THE FETISH A(R)T WORK: AFRICAN OBJECTS IN THE MAKING OF EUROPEAN ART HISTORY 1500–1900

Program

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

AUDITORIUM
MANTON RESEARCH CENTER
CLARK ART INSTITUTE

9:00 AM           WELCOME
Caroline Fowler, Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

9:10 AM           INTRODUCTION
Anne Lafont, École des hautes études en sciences sociales [EHESS], Paris, France

9:40 AM           SESSION 1: FETISH / COUNTER-FETISH
“Irrecuperable Objects? De Brosses’ Fetishism at the Limits of Natural History and Aesthetics”
Daniel H. Leonard, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

“Faith and Fetish: Medieval Eternity and the Colonial Landscape”
Risham Majeed, Ithaca College, South Hill, New York

10:40 AM        COFFEE BREAK
MANTON READING ROOM

11:00 AM          SESSION 1 CONTINUED
“Africa Before Africa at the Court of Dresden”
Alexander Bevilacqua, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

“Renaming the Fetish in the Eighteenth-Century African Atlantic”
Matthew Francis Rarey, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

12:00 PM          DISCUSSION
Moderated by Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York

1:00 PM            LUNCH BREAK

2:30 PM            SESSION 2: FETISHIZATION PRACTICES
“Africa in the World: Comparison and Art in the Long 19^th Century”
Joshua I. Cohen, City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center, New York City

“Writing ‘On, Around, and About’ African Objects in the Age of Abolition: The Case of Victor Schœlcher’s Collection”
Alexandre Girard-Muscagorry, Musée de la Musique, Paris, France

“History and the Fetish: The Delcommune Nkisi”
Cécile Fromont, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

4:00 PM            DISCUSSION
Moderated by Erica Moiah James, University of Miami, Florida, and Clark/Oakley Fellow (2023–2024)

5:00 PM            PUBLIC RECEPTION
MANTON READING ROOM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2023

AUDITORIUM
MANTON RESEARCH CENTER
CLARK ART INSTITUTE


9:30 AM           WELCOME
Caroline Fowler, Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute

9:35 AM           SESSION 3: FETISH IN THEORY
“Visible Objects and Invisible Selves”  
Simon Gikandi, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

“What Did the Faustians Miss?” 
Lionel Manga, writer and critic, Douala, Cameroon

“Sahelian Textiles: The Contrasted Writings of Paul Soleillet and Frantz de Zeltner”
Yaëlle Biro, independent scholar and curator, Paris, France

11:05  AM         DISCUSSION
Moderated by  Christophe Koné, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

12:00 PM           LUNCH BREAK

1:15 PM             SESSION 4: BLACK ATLANTIC FETISHISM
“Behind the Scenes of Black Art in Brazil: Martiniano Eliseu do Bonfim from Captivity to Religion Between Salvador and Lago”
Roberto Conduru, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas

“‘Idolatry, obeah, or any other fetish’: Discourses of Ritual Objects in Postemancipation Suriname”
Justin M. Brown, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

“Versatile Constellations of African Art: Fetishism and Totemism Framing the Knowledge of Object and Image”
Gabriele Genge, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

2:45 PM             DISCUSSION
Moderated by Michelle Apotsos, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

3:30 PM             COFFEE BREAK
MANTON READING ROOM

4:00 PM             CLOSING DISCUSSION
Moderated by Anne Lafont, EHESS, Paris

5:00 PM             PUBLIC RECEPTION
MANTON READING ROOM

For any questions, please contact [email protected].