Dear Colleagues and Friends,
I would like to inform you about an international conference, entitled
In the Shadow of the Golden Age:
Art and Identity in Asia from Gandhara to the Modern Age
which my DFG-funded research team and my department are organising at The University of Bonn from
13. - 15. October 2011.
Please find the provisional programme and a short conference description below. Further information can be found on our webpage: www.aik.uni-bonn.de
For further information, please contact myself or Navina Sarma (navina@uni-bonn.de). I will be circulating the final version of the programme in late September.
Looking forward to seeing you in Bonn.
Julia Hegewald
Professor of Oriental Art History
University of Bonn
Provisional Programme
Please note that this programme is still provisional and that changes in the sequence of papers and in the timings may be made over the next few months. The final programme will be available shortly before the start of the conference.
Thursday 13th October 2011
16:00-17:00 Registration and tea
17:00-18:30 Keynote address: Partha Mitter
The Keynote Paper: the Role of History and Memory in Modernity
19:00 Conference dinner for participants
Friday 14th October 2011:
09:30-10:30 Registration
10:30-11:30 Susan L. Huntington
Buddhist Art Through a Modern Lens: A Case of a Mistaken Scholarly
Trajectory
John C. Huntington
Bactro-Gandharan Art Beyond its Homeland
11:30-12:00 Coffee
12:00-13:00 Ciro Lo Mucio
The Legacy of Gandhara in Central Asian Painting
Petra Rösch
Illusionary Narratives: The Deconstruction of the Tang Dynasty as the
“Golden Age” of Chan Buddhism in China.
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-15:30 William A. Southworth
Iconoclasm and Temple Transformation at Angkor from the 13th to 15th
Centuries
Tiziana Lorenzetti
Political and Social Dimension as Reflected in the Medieval Sculptures of
South India: Confrontations, antagonism and identity
15:30-16:00 Tea
16:00-17:00 Mallica Kumbera Landrus
Trans-Cultural Temples: Identity and Practice in Goa
Sarah Shaw
Art and Narrative in Changing Conditions: Southern Buddhist temple art as an
accommodation of the new and diverse
17:00-17:30 Drinks
17:30 - 18:30 Professorial Inaugural Lecture: Julia A. B. Hegewald
Golden Age or Kali-Yuga?: The Changing Fortunes of Jaina Art and Identity
in Karnataka
19:00 Conference dinner for participants
Saturday 15th October 2011:
09:30-10:30 Jennifer Howes
Indian Company Painting: 1780 to 1820
Eva-Maria Troelenberg
The „Golden Age“ and the Secession: Approaches to Alterity in early 20th
Century World Art
10:30-11:00 Coffee
11:00-12:30 Parul Dave Muckerji
Who is afraid of Utopia? Contemporary Indian Artists and Their Retakes on
“Golden” age
Nalini Balbir
Old Texts, New Images: Illustrating the Śvetāmbara Jain Āgamas today
Christoph Emmrich
Loss, Damage, Repair and Prevention in the Historiography of Newar Religious
Artefacts
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:15 Regina Höfer
‘Buddha@hotmail‘ - Contemporary Tibetan Art goes Global
Daniel Redlinger (IOA, The University of Bonn)
Building for the brothers? Indo-Islamic architectural citations in the recent
architecture of South Arabia
Concluding session
15:15-15:45 Tea
15:45-18:00 Coach to Cologne and visit to Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum
Conference Abstract:
In the Shadow of the Golden Age:
Art and Identity in Asia from Gandhara to the Modern Age
This international conference brings together specialists in the visual arts and humanities working on material from a wide range of periods and regions throughout Asia, the Islamic world and the Western diaspora. Instead of concentrating on the so-called ‘high points’ and ‘golden ages’ of art, which have so far stood generally at the centre of art-historical enquiries, this symposium focuses on visual expressions of confrontation with the ‘other,’ struggle or isolation during times of change. These challenging but artistically fertile periods were marked by intense efforts by communities in search for new identities. Through their art and frequently through the re-use of old symbols in new settings they succeeded in redefining themselves so as to strengthen their religious, cultural or political position. In the history of art, these less investigated phases raise issues, which hold the promise of new significant contributions to the subject.
What happened to Gandharan art after its main phase of flowering came to an end in its traditional heartland? How does Hindu temple architecture react to a majority Christian cultural environment in Goa? In which ways do new rulers and religions, e.g. in medieval South India and at Angkor, relate to the sacred places and icons of previous cultures and religious groups and how do the disposed and dispossessed deal with their loss and react to the new?
The confrontation with the ‘other’ has been particularly pronounced during periods of colonisation throughout Asia. How did British colonial officials and Indian artists commissioned by them represent the different facets of the empire, how was world art exhibited and interpreted in the West and how were (and are?) categories such as ‘masterpiece’ or ‘golden age’ employed to classify and judge art?
A further particularly fertile area of enquiry is the modern age in which many traditions (religious, regal or social) appear to be threatened by globalisation and changes in value. The diverse examples of modern day artistic expressions taken from Arabia, India, Nepal and Thailand to be presented during this conference, however, suggest impressive acts of survival and creative adaptation, which enable continuity and the endurance of forms, meanings and practices under new disguises.
--
Prof. Dr. Julia A. B. Hegewald
Professor of Oriental Art History
Head of Department
Universität Bonn
Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften (IOA)
Abteilung für Asiatische und Islamische Kunstgeschichte
Adenauerallee 10
D – 53113 Bonn
Germany
Email: julia.hegewald@uni-bonn.de
Tel. 0049-228-73 7213
Fax. 0049-228-73 4042