Academic Sessions: London 2008
Self-Portraiture and Inscriptions of the Artist
Session Convenors:
Mary Roberts, University of Sydney, mary.roberts@arts.usyd.edu.au
Hannah Williams, Courtauld Institute of Art, hannah.williams@courtauld.ac.uk
Speakers:
Melissa Hyde (University of Florida) Humouring the Subject: Madame Roslin’s Self-Portrait with Quentin de La Tour’s L’Auteur qui rit
Hannah Williams (Courtauld Institute of Art) Other than Himself: Jean-Etienne Liotard’s Turkish self-portraits
Rachel Esner (University of Amsterdam) Presence in Absence: The empty studio as self-portrait and manifesto
Susan Waller (University of Missouri, Saint Louis) Gérôme’s Self-portraits: Negotiating constructions of the masculinity of the artist
Mary Roberts (University of Sydney) Cross-Cultural Processes of Becoming: The self-portraits of Fausto Zonaro, William Holman Hunt and ?eker Ahmed Pa?a
Michaela Giebelhausen (University of Essex) Trying on the Oriental: William Holman Hunt in text and image
Anne Koval (Mount Allsion University) Self-Portraiture as Palimpsest: Whistler’s inscription of the self as other
Anna Lovatt (University of Nottingham) Self-Portraiture and De-Facement in Conceptual Art
Session Abstract:
Self-portraiture, as a unique site for investigating the intersection between notions of identity and theories of representation, has been, and continues to be, a fascinating field of inquiry for both the artist and the art historian. In a form of representation where the roles of maker, subject and beholder are co-implicated, it is the very process of art-making that comes to the fore. This self-reflexive tendency within self-portraiture accounts for the sustained theoretical interest in this long historical tradition of artists’ highly inventive responses to the task of representing themselves. Indeed these visual theory debates have been at the centre of several recent and important exhibitions and writings that have initiated frameworks for looking at what self-portraiture means, represents and does, and for rethinking the location of self-portraiture within art historical discourse.
This session considers self-portraiture in its broadest sense, from actual representations of the artist in portraits or studio scenes, to notions of artistic inscription in terms of the painterly trace, the signature and other representational marks or insertions of self. Our intention is to explore the issues of identity, representation and visuality that emerge from self-portraiture as a category of representation, looking at what it means to represent the self, and how artists have engaged with this challenge in different cultural contexts and locations. In this session, papers from a range of art historical fields consider how artists have used self-portraits to locate themselves socially and aesthetically, and in turn, how our art historical analysis can re-locate them historically and theoretically. In particular, this session aims to challenge existing approaches to understanding self-portraiture and invite new ways of interpreting this fascinating category of representation.
Mary Roberts, University of Sydney, mary.roberts@arts.usyd.edu.au
Hannah Williams, Courtauld Institute of Art, hannah.williams@courtauld.ac.uk
Speakers:
Melissa Hyde (University of Florida) Humouring the Subject: Madame Roslin’s Self-Portrait with Quentin de La Tour’s L’Auteur qui rit
Hannah Williams (Courtauld Institute of Art) Other than Himself: Jean-Etienne Liotard’s Turkish self-portraits
Rachel Esner (University of Amsterdam) Presence in Absence: The empty studio as self-portrait and manifesto
Susan Waller (University of Missouri, Saint Louis) Gérôme’s Self-portraits: Negotiating constructions of the masculinity of the artist
Mary Roberts (University of Sydney) Cross-Cultural Processes of Becoming: The self-portraits of Fausto Zonaro, William Holman Hunt and ?eker Ahmed Pa?a
Michaela Giebelhausen (University of Essex) Trying on the Oriental: William Holman Hunt in text and image
Anne Koval (Mount Allsion University) Self-Portraiture as Palimpsest: Whistler’s inscription of the self as other
Anna Lovatt (University of Nottingham) Self-Portraiture and De-Facement in Conceptual Art
Session Abstract:
Self-portraiture, as a unique site for investigating the intersection between notions of identity and theories of representation, has been, and continues to be, a fascinating field of inquiry for both the artist and the art historian. In a form of representation where the roles of maker, subject and beholder are co-implicated, it is the very process of art-making that comes to the fore. This self-reflexive tendency within self-portraiture accounts for the sustained theoretical interest in this long historical tradition of artists’ highly inventive responses to the task of representing themselves. Indeed these visual theory debates have been at the centre of several recent and important exhibitions and writings that have initiated frameworks for looking at what self-portraiture means, represents and does, and for rethinking the location of self-portraiture within art historical discourse.
This session considers self-portraiture in its broadest sense, from actual representations of the artist in portraits or studio scenes, to notions of artistic inscription in terms of the painterly trace, the signature and other representational marks or insertions of self. Our intention is to explore the issues of identity, representation and visuality that emerge from self-portraiture as a category of representation, looking at what it means to represent the self, and how artists have engaged with this challenge in different cultural contexts and locations. In this session, papers from a range of art historical fields consider how artists have used self-portraits to locate themselves socially and aesthetically, and in turn, how our art historical analysis can re-locate them historically and theoretically. In particular, this session aims to challenge existing approaches to understanding self-portraiture and invite new ways of interpreting this fascinating category of representation.