Carl Einstein's Negerplastik: early twentieth-century avant-garde encounters between art and ethnography

The thesis focuses on the work of the author and critic Carl Einstein (1885 -1940), a key figure in the history of early twentieth-century art and literature. Introducing new archival material from the Berlin Ethnological Museum, the British Museum and a number of other sources, it offers a thorough re-examination of the circumstances and cultural practices that shaped Einstein's antagonism towards the itinerant `primitivism hubbub' and contemporary prejudice, and retrieves what is his most incisive intervention into the discourse on art and primitivism: his book Negerplastik (1915). Reconnecting Negerplastik to Einstein's early art-criticism in the context of pre-1914 German Kulturpolitik and in the often highly competitive circles of the intellectual avant-garde, the thesis investigates his hitherto neglected role in staging the first two exhibitions in Germany which, during 1913, presented African sculpture alongside avant-garde painting - and Picasso's Cubist work - at the Neue Galerie in Berlin. In what is described as a `visual turn', it analyzes Negerplastik and its audaciously modernist visualization of non-western sculpture, and argues that by making the ethnographic 'curio' an object of theory Einstein, as it were, 'invented' the aesthetic category of African art. The thesis brings together material that, although embedded in the period's documents and chronicles, has largely gone unnoticed. Yet evidence, such as the critical reaction to Einstein's 1913 African exhibitions, his letters to his friends Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Ewald Wasmuth, or the material gathered between 1925 and 1930 for a joint project with the British Museum's keeper Thomas A. Joyce is central to understanding the historical significance of Negerplastik and Einstein's ethnographic encounter. Ethnography provided the basis for some of his most compelling art-critical texts in the journal Documents. It informed the development of his concept of an Ethnologie du blanc which transgressed academic disciplines and epistemic tradition, and engendered a 'visual turn' that, by leaving the images to do the work of language, operated as Einstein's `silent' critique of modernist sculpture. The thesis concludes by contending that, between 1916 and 1918, Negerplastik served as catalyst, and matrix, for a number of avant-garde reconfigurations of African sculpture in which the objects' photographic framing re-confirmed this sculpture as art. It addresses aspects of Einstein's role within the discourse on art and cultural difference, which - despite the now sizeable secondary literature devoted to him - have not been sufficiently examined

Aiding the conservation of two wooden Buddhist sculptures with 3D imaging and spectroscopic techniques

The conservation of Buddhist sculptures that were transferred to Europe at some point during their lifetime raises numerous questions: while these objects historically served a religious, devotional purpose, many of them currently belong to museums or private collections, where they are detached from their original context and often adapted to western taste. A scientific study was carried out to address questions from Museo d'Arte Orientale of Turin curators in terms of whether these artifacts might be forgeries or replicas, and how they may have transformed over time. Several analytical techniques were used for materials identification and to study the production technique, ultimately aiming to discriminate the original materials from those added within later interventions

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: estratégias de apoio e internacionalização da arte portuguesa 1957-1969

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em História de ArteO papel da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG) na promoção da arte portuguesa há muito que foi reconhecido. No entanto, sua atividade no campo específico das artes plásticas não tinha sido ainda alvo de um estudo aprofundado. Esta tese visa determinar o impacto da ação da FCG no panorama artístico português, desde a segunda metade da década de 50 até 1969, tendo em conta não só o panorama artístico, mas também a conjuntura política da época. Entre as principais iniciativas levadas a cabo pela Fundação, através do seu Serviço de Belas-Artes (SBA), destaca-se a organização de exposições de arte portuguesa contemporânea, especialmente as duas primeiras edições da Exposição de Artes Plásticas (1957 e 1961), que sintetizaram o programa de intenções da FCG no campo artístico e integraram outras ações de apoio aos artistas portugueses, como a aquisição de obras de arte. A atribuição bolsas de estudo no estrangeiro e os subsídios concedidos à organização de exposições promovidas pelos seus bolseiros, constituíram outras ações de referência que são também examinadas neste estudo. Contextualiza-se ainda a atividade da FCG no panorama artístico português do período, relacionando-a com outras instituições que atuavam também no domínio artístico, o Secretariado Nacional de Informação e a Sociedade Nacional de Artes Plásticas. Compara-se, finalmente, a atividade desenvolvida pela FCG em Portugal com as iniciativas desencadeadas pela sua Delegação de Londres com o objetivo de promover as artes britânicas. Esta tese procura ainda evidenciar o contributo da FCG para o desenvolvimento de uma nova conceção expositiva que começara a integrar as principais tendências do design internacional. Propõe-se, assim, o reequacionamento do panorama artístico da época, mostrando que a FCG não só promoveu a produção artística em Portugal, mas também beneficiou de condições favoráveis que contribuíram para o sucesso das suas iniciativas

Intelligence, Creativity and Fantasy

UID/HIS/04666/2019 This is the 2nd volume of PHI series, published by CRC Press, the 4th published by CRC Press and the 5th volume of PHI proceedings.The texts presented in Proportion Harmonies and Identities (PHI) - INTELLIGENCE, CREATIVITY AND FANTASY were compiled with the intent to establish a multidisciplinary platform for the presentation, interaction and dissemination of research. The aim is also to foster the awareness and discussion on the topics of Harmony and Proportion with a focus on different visions relevant to Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Design, Engineering, Social and Natural Sciences, and their importance and benefits for the sense of both individual and community identity. The idea of modernity has been a significant motor for development since the Western Early Modern Age. Its theoretical and practical foundations have become the working tools of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who seek strategies and policies to accelerate the development process in different contexts.authorsversionpublishe

How not to return to normal

In a March 2020 article published in Le Monde, Bruno Latour defined the Covid-19 emergency as "the big rehearsal" for the larger disaster to come: one that extends to all forms of life on Earth. The ongoing crisis, in his eyes, becomes both a risk and an opportunity to trial and develop new action plans necessary for the continuation of life. "The pandemic is a portal," wrote author Arundhati Roy a few days later, calling for a more equitable and sustainable post-pandemic future. The pandemic is an opportunity for un-learning and changing direction, particularly in how we approach risk and disaster. The dominant narrative for politicians and the media, however, is one of “returning to normal” as soon as possible, bouncing back, relying on established models of resilience based on the management of economic risk. They are also rehearsing, or modelling, worst- or best-case scenarios. Artists, designers, and institutions are shaping discourses around the growing extinguishment of our resources, but also performing, visualising, simulating and modelling responses to possible risks and imagining resilience differently. Design and art can foster new visions, pilot new modes of communication and knowledge sharing, and drive the interdisciplinary collaborations necessary to address common issues. This panel explores ways in which art and design practices can be mobilized to transform current approaches to risk and disaster in imaginative, sustainable and equitable ways. The papers selected for this session reflect a need to reassess, reframe, and reimagine the roles of museums, art and design, and thus contribute to a space for critical reflection to inform action, strategy, and practices. It is important to remember that our fields are far from immune from being complicit in the creation and reinforcement of the kinds of inequalities and injustices that have been made even more unmistakably clear in the last year: as Sasha Costanza-Shock, author of the book Design Justice, has pointed out, designers are ‘often unwittingly reproducing the existing structure of [...] who's going to benefit the most and who's going to be harmed the most by the tools or the objects or the systems or the buildings or spaces that we're designing.’ The urge to respond in an emergency, whether it's a design challenge in the context of COVID 19 or exhibition on climate change, requires space for critical thinking, inclusive conversation and production. This necessity comes across on the three papers brought together for this panel, and in the opening presentation by Emily Candela and Francesca Cavallo

Revitalizing the library for the nation : proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society held on 18-19 April 2019 at Hatten Hotel, Melaka

Organised by: Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya and University of Malaya Library

Situado and sabana : Spain's support system for the presidio and mission provinces of Florida. Anthropological papers of the AMNH ; no. 74

249 p. : ill., maps ; 26 cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-234) and index.This is an analysis of the mixed support system by which Spain maintained an economically unprofitable but strategic presidia! colony on the contested east coast of North America for two centuries. The system was an open-ended one which combined private enterprise, royal subventions and drafted labor, the relative share of each fluctuating as a function of the changing levels of external pressure, whether of threat or opportunity. The Peripheries Paradigm that emerges from an examination of the 17th-century Spanish Southeast is dynamic and essentially secular, little resembling the Borderlands Paradigm derived some 70 years ago from a study of the isolated mission presidios of the 18th-century Southwest. Spanish or Indian, the inhabitants of the presidio and mission provinces of Florida knowingly pursued their individual interests across an international arena. The captaincy general of Florida passed through five distinct support phases between its founding in 1565 and its cession to the British in 1763, an interval that historians call the First Spanish Period. In the first phase, the colony was founded as a cooperative venture between the Crown and a private conqueror, as Philip II reinforced the expedition of Pedro Menendez de Aviles in order to eliminate a rival colony of Frenchmen. When it became clear that corsairs and Indian resistance would prevent the Spanish from exploiting the inland centers of Southeastern population and production and thus becoming self-sufficient, the king institutionalized a set of annual treasury transfers, the situado, to meet the presidio payroll and other expenses. In the second phase, Franciscan missionaries supported by royal stipends began to provide the colony with a hinterland, starting on the Atlantic coast with the provinces of eastern Timucua and Guale. Soldiers ensured that the Indian lords of the land would fulfill their sworn contracts of conversion, trade, mutual defense, and allegiance, and the Crown rewarded the chiefs' obedience with regular gifts. They in turn acted as brokers of the sabana and repartimiento systems, transferring provisions and labor from Indian towns to the Spanish presidio and convents and from Indian commoners to Spanish and Indian authorities. When, in the 1620s and 1630s, Spain's wars with the Dutch made delivery of the situado uncertain, soldiers and Franciscans again moved forward, expanding the hinterland to take in the Gulf coast provinces of Apalache and western Timucua. In this third phase the colony acquired new sources of native support and enlarged its slim financial base by the sale of provisions to the rapidly growing city of Havana. In the 1680s, as the amount of non-Spanish shipping in the Atlantic rose sharply, external pressures reached dangerous levels. English and French pirate attacks became seasonal, while Southeastern Indians beyond the Spanish sphere of influence gained access to firearms and began raiding the Christian towns for Indian slaves and altar ornaments. Spain's response was to strengthen the presidial center at the expense of the peripheries. During the building of the Castillo de San Marcos, in this fourth phase, increased royal investment and a rising population in St. Augustine encouraged the growth of cattle ranches in central Florida. Mounting demands for labor, provisions, and local defense fell on a native population that was already reduced by epidemics and fugitivism. In the early 1700s, Indian commoners took advantage of Florida's war with Carolina to abandon their towns and chiefs altogether. The Spanish retained effective control only of St. Augustine, which became an entrepot of intercolonial trade. During the fifth phase, which ended with the colony's cession in 1763, the mixed support system was back where it started, depending on a mixture of royal subsidies and private enterprise: the situado and the sea. The laborers had walked out of the model