The Courtauld’s annual Modern and Contemporary Second Year Postgraduate Symposium is an opportunity for second-year doctoral candidates to present their research to their peers and the wider academic community. The symposium presents a rage of papers tackling in a critical way and with thought-provoking approaches different aspects that pertain to the experience, study, production and reception of knowledge around modern(ist) art from different locations and periods between the end of the nineteenth century and the present day. Uniting the modern and contemporary research students is a dedication to a specific topic as a case study that brings new perspectives or questions broader established narratives. The symposium, organized about midway through the research process, will provide a platform to reflexively assess the guiding methodological traits that make up the character of the Courtauld’s modern and contemporary cohort. The symposium is a dialogue about the tools used and the objectives pursued in modern and contemporary art history research with an emphasis on exploring possible interconnected elements among young researchers.
Organised by Dr Klara Kemp-Welch (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Ana-Maria Milcic (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Ambra D’Antone (The Courtauld Institute of Art).
PROGRAMME
9.00: Registration opens
9.30: Opening statements from the organisers
9.40 – 10.55: Panel 1: Structures – Chair: Chelsea Pierce
Paper 1: Ana-Maria Milčić: “Cleaning the Nation’s Chamber Pot: Futurist Notions of Hygiene and Aviation in the Ascent of Fascism”
Paper 2: Andrew Cummings: ‘Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Fireworks (archives) and ‘Asian Gothic’’
Paper 3: Tilly Scantlebury: “Queering the Experience of Pregnancy and Parenthood: A.K. Summer’s Pregnant Butch”
Followed by Q&A
10.55 – 11.05 Comfort Break
11.05 – 12.20 Panel 2: Temporalities – Chair: Ana Rodriguez
Paper 1: Helen Lewandowski: “The Art of War: Aestheticisation in 21st Century Photojournalism”.
Paper 2: Leah Gouget-Levy: “Fashion Time: Considering the Temporal Significance of the Séeberger frères’ Fashion Photography’”
Paper 3: Madeline Harrison: “Time, Space and Continuity: Aaron Douglas’ Fisk University Murals”
Followed by Q&A
12.20 – 13.30 Lunch break
13.30 – 14.45 Panel 3: Hidden Codes – Chair: Lydia Oh
Paper 1: Emma Merkling: “Formal Logic and the Real in Evelyn De Morgan’s Art and Spirit Writings”
Paper 2: Emily Christensen: “Wassily Kandinsky at the exhibition Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst in Munich in 1910: hidden forms in Persian paintings as catalyst for a new artistic approach”
Paper 3: Sophie Guo: “Doubting Sex: Examining the Biomedical Gaze in Lu Yang’s ‘Uterus Man’ 2013”
Followed by Q&A
14.45 – 15.00 Comfort Break
15.00-16.15 Panel 2: Nodes – Chair: Francesca Wilmott
Paper 1: Nada Fatima Raza: “From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf”
Paper 2: June Geddes: “Performing the Poorhouse”
Paper 3: Ambra D’Antone: “Son of the Earth: Fateh al-Moudarres’s Nationalism Against the Grain”
Followed by Q&A
16.15 – 16.30 Closing remarks and thanks
17.00 Drinks reception in LT2