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