Brandt and Herrington examine the history, architecture, and decoration of this modern replica plantation that presents a sanitized version of southern history. Brandt and Herrington are at work on a book-length study of the phenomenon of “plantation revivals” in the United States.
Sara Allain-Botsford (B.A. Art History ‘07) recently completed a Master’s in Art History and Museum Studies at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. She is currently exploring opportunities in London while volunteering. She is a volunteer in the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute helping to digitize the library’s collection and the Anthony Kersting archive. In the new year she will volunteer at the British Museum.
Larisa Grollemond (B.A. Art History ‘07; Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania ‘16), Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Getty Museum, is proud to have co-curated, with Bryan C. Keene, The Fantasy of the Middle Ages, on view at the Getty Center from June 21 to September 11, 2022. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication of the same name. The project explored the visual construction of the Middle Ages over many centuries in illuminated manuscripts, prints and printed books, photography, cinema, reenactment, and beyond, resulting in a rich variety of modern medievalisms that are very much a part of popular culture today. For more information about the exhibition and links to the book and a variety of digital media created in conjunction with show (including a Google Arts & Culture version of the exhibition and a Spotify playlist).
Ksenia Nouril (B.A. Art History ‘09; Ph.D. Art History, Rutgers University ‘18) and her family have resettled in Queens. As Ksenia writes, “In September, I transitioned from my role as Jensen Bryan Curator at The Print Center in Philadelphia to the role of Gallery Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Programs at The Art Students League of New York. Please, come visit us at the League!” Ksenia remains connected to The Print Center: recently (on October 27) she launched her book with the artist Carmen Winant, “an artist’s intervention into the photographic archives of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Women In Transition. [The book] illuminates the invisible experiences of women and feminist strategies for survival, revolt & self-determination. Through its expansive consideration of image-making, domestic violence and feminism, it acknowledges the power of photography in depicting how women view themselves, and how photography can serve as a tool in the struggle or individual autonomy & self-representation. It complements a solo exhibition titled A Brand New End: Survival and Its Pictures, mounted at The Print Center in April 2022.” More information about the exhibition can be found here: http://printcenter.org/100/a-brand-new-end/. The show was reviewed in numerous publications, including most recently CAA Reviews: http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/4086#.Y0lkri-ZNo6
Alexis Wang (B.A. Art History ‘09; M.A./Ph.D. Art History & Archaeology, Columbia University ‘22) joined the faculty of the Department of Art History at SUNY Binghamton this September as Assistant Professor of Art History, https://www.binghamton.edu/art-history/people/profile.html?id=awang13. Alexis teaches courses in medieval art and architecture, including the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions of the medieval Mediterranean. Her areas of research specialty include Italian art of the high and late Middle Ages, embedded objects in Italian monumental church decoration, the circulation of portable objects, and the relationships between materiality and meaning in medieval visual culture.
Adina Haramati (B.A. Art History ‘10) earned her M.D. degree in 2015 from Albert Einstein College, Bronx NY. After an internship at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX), she happily returned to New York City. She is now a cardiothoracic radiologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.
Rebecca Rau (B.A. Art History ‘11; M.A. Art Business, Sotheby’s Institute London ‘16), fourth generation of New Orleans’s preeminent fine art, antique, and jewelry gallery, M.S. Rau, is excited to announce that after a largescale expansion and renovation in the French Quarter, M.S. Rau was named America’s “Coolest” Jewelry Store by InStore Magazine for 2022. The gallery celebrates its 110th year of business this year. In honor of the anniversary, Rebecca spearheaded a collaboration with New York jeweler Oscar Heyman, which was also founded in 1912. The collection debuts in late October and can be read about in Robb Report and JCK. Do not be fooled – fine art is still Rebecca’s first love – and she’s pleased to announce the gallery’s latest exhibition, Revolutionaries, exploring the legacy of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, which will feature masterpieces by Pierre Bonnard and Henri-Edmond Cross, as well as other works of significance by many usual suspects.
This summer, Charlie Tatum (B.A. Art History ‘11) took on the role of Director of Marketing and Communications at the New Orleans Museum of Art. For more about Charlie’s other projects see his website.
Kaylee Alexander (B.A. Art History, ‘13; M.A. History of Art & Architecture ‘15, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU; Ph.D. Art History & Visual Culture, Duke University ‘21) is the recipient of a 2022 Emerging Voices Fellowship from the American Council for Learned Societies (ACLS). Her project, tentatively titled “The US Cemetery Audit,” focuses on an ambitious data collection effort to track and assess inequity in the US burial landscape. As Kaylee puts it, “The project is informed not only by my dissertation findings regarding socioeconomic erasure and the market for funerary monuments in 19th-century Paris, but also my work as a volunteer researcher for Geer Cemetery in Durham, NC and recent developments in the field of monument studies. I will be taking an experimental and aggregate approach to studying US cemeteries and their development to investigate visible and invisible changes to US deathscapes over time.”
Karen Zabarsky (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ‘13) sends this news: “In January I launched my own creative and design studio for the built environment, called Ground Up.”
Emily Young (B.A. Art History/Urban Design & Architecture Studies, French minor, ‘14) won the Sibyl Moholy-Nagy History & Theory Essay Award this past May—her first year at Pratt’s M.Arch I program—for her essay titled “The Spiritual Body in the Construction of Bauhaus Architecture.” Find out more here.
Nora Gorman (B.A. Art History ‘15; M.S.Ed. Bank Street College of Education ‘22) graduated from Bank Street College of Education’s M.S.Ed. program in Leadership in Museum Education this May, and has recently joined the teaching staff of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as Assistant Educator, College and University Programs. In addition to working with visitors in the galleries, her role includes oversight of The Met Collective https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/the-met-collective, the committee of college students that plans events for their NYC-area peers, and support of The Met’s undergraduate and graduate internship programs. Nora’s work with The Met began with an internship while she was at NYU, and she looks forward to drawing on all she learned in the Department of Art History lecture halls in her new position.
Jiawei (Jerry) He (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies/Computer Science ‘16; M.Arch. Princeton University ‘20) writes, “I wanted to share that I and my project “Trenton MOVES” recently were awarded ‘2022 Young Professional’ and ‘2022 Outstanding Project’ by the Intelligent Transportation Society of New Jersey (ITSNJ)! I have also started volunteering at the newly formed IM Pei Foundation. I’m helping them digitize Pei’s early projects and hoping to contribute to an IM Pei Retrospective in the format of an exhibition and/or book. This is a growing effort and if you know some scholars/colleagues who are Pei experts, I’d appreciate it if you could kindly introduce me to them!” Jerry is the Executive Director of CARTS, whose goal is to provide safe, quality mobility for all.
(Charlotte) Yuyin Li (B.A. Art History, ‘19, Italian Studies and Studio Art minors) sends this news: “I’m currently in the third and final year of my study in the MA/MS dual-degree program of the Garman Art Conservation Department at SUNY Buffalo State College. This final year consists of a 12-month internship, and I’m working at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research.”
Sarah Fruehauf (B.A. Art History, German minor ‘22)recently accepted a position as a Client Liaison at Sotheby’s. She also has kindly assisted Professor Krinsky with some bibliographical reference work. For more about Sarah’s interests see https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-fruehauf.
Elizabeth Guo (B.A. Art History ‘22) began the Masters in Arts Administration program at Columbia University this fall. This summer, meanwhile, she earned an intern position at Pace’s Gallery. For more about Elizabeth’s interests, go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-guo-9673a4219.
Audrey Peterson (B.A. English Literature, Art History minor ‘22) writes, “This summer, I began working full-time as an assistant at Paula Cooper Gallery. The gallery reopened with a Sol LeWitt show, and I got to see the process of installing a wall drawing.”
Hannah Rothbard (B.A. Steinhardt, Studio Art, Urban Design & Architecture Studies minor ‘22) recently began a new position as Assistant Manager at MTA Arts & Design, whose mission is to “encourage the use of public transit by presenting visual and performing arts through the MTA system.”
Cast bronze mortar, eastern Iran or Afghanistan, 12th C. 16.3 cm H. The David Collection, Copenhagen
Pre-modern bronze production depended not only on specialized technical knowledge, but also on access to ores with chemically viable combinations of metals. Accordingly, areas with rich mines, such as Afghanistan and Anatolia, held special importance for the history of medieval Islamic bronze. In the turbulent twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contact between these very regions intensified as waves of refugees flooded westwards. What implications did this have for the facture, form, and function of bronze objects? Considering surviving mortars and drums in relation to the bodies that effected them, as well in relation to the bodies effected by their use, yields a multivalent, yet socially situated view of bronze, foment, and resonance in a turbulent era.
Persis Berlekamp is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. She researches the roles visual arts played in major cultural shifts and debates of the late medieval Islamic world (11th-15th centuries). Then, as now, the arts engaged with migration, cultural encounter, and heritage. Understanding the range of ways this happened in an era before the Enlightenment, the nation state, and the Industrial Revolution, helps us see the art differently, while highlighting historically specific aspects of our own assumptions and experience.
Date: Wednesday, November 16th Time: 12:30-2:30pm Location: Online
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:
Sickle maker, Nazareth, 1938. Photograph: John D. Whiting. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC-DIG-ppmsca-17414-00011
In his description of the splitting of reeds for the making of mats in the Iraqi village of Agga, Gavin Maxwell (d. 1969) expresses surprise that even experienced practitioners of the craft would often end up cutting their hands. Other writers have noted the harmful effects of factors such as poorly ventilated workspaces, toxic materials, and noise. Observations like these are an important reminder of the impacts that register on the body as the result of repetitive and arduous tasks conducted in challenging environments. Finished objects can bear subtle traces of the bodies of their makers, from fingerprints in fired clay to the characteristic slant and width of marks made by a brush or pen. This talk will question what can be learned in art historical terms through a focus on the bodies of those who have specialized in traditional modes of manufacturing across the Middle East from the seventh century to the present. Evidence will be drawn from extant objects from museum collections and excavations, as well as pre-modern written sources, photographs, and ethnographic studies. Marcus Milwright is professor of Islamic art and archaeology and department chair in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies, University of Victoria. His research focuses on the art and archaeology of the Islamic Middle East, labour and craft practices in the urban environment, and cross-cultural contacts in the Medieval Mediterranean. He is involved in archaeological and architectural projects in Jordan, Syria and Greece and has created the Crafts of Syria and Crafts of Iraq websites. His books include: An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology (Edinburgh, 2010), and The Dome of the Rock and its Umayyad Mosaic Inscriptions (Edinburgh, 2016); Islamic Arts and Crafts: An Anthology (Edinburgh, 2017); and The Queen of Sheba’s Gift: A History of the True Balsam of Matarea (Edinburgh, 2021). He is currently working on the publication of early Islamic pottery from Raqqa.
Date: Wednesday, November 9th Time: 12:30-2:30pm Location: Online and In Person in Room 222, 20 Cooper Square, NY 10003
This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm EST (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link: https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4fZnxko6SDeM7I7SpAy9xw Only registered attendees will be able to join this event.
This event will also be held in person at NYU in room 222, 20 Cooper Square, NY 10003. In accordance with university regulations, visitors must show a valid government-issued photo ID (children under 18 can provide non-government identification). Please use the following link to rsvp as an in-person attendee: https://forms.gle/tsPXihGrd44x29Rm6 Spaces are limited. If for any reason you have rsvp’d and cannot attend in-person, please use the form below to let us know.
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
Fields of Vision 