Call for papers--College Art Association

Call for Papers

"The Explicit Material: On the Intersections of Cultures of Curation
    and Conservation"
College Art Association Annual Conference
Washington DC
February 3-6, 2016

In recent years, research and education initiatives have emerged
that strive to combine perspectives of conservation with other
humanities' disciplines in the study of material culture.  These are
based on the belief that such cross-pollination can spawn new
insights and contribute to our knowledge of both the object and the
culture that produced it.

This session aims to explore the relationships between curatorial
and conservation philosophies across a range of institutions,
focusing on the ways in which these apparently divergent fields
shape thinking about-and the practices of-collecting, exhibiting,
and caring for objects.  The "explicit material" approach (Latin
"explicare:" "to unfold," "unravel, "explain," or to make visible)
advances a way of thinking about the materiality of objects as they
enter our collections and undergo a transformation from their
previous context(s) to a museological one.

Our interest in conjoining curatorial expertise with conservation
knowledge and the long tradition of combining hand and eye
sensitivity to materials and technical processes derives from the
conviction that insufficient attention has been paid to the benefits
of interdisciplinary thinking about the materiality of objects.
Conservation emerged as a field profoundly preoccupied with the
nature of artworks.  However, with the development of increasingly
sophisticated tools of examination and analysis, the primacy of the
object and the physical constitution appear to have gained ground in
both academic und museological discourses.  In fact, conservation
has now become recognized as a field that has much to contribute to
the humanities given the greater knowledge its findings afford us
concerning how humans shape and use materials and objects.

This session invites an interdisciplinary dialogue between people
already engaged in the museological discourse, and those willing to
establish links between the fields of conservation and curation.
Participants may include conservators, curators and academics
including art historians and theorists, anthropologists, as well as
makers and shapers of materials.  We regard curation as a set of
philosophies and practices engaged with collecting, contextualising
and displaying objects.  Conservation, in turn, is understood here
as a field engaged in revealing and documenting evidence of the life
of an object and ensuring its continuation on both physical and
conceptual levels.

We welcome proposals on topics such as display, continuation, and
archiving of artworks, and especially presentations concerned with
aspects related to collecting, exhibiting and preserving of recent
art and artefacts, "digital objects," and performance.

Please, send an abstract (1-2 pages, double spaced), a letter of
interest, and current CV by May 8, 2015 to organizers

    Hanna B. Holling
    hanna.hoelling<-at->bgc<.>bard<.>edu

and

    Francesca Bewer
    francesca_bewer<-at->harvard<.>edu

CAA individual membership is required of all participants. For
general guidelines for speakers, see:

    <URL:http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2016CallforParticipation.pdf>

Francesca G. Bewer
Research Curator for Conservation and Technical Studies Programs
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street
Cambridge MA 02138
617-495-1643
Fax: 617-384-9229


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 28:42
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