| IN DISCUSSION
Ehrenkranz Public Programs
We look forward to continuing a robust public programming schedule online, welcoming participants from around the globe. We encourage you to explore our virtual programming and archive of past lectures.
IFA Coronavirus Information and ResourcesThe Institute: your destination for the past, present, and future of art.
Connect to the latest thinking about the arts from ancient times to tomorrow’s prospects. Become part of the conversation, keep up with our events calendar (further down this page) and choose from our extensive range of lecture series, special lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and conferences. Enjoy our video archive to catch up with previous events. Some of our lectures are broadcast live.
2022 Calendar
- September
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Thursday, September 15, 2022, at 6:30pm
Series: Ancient Art and Archaeology
Title: The emergence of Roman monumental piazzas in the light of recent discoveries from Gabii and Rome
Speaker: Nicola Terrenato, Esther B. Van Deman Collegiate Professor of Roman Studies, University of Michigan
learn more about Nicola Terrenato's talk Watch Nicola Terrenato's talkonline [opens in new window]Description: How did the Fora—the great piazzas of the Roman world—come into existence? We still know relatively little about this central element of Italian urbanism, which slowly developed over the course of the entire first millennium BCE. Greek colonial agorai, by comparison, evolved much faster and became monumentalized much sooner than their central Italian counterparts. New discoveries at various urban centers in Latium and Etruria are casting a new light on this complex issue. The lecture reports on recent work at Gabii and in Rome, to retrace the siting of these piazzas, as well as the emergence of distinctive elements of later fora. Pavements, colonnades, basilicas and shops all appeared slowly and tentatively, often much later than generally assumed. These new developments have broader implications for the history of Roman architecture.
Nicola Terrenato is the Esther B. Van Deman Collegiate Professor of Roman Studies at the University of Michigan. Since 2020, he also directs the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. He studied at Rome and Pisa. He specializes in first millennium BCE Italy, in particular early Rome, northern Etruria and the Roman conquest. He directs the Gabii Project and the Sant’Omobono Project. Other interests include theories of state and empire formation, field survey and history of archaeology. He recently published The Early Roman Expansion into Italy, Cambridge 2019, which was awarded the 2021 Wiseman Book Award by the Archaeological Institute of America.
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Friday, September 16, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: Pre-Columbian Society of New York
Speaker: David Tavárez, Professor of Anthropology, Vassar College Title: Rethinking Time and Cosmos in Central Mexico: New Insights from a Colonial Zapotec Corpus
learn more about David Tavárez's talk Watch David Tavárez's talk online [opens in new window]Description: In 1704-05, after one of the most ambitious campaigns against “idolatry” in the colonial Americas, Northern Zapotec communities in Villa Alta (Oaxaca) surrendered 102 calendrical manuals and four ritual song compilations. This presentation, based on the first comprehensive survey of these songs and manuals, presents new insights regarding Mesoamerican cosmology and the 260-day divinatory count. It also examines multiple connections between cosmological beliefs and ritual protocols in this corpus, and sections from two pre-Columbian codices in the Borgia group: Fejérváry-Mayer 1, and Borgia 29-32. This talk surveys a Zapotec cosmological theory that linked the 260-day count with a three-tiered cosmos, analyzes parallels between Borgia images and Zapotec cosmogonic events, notes similarly structured ritual protocols in the Zapotec corpus and the Borgia, and concludes with a colonial ancestor summoning protocol that references imagery found in Classic-Period Zapotec monuments.
- Friday, September 23, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: China Project Workshop
Description: Michele Matteini, New York University; Yan Weitian, Syracuse University; Michael J. Hatch, Miami University present on ANTIQUARIAN EAST ASIA, 1700s-1900s. The discussion will be moderated by Michele Matteini (New York University). -
Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at 6:00pm
Title: Summer Projects Day I: Paintings and Objects Conservation
The Institute of Fine Arts invites you to an evening of presentations from current conservation students on their summer 2022 work projects.
learn more about Summer Projects Day 1Presentations will include:
Kayla Metelenis
Acton Collection Research Project: Examination of a trecento panel painting of Saint MichaelLaura Richter
Innate Degradation or Direct Intervention? Uncovering Changes to both a Lippo di Benivieni and Lee Krasner PaintingRuth Waddington
Repairing Canvas Tears and Tracing a Florentine Panel’s LifeLaura Bergemann
Conservation of a miniature gilded gondola at Villa la PietraMaria Olivia Davalos Stanton
From historic house to memorial museum: evaluating how we engage with objectsClare Misko
Ethical Considerations for Objects left in Memorial at the National September 11 Memorial & MuseumThere will be a brief question and answer session following the final presentation.
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Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 6:00pm
Series: Latin American Forum
Title: Eroticisms and Subversion in Latin America
A Panel with Cecilia Palmeiro, Duen Sacchi, and Jorge Sánchez Moderated by Mariano López Seoane and Bernardo Mosqueira
Introduction by Edward J. Sullivan, the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the History of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
learn more about Eroticisms and Subversion in Latin AmericaDescription: Feminist and queer activists, artists, and writers have long harnessed the forces of the erotic to energize and power their interventions. Presented by the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and organized in conjunction with the exhibition Eros Rising: Visions of the Erotic in Latin American Art at the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), this panel will examine the political applications and subversive potential of eroticism in contemporary Latin America through three case studies.
Reflecting on recent feminist activism in Latin America, the scholar, writer, and activist Cecilia Palmeiro will discuss the prospect of politicizing pleasure and eroticizing politics. In his presentation, the artist and writer Duen Sacchi will interrogate our erotic connections to the past, insinuating the possibility of an “ero-historiography” vis-a-vis colonial trauma and the pleasure of resistance. For his talk, the artist, writer, and lawyer Jorge Sánchez will address the intersection between Latinx and queer/cuir perspectives in the Americas. The panelists’ presentations will be followed by a discussion moderated by Mariano López Seoane and Bernardo Mosqueira, the curators of Eros Rising.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Mariano López Seoane is a writer, researcher, and curator based in Buenos Aires and New York. He is currently the director of the Graduate Program on Gender and Sexuality at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Argentina. He also teaches Latin American literature, cultural studies, and queer studies in the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University. López Seoane has curated and coordinated public programs for the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Buenos Aires International Book Fair, and Art Basel Cities. He has written extensively on contemporary Latin American literature and arts, focusing on the cultures of sexual and gender dissidents in the Americas, Latin American instances of queer studies and queer activism, and figurations of drug culture and drug-related violence in Latin American narrative, film, and visual arts. His publications include the volume of essays Donde está el peligro. Estéticas de la disidencia sexual (2022) and the novel El regalo de Virgo (2017).
Bernardo Mosqueira is a curator and writer based in New York and Rio de Janeiro. He is the ISLAA Curatorial Fellow at the New Museum. He is also the founder and artistic director of Solar dos Abacaxis, an institution for experimentation in art, education, and social transformation in Rio de Janeiro, and since 2011 he has directed Premio FOCO ArtRio, a national award for emerging artists. Mosqueira previously organized the performance festival Venus Terra and worked as a curator at Galeria de Arte Ibeu. Mosqueira has been curating exhibitions, editing books, teaching, and contributing texts to art publications since 2010; was awarded the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi in 2017; and cofounded Fundo Colaborativo, the first emergency fund for artists in Brazil, in 2020. His recent exhibitions include Miriam Inez da Silva at the Museu da República, Brasília (2021); Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro: Eclipse at the Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2021); and Daniel Lie: Unnamed Entities at the New Museum, New York (2022).
Cecilia Palmeiro is a scholar, writer, and activist. She holds a doctoral degree in Latin American literature and teaches at New York University in Buenos Aires and at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF) in Argentina. She holds a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures from Princeton University and specializes in contemporary Latin American cultural studies, with special attention to Argentine and Brazilian literature and gender studies. Palmeiro’s main interests are critical theory, intellectual history, and the relationship between art and politics. She has written a range of articles on contemporary Argentine and Brazilian literature and gender issues; has translated contemporary Brazilian literature into Spanish; and has published the books Desbunde y felicidad. De la Cartonera a Perlongher (2011), Correspondencia (2016), and Cat Power. La toma de la Tierra (2017). Palmeiro is also a founding member of the Ni Una Menos collective and an organizer of the International Feminist Strike.
Duen Sacchi is a Guaxu (trans) artist and writer who grew up in Aguaray, Gran Chaco, where he learned the arts of fire, words, and dyes. He sold beer, cleaned houses, traced roads, danced, and migrated. Sacchi completed the Independent Studies Program at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015. He is part of the artistic team Río Paraná. He published Ficciones Patógenas (Brumaria, 2018/Rara Avis, 2020) and is currently guest editor at Terremoto. Sacchi actively participates in the transvestite and trans feminist, anti-racist, and Indigenous movements. He lives between the bush and the banks of the Río de la Plata.
Jorge Sánchez is an artist, writer, and lawyer from Puerto Rico, living in New York City, and serves as the curator in the Arts and Culture Team at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies of Hunter College. He is also the curator and arts coordinator of the University of Pennsylvania and The Mellon Foundation multidisciplinary initiative “Dispossessions in the Americas: the extraction of bodies, land, and heritage from la conquista to the present.” Sánchez has a double BA from Tufts University, a JD from Rutgers School of Law, and an MFA from New York University, and is admitted to the NY and NJ bars. His writings, photographs, and curatorial projects address Latinx, HIV/AIDS, queer/cuir perspectives, and sexual dissidence.
ABOUT THE LATIN AMERICAN FORUM
The Latin American Forum is a platform sustained in partnership with ISLAA that brings artists, scholars, and critics of the arts of the Americas to The Institute of Fine Arts, providing a platform for discussions and debates about diverse issues pertaining to contemporary arts and visual cultures throughout the hemisphere.
This series of public programs and events is coordinated by Edward J. Sullivan, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the History of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and organized by graduate students. Since partnering with ISLAA in 2011, NYU’s Latin American Forum has hosted more than thirty events.
The events calendar is subject to change. Please check this webpage for updates. Many of our recent lectures are available to watch online in our events archive.
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Thursday, September 15, 2022, at 6:30pm
- October
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Friday, October 21, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: China Project Workshop
Description: Yukio Lippi, Harvard University will present on The Shōsōin Imperial Treasury and East Asian Mortuary Practice. The discussion will be moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).
RSVP required For the China Project Workshop [opens in new window] -
Tuesday, October 25, 2022, at 6:30pm
Series: Walter W.S. Cook Lecture
Speaker: Patricia Berman, Theodora L. and Stanley H. Feldberg Professor of Art, Wellesley College
Title: The El Greco Effect in Fin-de-Siècle Scandinavia
learn more about Patricia Berman's talk watch for Patricia Berman's talk online [opens in new window]Description: The reception of El Greco as a proto-modernist in early twentieth-century Northern Europe invites questions concerning transnationalism, genealogy construction, and strategies of mediation. In 1888, the Danish artist Johan Rohde published the first article on El Greco to appear in Scandinavian art journals. Building on El Greco’s growing reputation in France and Spain, Rohde offered the artist as a proxy to criticize local tastes and institutional provincialism. The Nordic interest in El Greco grew in the years after 1900, especially after the publication of German critic Julius Meier-Graefe’s influential Spanische Reise (The Spanish Journey; 1910). Meier-Graefe’s Greco – the radical colorist, the cosmopolitan – was celebrated by Franz Marc in the Blue Rider Almanac and cited by critics throughout the Nordic countries. Perhaps paradoxically, given that Meier-Graefe aligned El Greco with Impressionism and that one of his principal concerns was color, his book contained no illustrations. Without direct access to original works, or to few of them, artists and critics nonetheless responded to the “effect” that characterizations of El Greco had on local art politics. Using El Greco’s reception history as a springboard, this talk considers how such art-historical mediation legitimized a burgeoning avant-garde in the North.
Patricia Berman is the Theodora L. and Stanley H. Feldberg Professor of Art at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts and has also taught as a Professor II at the University of Oslo where she facilitated the research network “Munch, Modernism, and Modernity.” The recipient of fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, American Council of Learned Societies, The Bunting Institute (Radcliffe Institute), and the American-Scandinavian Foundation (where she serves as an advisory trustee), she has published eleven books and exhibition catalogues including James Ensor: Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 (2002; Dutch trans. 2013); A Fine Regard: Essays in Honor of Kirk Varnedoe, (co-edited with fellow alum Gertje Utley, 2008); Munch|Warhol, and the Multiple Print (with fellow alum Pari Stave, 2013); and In Another Light: Danish Painting in the Nineteenth Century (2007, paperback 2013). Her exhibitions have included “Edvard Munch and Women” (1997); “Munch’s Laboratory; The Path to the Aula” (Munch Museum, 2011); “Luminous Modernism: A Centennial Retrospective of the Scandinavian Art Exhibition of 1912” (American Scandinavian Foundation, NY, 2011); and “The Experimental Self: Edvard Munch’s Photography” (seven venues, 2017-2021);. She is currently organizing an exhibition with fellow IFA alum Michelle Facos on Scandinavian art and design for the Frick Museum, Pittsburgh.
- Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Title: Summer Projects Day II: Paper, Paintings and Objects Conservation
The Institute of Fine Arts invites you to an evening of presentations from current conservation students on their summer 2022 work projects.
learn more about Summer Projects Day rsvp required for Summer Projects Day[opens in new window]Presentations will include:
Celia Cooper
Washing a Water-Damaged Book at The New York Public Library: A Novel ApproachAlexa Machnik
Training in Japanese Paintings Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of ArtEmma Hartman
Conserving the Consuelo Kanaga Archive at the Brooklyn Museum: Documentation, Analysis, and Treatment of her Gelatin Silver PrintsAbigail Slawik
A Survey of the Garden Club of America’s Rare Book Collection at The New York Botanical GardenAmalia Donastorg
Media Mysteries: Examination and Treatment of a Beauford Delaney Painting at the Virginia Museum of Fine ArtsIsabelle Lobley
Conservation of Arms and Armor at The Metropolitan Museum of ArtDevon Lee
Where the Wild Things Are: Conservation of Natural Science Collections at the American Museum of Natural History -
Thursday, October 27, 2022, 6:00pm
Series: Pre-Columbian Society of New York
Speaker: John W. Hoopes, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas
Title: Jade, Gold, and the Iconography of Power in the Isthmo-Colombian Area
learn more about John W. Hoopes' talk rsvp required for John W. Hoopes' talk[opens in new window]The Isthmo-Colombian Area, comprising territory occupied predominantly by Chibchan speakers in southern Central America and northern Colombia, was home to Pre-Columbianpeoples whose societies, technologies, cosmologies, and iconographies were distinct from those of their neighbors in Mesoamerica, the Andes, Amazonia, and the Antilles. Their traditions included techniques of crafting jadeite, gold, and gold-copper alloys into elaborate ornaments representing social status, wealth, and power. Fine jewelry manufactured from exotic materials communicated esoteric knowledge about the natural and supernatural worlds. Indigenous conceptions of social order in Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia were reflected in jade and gold and can be understood through artwork in media such as stone sculpture and pottery as well as careful consideration of archaeological data. This presentation, emphasizing objects in the recently published Robert Wood Bliss collection at Dumbarton Oaks, will explain how elite craft items were made and used in this unique part of the Americas.
The events calendar is subject to change. Please check this webpage for updates. Many of our recent lectures are available to watch online in our events archive.
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Friday, October 21, 2022, at 6:00pm
- November
- Monday, November 14, 2022, 6:00pm
Title: Summer Projects Day III: Archaeological & Time-based Media Art Conservation
The Institute of Fine Arts invites you to our final evening of presentations from current conservation students on their summer 2022 work projects.
learn more about Summer Projects Day rsvp required for Summer Projects Day[opens in new window]Presentations will include:
Erin Fitterer
Two Summer Projects: Documenting Bruce Nauman’s "Slant Step" and Excavating at SelinunteCaroline Carlsmith
Something Old, Something New: Conservation of Archaeological Materials at Selinunte and Digital Design Files at Cooper HewittAmeya Grant
In the Field: The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, TurkeyJames Hughes
Keeping Track of "Timekeeper"Felice Robles
"Anima Terra": Condition & Risk Assessment of a Software- and Light-based Sculpture at the Art Institute of ChicagoJosephine Jenks
A Survey of Motion Picture Films at Bobst LibraryThere will be a brief question and answer session following the final presentation.
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Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 6pm
The Paul Lott Lecture
Speaker: Leah Dickerman, Director of Research Programs, MoMA
Title: Mondrian’s Boogie Woogie and Other Things
learn more about Leah Dickerman's talk rsvp required for Leah Dickerman's talk[opens in new window]Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943) is one of the most beloved paintings in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, often seen as the Dutch artist’s dazzling effort to capture the dynamism of his new home. Building on writing by Yve-Alain Bois, Harry Cooper and Fred Moten, how can we understand this picture as one that emerges from the confluence of two streams of migration? That could only have been made in America? And what are its distinctive political stakes?
As Director of Research Programs, Leah Dickerman leads one of MoMA’s newest departments in building an infrastructure to support and strengthen the Museum’s many research activities. These programs explore new narratives of modern and contemporary art, connect people across disciplines around the study of artworks, and mentor the next generation of art historians, curators, and other museum professionals. Dickerman is also the founding Director of the Museum Research Consortium, a partnership between MoMA and graduate art history programs at the Institute of Fine Arts, the Graduate Center at The City University of New York, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia. From 2018 to 2021, Ms. Dickerman was co-head of the Creative Team at the Museum, developing digital platforms and programs to carry content about art and ideas beyond the gallery walls, including the online publication Magazine. As Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art and previously at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, she organized or co-organized a series of exhibitions offering new perspectives on the modern including Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends (2017); One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North (2015); Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 (2012-2013); Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art (2011-2012); and Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity (2009-2010). She has published on many topics in modern art, and has served on the editorial board of the journal October since 2000. In 2019, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Thursday, November 17, 2022, 6:30pm *POSTPONED*
Title: Selinunte Lecture: New Discoveries
learn more about the Selinunte LectureTHIS LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPONED
Clemente Marconi is the James R. McCredie Professor in the History of Greek Art and Archaeology and University Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU; he is also Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Milan. A corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei he is the director of the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU and University of Milan archaeological mission at Selinunte.Andrew Farinholt Ward is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Emory University, specializing in the art, architecture, and archaeology of ancient Greece. He is also the Field Director for the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU and University of Milan archaeological mission at Selinunte, and the Supervisor of Excavations for the American Excavations Samothrace.
This past summer our mission was able to resume work at the Sicilian archaeological site of Selinunte, with an international team of nearly 60 collaborators. Major discoveries were made in the lab and in the field concerning the history of the Greek settlement and ritual activity in its main urban sanctuary, particularly during the crucial first generations following its foundation. The mission has also embarked on a new collaborative project with the German Archaeological Institute to study Selinunte's Temples A and O, the results of which are already changing the way we understand these temples and the role of the acropolis before their construction.
- Monday, November 28, at 5:30pm *POSTPONED*
Series: Renaissance Consortium
Title: Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome
learn more about Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of RomeDescription: Professor Cammy Brothers (Northeastern University) will present on her recent book publication, Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome (Princeton, 2022). Giuliano da Sangallo (1443–1516) was one of the first architects to draw the ruins and artifacts of ancient Rome in a systematic way. He played a crucial role in the Renaissance recovery of antiquity, and his work transformed the broken fragments of Rome’s past into the image of a city made whole. Giuliano’s inventive approach, which has often been mischaracterized as fantastical or naive, infused the architect’s craft with the sensibilities of a poet and painter. His drawings form the basis for a reevaluation of the meaning and method of the Renaissance study of ancient artifacts and bring to life the moment when artists and architects began to view the fragments of ancient Rome not as broken artifacts of little interest but as objects of aesthetic contemplation.
Cammy Brothers is an Associate Professor at Northeastern University, where she holds a joint appointment in Architecture and in Art & Design. She joined Northeastern in 2016 from the University of Virginia, where she held the Valmarana Chair and was Director of the Venice Program. She is the author of two monographs, Michelangelo, Drawing and the Invention of Architecture (2008) and Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome (2022). She has a third book project underway, “The Architectural Legacy of Islamic Spain,” which focuses on the cities of Granada and Seville in the aftermath of the reconquest.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2022, at 3:00pm
Series: Time-Based Media Lecture
Title: A Medium for Building Worlds: Conserving Artworks Created in Game Engines
learn more about A Medium for Building Worlds rsvp required for A Medium for Building Worlds[opens in new window]Description: Game engines are software tools for building virtual environments and experiences. They simulate properties of the real world, like materials and physics, while supporting the creation of different realities with their own geographies and rules. Having emerged in the context of video game development, game engines are also finding use in the creation of software-based art. When displayed, these artworks consist of moving image sequences that play out in real-time, allowing them to respond dynamically to input or unfold in unpredictable ways. This talk will consider the theoretical and technical considerations involved in the conservation of artworks made in game engines, and reflect on the role of the conservator when working with an emerging medium.
Tom Ensom (he/him) is a freelance digital conservator specialising in the conservation of software-based art. In 2018 he completed his PhD, which explored approaches to the documentation of software-based art through a collaborative doctoral partnership between King’s College London and Tate. He continues to work closely with Tate’s Time-based Media Conservation team, where he has helped develop their conservation strategy for software-based art and works on the acquisition of a wide range of time-based media artworks. His current research focus is the conservation of artworks which employ real-time 3D rendering and immersive media technologies.
The events calendar is subject to change. Please check this webpage for updates. Many of our recent lectures are available to watch online in our events archive.
- Monday, November 14, 2022, 6:00pm
- December
- In-Person and Virtual Lecture
Monday, December 5, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: Archaeological Excavations at Aphrodisias
Title: New Research and Discoveries at Aphrodisias in 2022
learn more about Archaeological Excavations at Aphrodisias
Join us in person for Archaeological Excavations at Aphrodisias[opens in new window] Join us virtually for Archaeological Excavations at Aphrodisias[opens in new window]Introduction by President Andrew Hamilton and Christine Poggi, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director, the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
Join us to hear Roland R. R. Smithspeak about the most recent work carried out by NYU-IFA at Aphrodisias in southwest Turkey, in collaboration with Oxford University. Aphrodisias is one of the most important sites of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, with superbly preserved public buildings and monuments. Marble-carving was a noted Aphrodisian speciality in antiquity, and the excavated remains of the city’s statues, sarcophagi, and architectural reliefs are abundant and of spectacular quality.
The team carried out a rewarding nine-week research season at Aphrodisias last summer, back to near-full pre-COVID strength. Current projects all saw exciting results—the Civil Basilica with its inscribed text of Diocletian’s Prices Edict; the Place of Palms and its 170m-long pool; the Tetrapylon Street and its extraordinary seventh-century Dark Age Complex; and a new project at the late antique House of Kybele and its lively neighborhood. Excavation recovered several important new statuary finds. Most striking is an Antonine portrait of a young priestess wearing a fashionable hairstyle of long plaited braids wound elegantly six times around her head.
Roland Smith is an expert in Greek and Roman art, with a special interest in the visual and urban culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He taught at the IFA from 1986 to 1995 and has been director of the NYU Aphrodisias project since 1991. He retired recently from his position as Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Oxford University and is currently teaching for the academic year 2022–23 at Princeton University as the Stanley Kelley Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching.
*The program will be presented onsite at the James B. Duke House and live-streamed to those that join by Zoom. Zoom details will be available upon registration for virtual attendees. All in-person attendees must be in compliance with NYU's COVID-19 vaccination requirements (fully vaccinated and boosted, once eligible and by NYU's deadline) and be prepared to present proof of compliance. Please review the University's COVID guidelines in advance of your visit.
Join us in-person Join us virtually - Tuesday, December 6, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: Silberberg Lecture
Speaker: Holly Flora, Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University
Title: Perception, Ritual, and Memory in an Illustrated Manuscript of the Meditationes Vitae Christi
learn more about the Silberberg Lecture RSVP required for the Silberberg Lecture[opens in new window]Written originally for a Franciscan nun in Tuscany in the early fourteenth century, the Meditationes Vitae Christi or Meditations on the Life of Christ is arguably the most somatic devotional text of the late Middle Ages. Invoking the bodily senses, the author urges the reader to imagine herself physically present at the events of Christ’s life. In this presentation, I will explore the role of sense perception in the best-known illustrated manuscript of the Meditationes: Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. ital. 115, made ca. 1350 for nuns in Pisa. I will argue that the text and image program of Ms. ital. 115 trained the nuns to activate their senses as a way of participating in church liturgy and rituals while observing rules of enclosure and separation required of female members of the Franciscan order. Despite the inherent tensions between the celebration of the senses and the renunciation of the body in traditional monastic practices, in Ms. ital. 115, sensory perception serves to cultivate collective memory for the nuns, reinforcing their Franciscan identity.
Holly Flora is Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University. Her research explores issues of gender and narrative in the devotional art of late medieval and early modern Italy. Her publications include two monographs, The Devout Belief of the Imagination: the Paris Meditationes Vitae Christi and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy (2009) and Cimabue and the Franciscans (2018), two co-edited volumes, and a number of articles and museum catalogue contributions. A past recipient of the Rome Prize (2010-11) and fellowship at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti (2015-16), her current projects include a forthcoming monograph on the senses and the Meditationes Vitae Christi and a study of manuscripts of Bonaventure’s Legenda maior.
- Wednesday, December 7, 2022, at 6:00pm
Series: Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professor In Conservation Lecture
Title: Every photograph is an enigma
Speaker: Bertrand Lavédrine
learn more about the Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professor RSVP required for the Judith Praska Distinguished Visiting Professor[opens in new window]Photographic images are, more than ever, part of our daily environment. We are constantly surrounded by numerous images but rarely look at them closely. They contain as much information as they pose questions to the historian, conservator, sociologist, scientist, and each of us personally. Through a selection of photographs that have punctuated his professional life, Bertrand Lavédrine will attempt to reveal aspects of their public or private history by placing them in context with their creation and will share with us what material science, documentary evidence, or collective memory reveals about each of them without fully disclosing all their mystery.
Bertrand Lavédrine is a professor at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle and a scientist at the Centre de recherche sur la conservation in Paris. From 1998 to 2019, he was the director of this center and was appointed head of the Conservation training program at the Sorbonne University from 2002 to 2007. He has written papers and books on the preservation of photographic collections, now available in several languages (French, English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Vietnamese). Dr. Lavédrine has participated in various international training programs funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Getty Conservation Institute or Iccrom, and research projects funded by the European commission.
The events calendar is subject to change. Please check this webpage for updates. Many of our recent lectures are available to watch online in our events archive.
- In-Person and Virtual Lecture