Fictions of Art History
October 29–30, 2010
This conference, convened by Mark Ledbury and Michael Hatt, addressed the complex relationship between art history and fiction, a relationship that will be investigated in art historians’ need to tell stories, their viewing practices, their rhetoric, their writing, and in the interest of art historical work beyond the academy.
Participants included:
Paul Barolsky, University of Virginia; Gregory Crewdson, Yale University; Thomas Crow, New York University; Dario Gamboni, Université de Genève; Michèle Hannoosh, University of Michigan; Michael Hatt, University of Warwick; Robin Kelsey, Harvard University; Gloria Kury, Gutenberg Periscope Publishing; Mark Ledbury, Power Institute, University of Sydney; Ralph Lieberman, Independent Scholar; Maria Loh, University College London; Hélène Bonafous-Murat, Compagnie Nationale des Experts; Alexander Nemerov, Yale University; Joanna Scott, University of Rochester; Allan Sekula, California Institute of the Arts; Susan Siegfried, University of Michigan; Edward Snow, Rice University; Cole Swensen, University of Iowa; Marianna Torgovnick, Duke University; Caroline Vout, University of Cambridge; Marina Warner, University of Essex
Program:
In order of discussion
Ways of Writing
Moderator: Michèle Hannoosh
The Scholar Writes
Alexander Nemerov
Fictional Deception: A True Story
Joanna Scott
Poetry as Art History as Poetry
Cole Swensen
Portraits and Fictions
Moderator: Dario Gamboni
Face to Face with Fiction: Portraiture and the Biographical Tradition
Caroline Vout
I Am Not Who You Think I Am’: Identifying the Humanist Portrait, Attributing the Humanist Subject
Maria Loh
Artists’ Fictions
Moderator: Aruna D’Souza
The Text is Present
Marianna Torgovnick
Gordon Burn’s Alma Cogan and the moment of the Young British Artists
Thomas Crow
Fictions and/of Evidence
Moderator: Michael Holly
’Everything You Need to Know of the Orient…’: Reading the Arabian Nights
Marina Warner
Philip Marlowe Meets the Art Historian
Paul Barolsky
Watching the Detectives
Moderator: Susan Siegfried
The Case of the Errant Art Historian
Gloria Kury
Interweaving Art and Fiction: The Subtle Art of the Print Expert Turned Novelist
Hélène Bonafous-Murat
Photography and Its Fictions
Moderator: Robin Kelsey
The Illusion of Objectivity: Photographs as Art Historical ‘Evidence’
Ralph Lieberman
Artist’s Talk with Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson
Conference Response and Commentary
Edward Snow
Click here to download full program.
