ABSTRACTS #1

Art History [Istoria tis Technis] journal

corpus

Archaeology and Art History in 19th-century Greece: The Teaching of Grigorios Papadopoulos and Stylianos Konstantinidis at the Athens School of Arts (Part I)

Eleonora Vratskidou

This two-fold study explores the institutional origins of art history in 19th-century Greece, focusing on the courses taught at the Athens School of Arts. The first part of the study examines the teaching of the historian, philologist and archaeologist Grigorios Papadopoulos (1818-1873), from 1844 to 1863. Papadopoulos explicitly rejected the universal history of ancient civilizations, taught at Italian and French art schools, and proposed instead an in-depth study of ancient Greek art, drawing on the German university model, and more particularly on the Handbuch der Arhchaölogie der Kunst (1830) by Karl Otfried Müller. The paper addresses issues such as the centrality of images in Papadopoulos’ approach and its romantic theoretical premises, the creation of an artistic terminology, and the relation of the School’s teaching to that of the AthenianUniversity.

Eleonora Vratskidou holds a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (E.H.E.S.S.) in Paris. Her current research interests focus on the teaching of art history in 19th-century art schools [evratskidou@gmail.com].

The second and final part (Part II) of Eleonora Vratskidou’s paper, dealing with the teaching and thinking of Stylianos Constantinidis, will be published in the next but one issue of the journal.

 

The Canon of the Author in Contemporary Art Exhibition Curating

Eva Fotiadi

The writing of the history of exhibition curating in contemporary art has been largely based on the study of a few pioneer curators, such as Harald Szeemann, Lucy Lippard or Seth Siegelaub, who have been lent the status of authors, occasionally comparable to the artist as author. Nonetheless, if one studies systematically innovations and transformations in exhibition-making since the 1960s, which have given to curating the status of distinct profession and its current high prestige, one may find that the image of a charismatic single-author is, to some degree, a construction. Several crucial historical moments in curating, even when labeled by an individual’s name, were nonetheless connected to collective or collaborative endeavors.

Eva Fotiadi is a Lecturer of Contemporary Art and Theory at the University of Amsterdam and at the GerritRietveldAcademy. Her research interests focus on ephemeral forms of art, the relationship between politics and art, and the history of curating contemporary art. Her book The Game of Participation in Art and the Public Sphere (Maastricht, Shaker Publishing) was published in 2009 [s.e.fotiadi@uva.nl].

 

Metamorphoses of Memory: The Monuments of WWI in Interwar Europe

Alexandros Teneketzis

The ‘metamorphoses’ of public memory of WWI, the ideological and political shifts, and the reception of the past by various groups according to specific historical conditions, influenced the construction of monuments in public space, namely those erected in the capitals of the nations that took a leading role in the war (Germany, England, and France) – monuments with a political and ideological charge, having an official and national character rather than a local one. By the end of WWI, the first ‘industrial’ war, there was a need in almost every country to commemorate its dead, yet for the first time in history the anonymous heroes were ordinary citizens and not Emperors or Military Leaders. In my paper, I will examine the monuments concerning that memory.

Alexandros Teneketzis holds a PhD from the University of Crete. He is currently working on the publication of his thesis, which focuses on the monuments of WWII in Cold War Europe [ateneketzis@ims.forth.gr].

 

Art and Anatomy at the RoyalAcademy of Arts in London: Representations of the Body in the Age of Conservative Reaction (Part I)

Aris Sarafianos

In 1808, the RA elected a new professor of anatomy, after a highly controversial competition between two surgeons coming from opposite ranks of the surgical profession – Charles Bell and Anthony Carlisle. The race ended with the triumph of the better connected candidate, Carlisle, but the main issues over which the two surgeons clashed continued to polarize artistic and medical communities for years. Carlisle retained the post until 1824 and the entire body of his unpublished lectures preserved today at the RCS is a rich and rare but entirely unexplored monument of art literature. In this part of the paper, I will examine this material as a unique point of entry into the making of the official system of polite anatomy that prevailed in the RoyalAcademy. I will particularly focus on its various political and professional uses as an effective tool of conservative entrenchment against various oppositional approaches to the visual and literary representations of the human body emerging in this period.

Aris Sarafianos is a Lecturer of Art History at the University of Ioannina. His research focuses on the interdisciplinary and inter-professional entanglements
of art history and the history of biomedical sciences since the middle of the 18th century
[asarafia@cc.uoi.gr].

The second and final part (Part II) of Aris Sarafianos’s paper, dealing with the activities and theories of Sir Charles Bell, will be published in the next issue of the journal.

 

 

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Klee’s Pottery and Fugue in Red

Otto Karl Werckmeister

First published as Töpferei [Poterie] et Fuge in Rot [Fugue en rouge] de Klee in Marcella Lista (ed.), Paul Klee. Polyphonies, Paris, Musée de la Μusique, 18 Oct. 2011–15 Jan. 2012, pp. 63-70.

Translated into Greek by Annie Malama.

Otto Karl Werckmeister is a Professor Emeritus at the NorthwesternUniversity (Evanston, IL).

 

 

divertimenti

Uses and Abuses of El Greco’s Knight with His Hand on His Breast

Nicos Hadjinicolaou

First published as “Uso e abuso del Cavaliere con la mano al petto” in Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Maria Calí, Naples, Casa Editrice Paparo, 2013, pp. 122-125.

Translated into Greek by the author.

Nicos Hadjinicolaou is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Crete.

 

 

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Evaluation of Research Performance in the Humanities. Peer Review, Bibliometrics and Journal Ranking Lists. Reflections and Reactions from the Field of Art History

Eugenia Alexaki

The compilation by the European Science Foundation of the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH, 2007 & 2011), a list categorizing European arts and humanities journals, reinforced in Europe the discussion regarding the methods that can provide a reliable measurement of the effectiveness of researchers, universities and research centers in the humanities. This article presents an overview of the concerns expressed by the international research community regarding the use of bibliometric analysis in research performance assessment in the humanities, and comments on the reaction of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA), as well as on RIHA’s proposal for reliable measuring quality in art history.

Eugenia Alexaki holds a PhD in Art History from Freie Universität Berlin. She currently teaches at the Hellenic Open University, Greece. She acts as an advisor to the Contemporary Greek Art Institute (Athens), and also serves as an external evaluator for the European Commission (Brussels). Her current research focuses on art history teaching theories and on critical visual literacy [eugeniaalexaki@yahoo.gr].