Appel à communication : “Art and War : New Perspectives”

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Camp volant, huile sur toile, 1710-1711, Moscou, Musée des Beaux-Arts Pouchkine.

Type : Appel à communication.
Date limite : 16 juin 2016.

The Frick Collection (New York) is pleased to invite submissions for “Art and War,” a symposium that will accompany the special exhibition “Watteau’s Soldiers: Scenes of Military Life in Eighteenth-Century France.”

On view from July 12 to October 2, 2016, the exhibition presents a selection of Jean-Antoine Watteau’s little-known drawings and paintings of military life. In these works, Watteau eschews martial glory in favor of depicting more mundane aspects of life on the front : fatigue, boredom, simple diversions. Prompted by Watteau’s singular vision of war, The Frick Collection solicits 25-minute papers that consider the relationship between art and war in ways both direct and oblique, across all media, geographic regions, and time periods.

We welcome a range of approaches that engage critically with the historical and theoretical problems posed by the relationship between art and war. Questions to be addressed include, but are not limited to :

– What representational pressures and aesthetic challenges has war created ?
– Where have artists located themselves in, away from, or after “the fight?”
– How can art convey the experience of war—not only the violence of battle, but also its impact on everyday life ?
– How has art glorified, condemned, or otherwise commented on war ?
– What can we learn from examining this relationship in an age of perpetual war ?

Modalités de souscription :

Please send a 250-word abstract and CV by Thursday, June 16, 2016, to Caitlin Henningsen (henningsen@frick.org) and Aaron Wile (wile@frick.org). Proposals from emerging scholars are particularly encouraged.