Prof. Abby McEwen awarded Inaugural Do Good Campus Fund Grant
The $25,000 grant will focus on providing students opportunities to "understand the process of commissioning and installing public art."
Research and Innovation
Research in art history and archaeology is an interdisciplinary enterprise.
Engaging diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods, our faculty produce innovative scholarship in the form of books and articles, digital projects, museum exhibitions, public lectures and more. Our faculty lead national networks and conferences (including the Archaeological Institute of America and the College Art Association), providing innovative research frameworks and making significant contributions to UMD's research enterprise.
Consolidated ARTH Statement of Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
(Prepared by the DEI Task Force and Approved by GAHA May 2022)
We, the members of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, affirm that Black lives matter and condemn the ongoing violence of systemic racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other acts of injustice and harm impacting BIPOC and other marginalized people. We recognize and are willing to confront the roles of Art History and Archaeology in elevating and perpetuating Eurocentrism and its attendant systems of oppression including colonization, exploitation of labor, exploitation of the nonhuman world, sexism, classism, and white supremacy inside and outside academia. We recognize that this list is not all-inclusive and is ever evolving, and to it more will be added. Continuing the work begun by graduate students, faculty, and staff in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by police, we commit to building and maintaining a more inclusive, equitable, anti-racist and pluralistic department. As part of this commitment, we recognize the need to confront and redress bias and harm and to challenge monocultural norms and expectations.
In this process, we are inspired by and join the campus-wide efforts to reckon with the University of Maryland’s long record of discrimination, racial injustice, and actions that undermine the very principles of intellectual and moral integrity for which we stand.
We are committed to lifting up and expanding the diversity of our department community and to improving inclusivity and equity in our departmental practices, policies, and culture. In the study and practice of art history and archaeology, diversity and differences are assets. Our department affirms that diversity is expressed in myriad forms, including race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, class, immigration status, body type, language, culture, national origin, religion, age, ability, and political perspective. We are made stronger by inviting in and providing for the diverse voices, approaches and contributions that form the foundation of our twinned disciplines, and which enable our community, as a whole, to thrive. While our disciplines have collaborated in structures of oppression, we wish to affirm the role that we in the humanities and in art history and archaeology can play in helping to envision and make possible a world that is both sustainable and just.
We envision our department as a space of care, safety, and respect for all of our members. All of our voices are valuable and our actions matter. We commit to upholding this vision in our work together.
Research and Service
The Poet's Brush: Chinese Ink Paintings by Lo Ch'ing
A monograph on Lo Ch'ing, one of China's foremost contemporary poet-painters.
Author/Lead: Jason Kuo
Dates:
Publisher: New Academia Publishing
Publisher: New Academia Publishing
Lo Ch'ing is one of China's foremost contemporary poet-painters. Despite the differences in their circumstances, many contemporary Chinese painters share one common trait: they have been stimulated by contact with contemporary Western art, but they did not merely imitate it; instead, they have rediscovered the abstract and expressionistic possibilities in their own tradition. It is in this sense that they are heirs to the great tradition of Chinese painting. Through their synthesis of the theories, techniques and styles of traditional literati painting in their own work, they were able to achieve innovation that enriched the tradition. These artists exemplify one of the best ways to be contemporary Chinese artist.
Lo Ch'ing has internalized such conflicting state of tradition and modernity (or even post-modernity, if you will) in his work. The 'Chinese tradition' takes a not so subtle turn in the Taiwanese environment. Indeed, Taiwan was, incidentally, the most curious and embracing place for matters of experimental nature, particularly during late 1970's to 1980's when Lo Ch'ing rose to fame. The rise of industrialization, post-industrialization, and curious issue of Taiwan's cultural identity created a nurturing and controversial ground for creative talents. Industrialization and post-industrialization are subjects of Lo Ch'ing's work. Certainly, there is an oddity in Lo Ch'ing's depiction of alien saucers and floating rocks and mountains, yet Lo Ch'ing's work presents a fresh curiosity that had not been explored in the practice of in painting precisely for that reason. Scholars often used the phrase 'reinvention of the Chinese landscape' to describe and define Lo Ch'ing's work and his motivation behind it, and it's not entirely correct. To put it in correct historical term, however, it was not the artist who industrialized the landscape, not to mention one can easily argue that the urban landscape of Taiwan is one that is drastically different than landscapes in China. Lo Ch'ing's work has a heightened sense of awareness in its presentation of any subject in this matter, and that Lo Ch'ing's work is very conscious of the environment that its content was derived from. Urbanity, interestingly enough, would be an idea that is in opposition to the tradition of Chinese literati landscape painting, for it means the destruction of nature.
Read More about The Poet's Brush: Chinese Ink Paintings by Lo Ch'ing
Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s
Catalogue accompanied the exhibition, Concrete Cuba, at David Zwirner (London and New York)
Author/Lead: Abigail McEwen
Dates:
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Radical political shifts that raged throughout Cuba in the 1950s coincided with the development of Cuban geometric abstraction and, notably, the formation of Los Diez Pintores Concretos (Ten Concrete Painters). The decade was marked by widespread turmoil and corruption following the 1952 military coup and by rising nationalist sentiments. At the same time, Havana was undergoing rapid urbanization and quickly becoming an international city. Against this vibrant backdrop, artists sought a new visual language in which art, specifically abstract art, could function as political and social practice.
Concrete Cuba marks one of the first major presentations outside of Cuba to focus exclusively on the origins of concretism in the country. It includes important works from the late 1940s through the early 1960s by the twelve artists who were at different times associated with the short-lived group: Pedro Álvarez, Wifredo Arcay, Mario Carreño, Salvador Corratgé, Sandú Darié, Luis Martínez Pedro, Alberto Menocal, José M. Mijares, Pedro de Oraá, José Ángel Rosabal, Loló Soldevilla, and Rafael Soriano. Many of the group's members had traveled widely in the preceding years and corresponded with those at the forefront of European and South American abstract movements.
Read More about Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s
“'A counterfeit of what has to decay': Vermeer and the Mapping of Absence in A Woman with a Lute"
An essay on the power of art to bring the absent into presence, as thematized by a Vermeer painting
Author/Lead: Aneta Georgievska-Shine
Dates:
This essay explores Vermeer’s painting known as A Woman with a Lute as a visual poem on amorous and artistic longing. A closer look at its key elements—from the musical instrument being tuned by the lady to the map on the wall behind her—shows that this seemingly unmediated view into a private world is as engaged with ideas as Vermeer’s more overtly allegorical compositions. Most notable among these ideas are the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the notion that every record of the present is a form of “history,” and that the art of painting is no less eloquent in its silence than its sister arts of music or poetry. Ultimately, as in many other images of solitary females, the artist pulls us into a circle of desire, effectively turning us from beholders to coparticipants in a “composition” whereby the absent comes back into presence.
"From Soft Power to Hard Sell: Images of Japan at American Expositions, 1915-1965”
This essay demonstrate the evolving ways in which art and artifacts served as a vital “soft power” component of Japanese diplomacy at World's Fairs held in the United States between 1915 and 1965.
Author/Lead: Alicia Volk
Dates:
Publisher: Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University
Publisher: Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University
The essay analyzes how the Japanese government variously used its exhibition spaces at American world’s fairs in the 20th century to present an image of the country conducive to the economic and geopolitical goals embraced by the government and industry.
Read More about "From Soft Power to Hard Sell: Images of Japan at American Expositions, 1915-1965”
Extended review essay of Gennifer Weisenfeld, Imaging Disaster:
A state of the scholarship essay on Japanese modern art.
Author/Lead: Alicia Volk
Dates:
Publisher: College Art Association
Publisher: College Art Association
A state of the scholarship essay on Japanese modern art.
Nationalism and French Visual Culture, 1870-1914
This volume explores the relationship between the arts and political conflict and the impact of nationalism during the early modern period in France.
Author/Lead: June Hargrove
Dates:
Publisher: NGW-Studies in the History of Art
Publisher: NGW-Studies in the History of Art
Between its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of World War I, France experienced a tremendous rise in populist nationalism, the aftershocks of which can still be felt today. In examining the forces that shaped the arts of this period―from the academy to the avant-garde, and from the museum to public spaces―this volume explores the relationship between the arts and political conflict and the impact of nationalism during the early modern period in France.Fifteen distinguished contributors provide a comprehensive overview of a range of artistic media over five decades. Generously illustrated with works by artists including Georges Braque, Maurice Denis, Edouard Manet, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, as well as with images from the popular press, the book addresses such topics as how artists memorialized the Franco-Prussian War and connections between nationalism and artistic styles. Collectively, the essays represent a new approach in treating nationalism as a common thread among political and philosophical movements generally seen in terms of their ideological differences.
Read More about Nationalism and French Visual Culture, 1870-1914
Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Horn Players" (1983)
A short essay on the work of Jean-Michel Basuiat for the new collection of AP Art History Resources on Khan Academy.
Author/Lead: Jordana Saggese
Dates:
Publisher: Khan Academy
Publisher: Khan Academy
Writing for the general public is a high priority for me. I was excited by the opportunity to write about Basquiat for the new collection of AP Art History Resources on Khan Academy. This was a chance to revise many of celebrity-focused opinions of his work and to communicate his accomplishments as a painter to a new audience.
Read More about Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Horn Players" (1983)
Chair, Women in Archaeology Interest Group, Archaeological Institute of America
The Women in Archaeology Interest Group consists of AIA members with an interest in the position of women in the modern field of archaeology, and in promoting its understanding to members of the AIA through its various programs and publications.
Author/Lead: Maryl B. Gensheimer
Dates:
-
The Women in Archaeology Interest Group consists of AIA members with an interest in the position of women in the modern field of archaeology, and in promoting its understanding to members of the AIA through its various programs and publications.
Object-centered essays for exhibition catalogue
Contributing author to this scholarly exhibition catalogue exploring the diversity, inventiveness, and modernity of Victorian Sculpture. Edited by Martina Droth, Jason Edwards, and Michael Hatt.
Author/Lead: Tess Korobkin
Dates:
Authored short, object-centered essays on the dissemination of statues of Queen Victoria across the British Empire and reproductions of Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave in a range of media.
Read More about Object-centered essays for exhibition catalogue
James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art
James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts is the first to offer an in-depth analysis of these remarkable paintings and the first to demonstrate that the artist was pioneering a new approach to public art in terms of the novelty of the patronage a
Author/Lead: William L. Pressly
Dates:
Publisher: Cork University Press
Publisher: Cork University Press
Winner of the William MB Berger Prize for British Art History 2015. Between 1777 and 1784, the Irish artist James Barry (1741-1806) executed six murals for the Great Room of the [Royal] Society of Arts in London. Although his works form the most impressive series of history paintings in Great Britain, they remain one of the British art world's best kept secrets, having attracted little attention from critics or the general public. James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts is the first to offer an in-depth analysis of these remarkable paintings and the first to demonstrate that the artist was pioneering a new approach to public art in terms of the novelty of the patronage and the highly personal nature of his content. Ultimately, as this book seeks to show, the artist intended his paintings to engage the public in a dialogue that would utterly transform British society in terms of its culture, politics, and religion. In making this case, the book brings this neglected series into the mainstream of discussions of British art of the Romantic period, revealing the intellectual profundity invested in the genre of history painting and re-evaluating the role Christianity played in Enlightenment thought.
Read More about James Barry's Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art