Art History

Curated by Patricia Karetzky,
Oskar Munsterberg Chair of Asian Art, Bard College

The show comprises twenty-five photographs of the Cultural Revolution in China from the perspective of the youth sent to the countryside. The photographer, a youth himself, embedded himself in the movement traveling throughout China for ten years documenting the lives of displaced youth.

Campus Center
Bard College
April 1-30, 2016
and
“Educated Youth” Photos of the Cultural Revolution
at 23rd International Conference of Europeanists
Philadelphia, Pennsylavania (DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia
Center City)  April 14-16, 2016

A film by Tchavdar Georgiev and Amanda Pope

Thursday, December 3, 7-9 pm Preston 110

How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags. Their plight inspires young Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artist’s works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix of Russian Avant-Garde art. But his greatest discovery is an unknown school of artists who settle in Uzbekistan after the Russian revolution of 1917, encountering a unique Islamic culture, as exotic to them as Tahiti was for Gauguin. They develop a startlingly original style, fusing European modernism with centuries-old Eastern traditions.

Ben Kingsley, Sally Field and Ed Asner voice the diaries and letters of Savitsky and the artists. Intercut with recollections of the artists’ children and rare archival footage, the film takes us on a dramatic journey of sacrifice for the sake of creative freedom. Described as “one of the most remarkable collections of 20th century Russian art” and located in one of the world’s poorest regions, today these paintings are worth millions, a lucrative target for Islamic fundamentalists, corrupt bureaucrats and art profiteers. The collection remains as endangered as when Savitsky first created it, posing the question whose responsibility is it to preserve this cultural treasure.

This film screening is in conjunction with Professor Oleg Minin’s course “Russian Art of the Avant-Garde” and the Art History Program, the Russian and Eurasian Studies Program, the Center for Civic Engagement, the Russian Film Series, the Russian Club and Russian Art and Culture Project.

The Great Hall Exhibitions Events: Fall 2015

Step Into Liquid: Art and Art History in the Post-Fordist Era

Friday, December 4, 2015
1:00pm to 6:00pm in the Lecture Hall
The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
1 East 78th Street

Organized by Walead Beshty, with Rachel Heidenry ’11 and Eloise Maxwell

Introduction: Remarks by Walead Beshty, 1:00-1:15pm

Panel 1: Digitalization and the Aesthetics of Distribution, 1:15-3:00pm
It is commonly observed that a core tenet of Contemporary Art is its being produced with an awareness of its dependence on systems of distribution, a condition that has increasingly come to dominate the approach of the most ambitious criticism of our time. How has the development of a vast digital infrastructure, which facilitates contemporary aesthetic distribution, produced pronounced effects on the form and materiality of the work of art and its reception? How does this vast distributive system interact with and complicate the aesthetic conditions of industrialized production and distribution that it operates in tandem with? How does this awareness manifest itself despite the fact that the majority of contemporary artistic practices continue to maintain traditional genres such as painting, sculpture, photography, film and video or performance, albeit under distinctly different conditions from their predecessors?

Break: 3:00-3:30pm

Panel 2: Performativity and Methodology, 3:30-4:45pm
As the boundaries between the art object and its mode of circulation become increasingly difficult to maintain, whether it be through its dispersal among bodies in socially contingent practices or through means of distribution that are habitually seen as secondary to the work itself, what methodological tools are available to art history and art criticism to address the current status of the work of art? What methodological questions does it pose to theories of representation, or to the method of comparative formal analysis that underscores the field? Which, if any, of the classical art historical distinctions—be they between media, or aesthetic forms, or primary and secondary manifestations of the work of art—can be maintained? In short, can art history and criticism address what things “do” in addition to what they “say”?

Conclusion: 4:45pm-5:15pm

Reception: 5:15-6:00pm

Panel 1:

Moderator – Tim Griffin, The Kitchen

Speakers:
Claire Bishop, CUNY Graduate Center
Kenneth Goldsmith, University of Pennsylvania
Ruba Katrib, The Sculpture Center
Bettina Funcke, School of Visual Arts

Panel 2:

Moderator – Janet Kraynak, Columbia University

Speakers:
Alexander Alberro, Columbia University
Robert Slifkin, Institute of Fine Arts
Alex Kitnick, Bard College
Christopher Wood, New York University

New Perspectives in Design History, Decorative Arts, and Material Culture

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 6:30 pm
RKC 103 Laszlo Z. Bito ’60 Auditorium

Amber Winick: “Playing with Nationalism: A Century of Hungarian Design for Children.”

Rebecca C. Tuite: “Fashioning a College Experience: The History of Seven Sisters Style.”

THE  FRICK   COLLECTION
1 East 70th Street
New York, N. Y. 10021

Undergraduate/Graduate Curatorial Internships
3-4 placements available for Spring semester 2016

Background
The Frick Collection is an art museum consisting of more than 1,100 works of art from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century displayed in the intimate surroundings of the former home of Henry Clay Frick. The residence, with its furnishings and works of art, has been open to the public since 1935. It is considered one of the world’s most perfect museums; its sister research institution, the Frick Art Reference Library founded in 1920, is of equal distinction. The Library is an internationally recognized research library that serves as one of the world’s most complete resources for the study of Western art.

Internship
Curatorial interns will shadow and work alongside specialists in European painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Each intern will collaborate with curatorial staff on research projects pertaining to areas of art history represented in The Frick Collection as they relate to the intern’s area of study.

Eligibility
The Curatorial Internship is open to upper-level undergraduates or graduates pursuing degrees in art history. Preference will be given to students with a background in Western art and a demonstrated interest in museum work. Candidates proficient in French or Italian or with an interest in seventeenth-century Dutch and nineteenth-century British art are pm1icularly encouraged to apply. Foreign nationals must have eligibility to participate in unpaid internship placements in the U.S. Applicants are responsible for their own housing and travel arrangements.

Time Commitment: The internship generally spans the spring academic semester, and activities will be carried out on one or two days per week.

Benefits of the Internship with The Frick Collection:  These internships provide a superb opportunity for participating in all aspects of curatorial work in a small, dynamic department and interacting with staff across the institution and the public.

Although there is no stipend associated with these internships, all interns of the Frick Collection may access free or discounted admission to most of New York’s finest museums. The Frick provides employees, trainees, interns, and volunteers with a discount on Museum Shop purchases and a subsidized on-site staff dining service. The Frick Collection offers a beautiful and pleasant work setting and an excellent opportunity to appreciate some of the world’s finest works of art.

TELEPHONE (212) 288-0700

Application Process and Timeline: All Curatorial Internship applications for spring 2016 must be submitted no later than November 30,
Selected candidates will be contacted for interviews and applicants will be notified in January 2016.

Please note that eligibility and application instructions may vary from one department of The Frick Collection to another and that applications to multiple departments are not accepted; please apply to only one department per season.

All internship applications must be submitted via e-mail, as follows:

Subject Line: “Curatorial Intern- Spring 2016” Submit PDF cover letter and resume.

Include the following in your cover letter

• Your reasons for applying to the Frick’s Curatorial Department, including a statement describing how an internship would enhance your academic course of study
• Your preferred dates and hours of availability
• The names, professional affiliations, telephone numbers, and email addresses of two references, at least one of which must be academic
• Current GPA

No phone calls please.

Curatorial Internships [email protected] The Frick Collection
1 East 70th Street
NY, NY 10021

The Art History Program
invites you to

THE ANNUAL ART HISTORY MAJORS EVENT!

Thursday, November 5, 2015
6:00-8:00 pm
Faculty Dining Room

Learn about Spring 2015 course offerings and hear 
presentations by three alumni art history majors on 
their experiences since graduating from Bard.

Majors are required to attend and all those interested 
in the program are encouraged to attend.

Food and beverages will be served.

rsvp to [email protected] or call 845.758.7158

Alex Kitnick will give a talk:
“Use Your Illusion: Barbara Kasten’s ‘Architectural Sites'”

Robert Wiesenberger is the 2014–16 Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow at the Harvard Art Museums, where he is responsible for their Bauhaus collections, and a Critic at the Yale School of Art, where he teaches a first-year seminar in the MFA program in graphic design. He is completing his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, where he specializes in modern and contemporary art, architecture and design. His dissertation treats the work of the late American designer Muriel Cooper.

Graphic designer Muriel Cooper’s career at MIT spanned the transition from print to software, from the MIT Press in the 1960s to the Media Lab in the 1980s. Perhaps her best-known achievement in print was the monumental and still authoritative tome The Bauhaus, released by the MIT Press in 1969. But less known are Cooper’s restagings of that book in multiple media, including posters, a film, and an exhibition. This research coincided with her first exposure to computer programming, and can be understood as a way of prototyping in analog the effects she would spend her career seeking from software. The Bauhaus is thus both a landmark and an inflection point for Cooper: at once her masterpiece in print and evidence of a growing anxiety about the medium; a gesture toward reading’s possible futures, and a source of durable metaphors for them. Choosing this book for her research was also no coincidence: In both scale and subject, The Bauhaus was an ideal test case for Cooper.

Thursday, October 15, 2015
3:10-4:30 pm
RKC 103 – Lazlo Z. Bito ’60 Auditorium

A Presentation by
Dr. Margo Machida
Professor of Art History & Asian American Studies
University of Connecticut

Trans-Pacific Visions in Asian American Art

This talk focuses on the Asia Pacific region and selected works by contemporary U.S.-based Asian American artists that engage themes of trans-Pacific circulation and global systems of cross-cultural exchange. Based on Dr. Machida’s current research in Hawai’i, this presentation draws attention to islands as a generative framework to analyze and to compare art in the Asia Pacific region and the Americas. The Pacific, with more islands than the world’s other oceans combined, is above all an island realm. Accordingly Islands and associated oceanic imaginaries exert a powerful hold on works by artists who trace their ancestral origins to coastal East and Southeast Asia and Oceania.  All are invited to this talk about these exciting contemporary artists.

Wednesday, October 28th
6:30 pm
RKC 103 – Lazlo Z. Bito ’60 Auditorium
Sponsored by American Studies, Art History, Asian Studies, Religion, and Africana Studies

Three cultural organizations whose antecedents established the Woodstock Art Colony in the early twentieth century – Maverick Concerts, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (WAAM) – join in this historic exhibition. Marking the importance of music in Woodstock’s early history, the exhibition particularly celebrates Maverick Concerts, the oldest continuous summer chamber music festival in the United States.

Music in the Woods: One Hundred Years of Maverick Concerts opened in a joint reception on July 25, 2015 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm, and will run in WAAM’s Towbin Wing through September 26 and at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild through August 30.

The exhibition features three seldom seen sculptures by John Flannagan, as well as a bronze maquette for a recently commissioned sculptural portrait of Hervey White by contemporary Chinese artist Wan Jida. Works also include a kaleidoscope of painted and photographic portraits of Hervey White by Bolton Brown, Harry Gottlieb, Konrad Cramer, Peggy Bacon and others; portraits of early musicians by Robert Chanler, Antonio Borone, and George Bellows; quick sketches of musicians in performance by artists John Fenton, Andrée Ruellan, Julia Santos Solomon and others; drawings and prints by Woodstock artists; and vintage photographic portraits of musicians, some as early as 1919, who played at Maverick Concerts from the early years to the present.

Tom Wolf is author of “John Flannagan’s Maverick Horse” in the catalog.

The exhibition also highlights images of the unique concert hall, whose eccentric architecture has attracted photographers since its earliest days, including Konrad Cramer, Alfred Cohn, Howard Greenberg, Leon Liss, Dion Ogust, and Noritaka Minami.

Olga Touloumi is author of “The Economy of Design: Architecture and High Finance in the Maverick House Concert Hall” in the catalog.