Burlington Contemporary is the Burlington Magazine’s free online platform for reviews and research on international contemporary art.
The Burlington Magazine is seeking submissions of articles presenting new research on any aspect or period of the arts of Asia. Articles, which should be no longer than 5,000 words, should be submitted to editorial@burlington.org.uk. There is no deadline.
Articles published in the magazine are peer reviewed. For a full set of submission guidelines, please see our website: submit-an-article.
Potential contributors are encouraged to discuss their proposal with the Editor in advance of submission: mhall@burlington.org.uk.
Conference: Girton College, University of Cambridge, 27-28 June 2020
Historians have long recognised the importance of architecture within the exercising of political power. Yet the interaction between power and place, between human actor and physical location, is a difficult one to quantify. This conference brings together political, social, cultural, and architectural historians to explore this relationship. Architecture could be mobilised to exhibit and to legitimise political power, but it could also have a profound influence on decision-makers at crucial moments of governance. Architecture has played a fundamental role in performances of statecraft. Accounting for this architectural agency, without resulting to crude spatial determinism, is one of the great methodological challenges that this conference will discuss. As architectural historians have established, the meaning of buildings vary from user to user. Often these reflected hierarchies operating within the building: experiences of the Foreign Office, for instance, differed from a Permanent Under-Secretary to a newly arrived clerk. It is this question of the subjective nature of architectural experience that we are particularly interested in exploring.
Taking broad definitions of political power and the state, we will not only consider the architecture of palaces, parliaments, and administration, but also of commercial, financial, legal, and religious sources of political authority. This conference is interested in the physical seats of power from the private residences of statesmen and women, to legislatures, embassies, and banking houses. Importantly, this conference considers how the architecture of political power evolved over time, reflecting changes in structures of government. In the late eighteenth-century, the majority of states were absolute monarchies or governed by elite oligarchs, but by the mid twentieth-century the rise of popular representation entailed very different types of architecture. Where once palaces like Versailles and Blenheim embodied the authority of ruling elites, parliaments and administrative offices soon reflected accountable styles of government.
We welcome papers on any geographical case study from the mid eighteenth-century until the twentieth. We are particularly interested in proposals that consider the role of gender, race, and class as well as questions of architectural science and technology. We are also interested in the role of architecture in the operation of imperial, economic, and religious political power. Please submit abstracts of 250 words to architecturesofpower@hist.cam.ac.uk by 21 October 2019
Geometry and Colour: Decoding the Arts of Islam in the West 1880–1945 International Conference, Zurich, May 14-15, 2020 Organizers: Sandra Gianfreda (Kunsthaus Zürich), Francine Giese (Universität Zürich), Ariane Varela Braga (Universität Zürich) and Axel Langer (Museum Rietberg Zürich) Venue: Museum Rietberg Zürich / Kunsthaus Zürich. Keynote Speaker: Rémi Labrusse (Université Paris Nanterre)
Call for Papers Deadline for submission: May 31, 2019
The art and architecture of the Islamic world had a decisive impact on the development of decorative and fine arts from 1880 to 1945. Many leading artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, masters of decorative arts such as Émile Gallé and Max Laeuger, and architects Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier took inspiration from the rich Islamic language of forms and ornamentation. They were inspired by the mathematical principles and unusual harmonies of colours in Persian miniatures and rugs, stained glass windows or Iznik tiles, and punched metal works and ceramics from the Near East, North Africa and Moorish Spain. While only some of them actually visited the Islamic world and studied its art and architecture in situ, many discovered it through exhibitions and publications. Following on from Paris (1893/1903), Stockholm (1897) and Algiers (1905), Munich set new standards in 1910 with the exhibition “Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst” (“Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art”). Museums, art dealers and private collectors from a number of countries contributed some 3,600 works, including valuable carpets, ceramics, metalwork pieces and Persian miniatures. The exhibition marked a turning point not only for the academic studies of the time, but also in terms of the reception of Islamic arts. Matisse, Albert Marquet and Hans Purrmann travelled from Paris especially to see it, and it was also visited by Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Le Corbusier. In the Western fine and decorative arts of the 19th century, the “Orient” conjured up motivic imagery heavily influenced by the colonialist perspective, whereas the artists of early Modernism investigated Islam’s stylistic devices in depth, transposing them to their own environment through a process of artistic internalisation. In combination with their own traditions and their respective times, it was this very internalisation that instilled motivating creative processes, out of which artists developed countless new forms of expression. The international conference, which is being held in conjunction with the planned exhibitions at the Vitromusée Romont (2020) and Kunsthaus Zurich (2022), aims to cast new light on the effort by Western artists to study a foreign but inspiring culture. The main points of discussion will be as follows: Colour and geometry in Islamic arts and architectural ornamentation Western studies on the principles of Islamic ornamentation Bringing Islamic arts to the West: exhibitions and international art fairs Translations and reinterpretations of Islamic colour and geometry in Western arts The Islamic contribution to the renewal of Western decorative and fine arts, and architecture Papers will have a duration of 20 min. Conference languages will be English, French and German. Abstracts of no more than 300 words, together with a short CV, should be sent to: conference@transculturalstudies.ch
