The Judgment of Paris, Porcelain, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Connecticut, USA.

Michael Yonan, School of Visual Studies, University of Missouri, will visit the Department of Culture and Aesthetics for some weeks in May and June, 2019. In recent years, Yonan has been an important voice in the discussion of materiality and material culture (see e.g. M Yonan, ”Toward a Fusion of Art History and Material Culture Studies”, West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, Vol. 18, No. 2, 232-248; M Yonan, ”Materiality as Periphery”, Visual Resources, 2018. About the article at the Taylor & Francis Online website.

In connection to Yonan’s visit, we will arrange a symposium with the aim to create a fruitful exchange of ideas between scholars from different disciplines who have taken an interest in materiality, material culture and new materialism; to discover and discuss similarities and differences in the ways in which these concepts and theories are being used within different disciplines.

A keynote lecture by Michael Yonan will be followed by a number of short papers (15-20 minutes) by scholars from different disciplines. 

Welcome!

Anna Bortolozzi, Sabrina Norlander Eliasson, Mårten Snickare.

Programme

13:00

Welcome

13:15

Keynote lecture

Michael Yonan, School of Visual Studies, University of Missouri

But Does It Matter? The Place of Materiality in the Interpretation of Art

14:15

Coffee
14:30

Panel I

Petra Dotlačilová, theatre studies, Stockholm University

Between Image, Description and Object of Costume: Recovering Materiality

Ellen Frödin, literature, Stockholm University

The Material in and of the Book. Water and Paper Flowers in Jacob’s Room

Emma Jansson, art history, Stockholm University

Dirty Pictures: condition, material histories and their impact on viewer perception in paintings

16:15

Panel II

Magnus Ljunge, archaeology, Stockholm University

Things, Animals and Images: Material Relations in Bronze Age Visual Culture

Adam Wickberg Månsson, media history, KTH

Singular Causality and Contingent Singularity: Towards a Theory of Post-digital Handwriting

17:15

Concluding remarks

Abstracts

Keynote lecture, Michael Yonan, School of Visual Studies, University of Missouri

But Does It Matter? The Place of Materiality in the Interpretation of Art

This paper discusses the multiple roles of materiality in creating an interpretation of a work of art, with focus on a complex porcelain figural group from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Connecticut, USA, which represents The Judgment of Paris.  Does it matter if a mythological subject like this is represented in a specific medium, and if so, how does that affect its broader materiality?

Petra Dotlačilová, theatre studies, Stockholm University

Between Image, Description and Object of Costume: Recovering Materiality

In my research of theatre costumes by Louis-René Boquet (1717-1814), the design and textual description are the main sources. However, I approach the costume not only as an idea or as a picture, but also as an object: as an important part of the material culture, that contributed with its physicality in the theatrical as well as metatheatrical communication. By expanding the research method formulated by Jules David Prown (usually used by dress and costume historians for analysis of surviving garments) to what could be called “traces” of the object, I aim to recover their materiality. Their analysis will offer insights into the form of the costume and its agency.

Ellen Frödin, literature, Stockholm University

The Material in and of the Book. Water and Paper Flowers in Jacob’s Room

Kittlerian media theory has traditionally positioned itself as the material view on literature. According to this stance, material is opposed to meaning. This division into material bearer or medium on the one hand, and meaningful content on the other, is not very helpful when approaching a work like Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room (1922). This text seems to track different material movements, especially the flow of water and the spreading of paper in the form of letters, paper flowers and books. At the same time, it draws attention to itself as a material object, as circulating paper. Karen Barad’s notion of materiality and meaning as always co-present enables a reading of the material circulations in the text as connected to the material circulations which the book itself is part of.

Emma Jansson, art history, Stockholm University

Dirty Pictures: condition, material histories and their impact on viewer perception in paintings

‘Materiality’ acts as a mode of enquiry where the tangible entities of artworks come to the fore. Through this framework, an art object’s materials and physical structures are assigned meaning. However, in order to make semantic interpretations relating to the materiality of artworks, it is first necessary to have an in-depth understanding of their material constituents and how these may have changed over time. This paper will address the issue of an art object’s condition, discussing various ways in which this can influence our aesthetic appreciation, as well as art historical interpretations. Referencing paintings specifically, I will discuss how aspects such as discoloured varnishes, instances of overpaint removal, and also degradation patterns in specific pigments can impact the reading of artworks.     

Magnus Ljunge, archaeology, Stockholm University

Things, Animals and Images: Material Relations in Bronze Age Visual Culture

Traditionally, Bronze Age rock art has been interpreted as symbolic representations of cosmological narratives or social interactions such as metal trade. In this paper I wish to explore the idea of rock art as part of relational networks between images, objects and beings. By addressing the material setting of rock art, both in terms of landscapes and the micro-scale of the stone surface, I will discuss how figurative rock art images could have been meaningful in direct relation to the specific materialities of certain objects and beings. Hence, the production of rock art could have functioned as means of controlling or altering features of the world. 

Adam Wickberg Månsson, media history, KTH

Singular Causality and Contingent Singularity: Towards a Theory of Post-digital Handwriting

In this talk I will argue that handwriting re-emerges in the 2010’s as post-digital artifact, through which the agency of the singular object is highlighted. I will give two examples of this phenomenon, first in the performative politics of post-truth Trumpism through the image of the presidential signature and then in what Timothy Morton calls the “aesthetic dimension,” taking the large-scale curation of handwritten post-it notes on the Instagram account of curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as my second case. Using these examples, I will discuss the way in which New materialism can useful in analyzing the post-digital and other complex forms of materiality.