Daily Archives: 19 July 2016

Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions @ de Beer gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago

Scholarly Favourites: Researching in Special Collections Exhibition, University of Otago
10 June 2016 – 26 August 2016
de Beer gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago

Who uses Special Collections? And why? And what research results emanate from physically examining books and manuscripts? These questions formed the basis of the forthcoming exhibition, beginning on 10 June 2016, at the de Beer Gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago. The exhibition, entitled Scholarly Favourites. Researching in Special Collections, reveals a variety of readers, and an equally wide variety of books and manuscripts used. In most cases the item was used for research; in others the item was a pure favourite, a work that resonated with the reader’s sense of being. The book or manuscript had become important to them.

Each reader was asked to contribute 150 words on ‘their’ chosen book; the exhibition: Scholarly Favourites. Researching in Special Collections is the result.

The items selected were from the diverse collections within Special Collections: Brasch, de Beer, Shoults, Truby King, Pulp & Science Fiction, Monro, and Stack. Notable items include Albinus’s spectacular Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani (1747); Augustus Hamilton’s The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand (1901); Johannes Wolleb’s Compendium Theologiae Christianae (1642); Gregory M. Mathews’s Supplement to The Birds of Norfolk & Lord Howe Islands and the Australasian South Polar Quadrant (1928); the scurrilous Alvin Purple (1974); and Egypt and the Sudan: Handbook for Travellers (1929). Please enjoy what others have researched and enjoyed.

Book Arts Materials From Dartmouth College
1 September 2016 – 2 December 2016
de Beer gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago

Book Arts materials from Dartmouth College that were used in their own 25th anniversary celebrations last year, will be exhibited in the de Beer Gallery, Special Collections. The Otago exhibition starts 1 September and runs through to 2nd December 2016.

On 1 August, Sarah M. Smith, Book Arts Printer at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, will arrive at the University of Otago to be the Printer in Residence (PIR) for 2016. Sarah’s Otakou Press print project is to print a limited edition of poems written by local poet Rhian Gallagher. The theme of this volume is centred round the life and activities of Freda Du Faur (1882–1935), the first woman to climb Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain. The text will be enhanced by images by the Dunedin artist Lynn Taylor. 120 copies will be printed; 100 will be for sale.

Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Era – Call For Papers

Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Era
One day and a half Symposium & Workshop
University of Birmingham
24-25 February, 2017

This one day and a half conference combines a symposium and a workshop. The aim is to examine and contextualise the artistic and cultural production of the geopolitical centres that were controlled by or in contact with the late Byzantine Empire, such as the Adriatic and Balkan regions, the major islands of Cyprus and Crete, and the regions surrounding the cities of Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and Mystras. This conference will explore the many intellectual implications that are encoded in the innovative artistic production of the Palaiologan Era often simplified by a rigid understanding of what is Byzantine and what is not.

In its last centuries, the political entity of the Empire of the Romaioi released cultural and artistic energies migrating towards new frontiers of intellectual achievements. The intent is to counter-balance the innovation of these works of art with the notion of decline and the narrative of decay frequently acknowledged for this period; and to promote an understanding of transformation where previous cultural heritages were integrated into new socio-political orders.

The Symposium – hosted on the afternoon of the 24 and the morning of the 25 February – will bring together established scholars, early-career scholars, and postgraduate students. Three keynotes will provide the methodological framework for the discussion; while the selected papers will focus solely on the visual expressions and cultural trajectories of the artworks produced during the late Palaiologan Era.

The Workshop, hosted on the afternoon of the 25 February, will offer the opportunity to further the discussion in a more informal setting and for a selected number of Master students to interact and offer brief presentations.

Postgraduate students and early-career scholars are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers on art and architecture history, material culture, visual aspects of palaeography and codicology, and gender studies.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • Gift exchange in view of diplomatic missions or dynastic marriages both within the Empire and with its neighbours
  • Visual evidence of the interaction between the Emperor and the Patriarch
  • Innovations in the visual agenda of the Palaiologan dynasty
  • Aspects of religious iconography and visual representations of theological controversies, i.e. Hesychasm
  • Artistic patronage and manuscript production as the outcome of dynastic and institutional interactions
  • Visual and material production as the outcome of political and social circumstances, i.e. the Zealot uprising or the Unionist policy
  • Evidence of artistic exchanges in the depictions of women, men, and children during the Palaiologan Era

Titles of proposed papers, abstracts of 250 words, and a short CV should be sent to Maria Alessia Rossi (The Courtauld Institute of Art) – m.alessiarossi@icloud.com and Andrea Mattiello (The University of Birmingham) – axm570@bham.ac.uk by 30 September, 2016.