We are very happy to share the short film that Professor Meredith Martin researched, wrote, and produced with her colleague Hannah Williams and made with the National Gallery this past summer. Above is the instagram trailer post.
And here is the complete film:
  Pre-Columbian Society of New York Lecture Serieswith Andrea Vázquez de Arthur |
| Pottery as Ritual Tech in the Ancient Andes: A Revisionary Study of Wari Faceneck Vessels Monday, November 6, 2023 at 6:00 PM In-Person and Virtual Lecture* Advance registration is required The Institute of Fine Arts 1 East 78th Street, New York, NY 10075 and on Zoom The faceneck vessel is a prolific, yet enigmatic ceramic form popular among the Wari civilization, a powerful polity with widespread cultural influence during the Middle Horizon of Andean prehistory. Sometimes described as effigies, other times lumped in with all other narrow-necked jars, the classification of these objects fluctuates between the ritual and the utilitarian. Are they representational images or decorative dinnerware? At the heart of this conundrum is the issue that Andean pottery operates in ways that are unfamiliar to Western traditions, and many ancient Andean vessel types have no counterpart outside the Americas. An important distinction of the faceneck is that it also has a body, imbuing the vessel with an acute sense of personhood. Drawing on theories of Andean perspectivism, an ontological viewpoint that considers the significance of feasting rituals and ancestor veneration within an animate world, this presentation will address the potential for faceneck vessels to have participated as social agents in complex rituals involving valuable offerings and communion with the dead. Andrea Vázquez de Arthur is an assistant professor of art history at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, specializing in the ancient, modern, and contemporary visual arts of Latin America. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a PhD in art history from Columbia University. Prior to joining the faculty at FIT, Dr. Vázquez de Arthur was the Leigh and Mary Carter Director’s Research Fellow at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she curated the exhibition “Fashioning Identity: Mola Textiles of Panamá.” Her research focuses on the diverse archaeological cultures of the ancient Andes, primarily from the Middle Horizon and the Late Intermediate Period. Through studies of comparative analysis, her work investigates systems of visual language, Indigenous ontologies, and gender representation in the visual culture of various societies including Moche, Wari, Lambayeque, and Chimú. *The program will be presented onsite at the James B. Duke House and live-streamed to those who join us by Zoom. Zoom details will be available upon registration for virtual attendees. JOIN US IN-PERSON JOIN US VIRTUALLY |
We would like to share an upcoming virtual program hosted by the Morgan that may be of interest to your student community. The College Career Chats are a great way for both undergraduate and graduate students to learn more about museum careers, network with professionals, and hopefully find inspiration for their next internship or job interview.
I wanted to draw your attention to this session specifically as the staff represented here come primarily from literary or language backgrounds, which may be of interest to students who are not necessarily focusing on art history.
College Career Chats: Behind the Scenes at the Morgan Library & Museum
Thursday, November 2, 2023, 3:00 PM
Who works at a museum and research library? How does an exhibition come together? What is the difference between a curator, a conservator, and a collections manager? Who oversees the budget, engages with the public, and re-shelves the rare books?
Current undergraduate and graduate students are invited to join this virtual conversation series and meet staff representing various departments at the Morgan. Participants can ask questions, get career inspiration, and discover behind-the-scenes insights.
Please note that the program will take place online. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation e-mail with instructions on how to participate using Zoom. We ask that you download the app in advance for the best user experience.
Program is for current undergraduate and graduate students only.
Each session will feature different staff and fresh insights.
Tickets: Free; limited availability, advance registration is required.
We are pleased to invite you to the 2023-2024 Larissa Bonfante Workshop of Etruscan and Italic Arts. This year the Workshop will focus on
Ways of Making in Ancient Italy
Nov. 16-17
(new Fall event time!)
In recent years, the peoples, practices, and processes related to making and creative action in early Italy have taken a more central position in scholarship. Multiple books and collected works on artisanal practice and on the mobilities and lifeways of those involved in craftwork have traced the subtleties of the many worlds of makers and their ways of making. This has included multiple aspects of the material contributions of, for example, decoration, fabrication, construction, sourcing, and many kinds of craft output, from weaving to metalworking and from building to fine carving. This workshop brings together scholars working across materials and scales of making to think about these issues.
Keynote Address (co-sponsored by the AIA New York Society):
Margarita Gleba “Ways of Making Textiles in Early Italy: Archaeology of Lost Economies”
Register for the keynote here
Participants: Maria Cristina Biella (La Sapienza); Laurent Haumesser (Louvre); Delphine Tonglet (Met); Anna Sofer (Brown); Laura Ambrosini (CNR); Anthony Tuck (U-Mass, Amherst); Nancy Thomas de Grummond (FSU)
Register for the Friday talks and discussion here
For the full program and more information about the Workshop, please visit our website: bonfanteworkshop.org
https://wordpress.com/post/nyuarthistory.wordpress.com/8093
Professor Meredith Martin’s co-authored book, The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV’s France (Getty Research Institute, 2022) has won the trifecta of major book prizes in her fields: the David Pinkney Prize for best book in French history from the Society for French Historical Studies; the Kenshur Prize for best book in eighteenth-century studies from the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies; and the Leo Gershoy Award for most outstanding book in any field of 17th- and 18th-Century European history from the American Historical Association. (The AHA prize, which is named after a historian who taught at NYU for 35 years (!). Her co-author Gillian Weiss and Meredith are very excited that their book has won all three of these prizes.
Across the pond they also made the shortlist for Apollo Magazine’s Book of the Year. And The Sun King at Sea has recently received a nice shout-out from the editor of The Art Bulletin as a model of innovative collaborative scholarship
| Looking at Picasso |
Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 6:00 pm
In-Person and Virtual Lecture*
Advance registration is required
The Institute of Fine Arts
1 East 78th Street, New York, NY 10075
and on Zoom
In Looking at Picasso Pepe Karmel approaches Picasso’s work through the lens of art rather than biography, showing how he invented countless new visual languages and transformed the traditional themes of Western art. After tracing Picasso’s evolution from the Rose and Blue Periods to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Karmel surveys the development of Cubism, beginning with crystalline facets and ending with overlapping planes glowing with color and texture. Turning to Picasso’s surrealist work, he demonstrates how the artist’s abstract constellations and interlaced figures of the early 1920s led to his so-called “monsters” as well as to sensual reveries like Girl Before a Mirror. Another chapter explores Picasso’s creation of multiple classical styles, from his 1919 drawings of ballet dancers, inspired by Pompeian frescoes, to the Greek tragedy of the 1935 Minotauromachy, evoking Rembrandt. A final chapter follows Picasso from Guernica, his 1937 vision of terror and destruction, to the abstract sign language of The Kitchen (1948), to his disturbing late work.
Pepe Karmel, Professor of Art History, Department of Art History, and the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, is the author of Picasso and the Invention of Cubism (2003), Abstract Art: A Global History (2020), and Looking at Picasso (fall 2023). He has written widely on modern and contemporary art for museum catalogues, as well as for the New York Times, Art in America, Brooklyn Rail, and other publications. He has also curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Robert Morris: Felt Works (Grey Art Gallery, New York, 1989), Jackson Pollock (MoMA, New York, 1998), and Dialogues with Picasso (Museo Picasso Málaga, 2020).
*The program will be presented onsite at the James B. Duke House and live-streamed to those who join us by Zoom. Zoom details will be available upon registration for virtual attendees.
Documenting a Performing Arts History
| Wednesday, October 18, 20235:30 PM – 7:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time19 Washington Square North |
| The Arts Center – Building a performing arts community on Saadiyat Island (Akkadia Press, 2021) marks the growth and development of The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi across its first seven years, as it heads to becoming a cornerstone for the arts in Abu Dhabi. The book depicts our definition-defying highlights in music, theater, dance, film, poetry, family programs, and interdisciplinary performances and tracks our journey to become a beacon on the international arts landscape, firmly rooted in Abu Dhabi but with a global reach. It includes a series of essays, anecdotes, and quotes from a variety of prominent members of our community, including Her Excellency Noura Al Kaabi, and Vice Chancellor at NYU Abu Dhabi Mariët Westermann, each sharing stories of how The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi has impacted the local arts scene. A reception (from 5:30-6pm) will precede the formal program, which will begin promptly at 6pm with a short performance: The Gauntlet: Faraway Together (Reduction) Composed by Sxip Shirey Libretto by Coco Karol and Sxip Shirey based on movement interviews conducted by Karol Vocalists: Priya Darshini, Raquel Klein, Anaïs Maviel, Nathan Repatz, and Lacy Rose Welcoming Remarks Linda G. Mills, President, NYU Panelists Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director, The Arts Center at NYUAD Linsey Bostwick, Director, NYU Production Lab; Former Director of Artistic Planning, The Arts Center at NYUAD Bryan Waterman, Associate Professor of English, NYU; Former Program Head for Literature and Creative Writing and former Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Development, NYUAD Alia ElKattan, NYUAD ‘20 In collaboration with The Arts Center at NYUAD |
Amila Buturović, York University
Wednesday, October 18th, 6:30pm EDT
Silsila Fall 2023 Program
The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
This paper unpacks the rich meanings of large talismanic charts housed at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina by highlighting their role as compelling cultural artifacts. Focusing on their intricate icono-textual composition, we explore the intersections of magic, symbolism, and written and material culture in Ottoman Bosnia. More broadly, we analyze the talismanic charts’ significance as instruments of protection and well-being in relation to Islam’s rich esoteric traditions, the choices made by the talisman maker, and the pervasive role of the occult in religiously plural Ottoman Bosnia.
Amila Buturović is Professor of Humanities and Religious Studies at York University in Toronto. A native of Sarajevo where she obtained a B.A. in Arabic Studies, Amila holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal. Her research interests span the intersections of religion and culture in the context of premodern Islamic societies, with the focus on Ottoman Bosnia and the Balkans, on which she has authored several books and many articles. She is currently working on a study about interconfessional health culture in Ottoman Bosnia where she explores the porous boundaries between medical practices, the medical market, and occult tools for health and protection. As part of that research, she is working with the National Museum in Sarajevo as the external researcher to help conserve and display, physically and virtually, the artifacts related to the occult traditions of Bosnia’s diverse religious communities.
Date: Wednesday, October 18th
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Location: Online and In Person Room 222, 20 Cooper Square, NY, 10003
This event will 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/Ho2dn8YtoZDP9VWT9
This event will also take place as a live Webinar at 6:30pm EDT (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XMaQOUDASR-z9fBO8E_COw
Only registered attendees will be able to join 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
Fields of Vision 