[1] Shades of Grey: Painting without colour
[2] National Histories of Art beyond the Nation's Borders


[1]
From: Janet McLean <jmcleanngi.ie>
Date: Oct 19, 2014
Subject: CFP: Shades of Grey: Painting without colour

Paper proposals, to be sent to the session convenor in accordance with proposal guidelines. Paper proposal deadline: 10 November 2014

Session Convenors:

Janet McLean, National Gallery of Ireland (jmcleanngi.ie)
Annette Wickham, Royal Academy of Arts, London annette.wickhamroyalacademy.org.uk)

Stillness, solitude, mysticism, equilibrium, urbanity, ennui, emptiness, anonymity, urbanisation, industrialisation, smog, fog, shadows, dust, dusk, nocturnes, concrete, steel and stone are some of the many connotations that artists and art-historians have long associated with grey paintings.

Over a period of roughly 100 years, bracketed by the invention of synthetic dyes in the 1850s and the advent of colour television in the 1960s, Western material culture (high and low) became increasingly saturated with colour. Corresponding with this era, which saw architecture go polychrome and art go Pop, a number of modern artists eschewed colour, opting instead to pare down their palettes and make pictures executed largely in shades of grey. Some, like Whistler and Giacometti, painted in grey for significant parts of their careers while others, like Van Gogh and Picasso, did so for brief but concentrated spells.

Whilst we particularly welcome proposals for papers addressing art between c.1850 and c.1970, we also invite those addressing art from earlier periods. Participants are invited to present papers exploring grey pictures, the motivations behind their making, and critical responses to them. Papers may relate to individual artists and specific artworks, as well as to wider ideas associated with greyness. As a ‘non-colour’ how has grey been used to mute narratives and meanings; to signify non-meanings, modernity and silence? In what ways are grey pictures connected with sculpture, printmaking, archaeology, architecture, photography and cinema?

Further areas of interest might include: weather and temps gris; colour theory; grisaille; underpainting; ideas relating to surface, finish and completion; symbolism; social issues, and the use of grey in post-war painting.

See more at: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/sessions2015/session25#sthash.Jk9lCMn4.dpuf

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[2]
From: Geraldine Johnson <tpwatanabegmail.com>
Date: Oct 20, 2014
Subject: CFP: National Histories of Art beyond the Nation's Borders

CIHA (Comité international d’histoire de l’art) is an art historical organisation of global reach that is organised into national committees. This session, convened by two members of CIHA’s British committee, sets out to investigate the promotion and production of national histories of art within transnational and global contexts. Since the 19th century, the scholarly discipline of art history has been dominated by nation-based narratives, which still have a powerful presence and influence. This session will consider the ways in which such nation-based narratives have been fostered, enabled, promoted and problematised beyond the borders of the nation in question. Sometimes this has been the explicit intention of particular institutions, such as the Dutch University Institute in Florence, the British School at Rome or the Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art in Paris, situated beyond the borders of the nation whose culture they study. Sometimes it has been the result of external forces, as for example in the 1930s and ’40s, when universities in Britain and the United States provided a significant home for art historians fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe whose work can be considered in light of their refugee experience. Equally, national histories of art have had an impact on each other: for example, Kakuzo Okakura’s ideas about the art history of Japan had an incendiary relationship to the Tagore circle’s ideas about the art history of India.

We welcome proposals for papers that address the character of national histories of art produced, promoted or influenced in some way from beyond the nation’s borders.