Material Culture Program and Kohler Foundation on the UW Homepage

Have you looked at the University of Wisconsin, Madison home page recently? 

If not then you should because there is currently a story up about the UW Material Culture program through the Art History department and its fruitful relationship with the Kohler Foundation and its focus on Outsider Art.

Current UW Madison Graduate Student Emma Silverman spent seven weeks in Lucas, Kansas studying and conserving the 'Garden of Eden' site.

Samuel Dinsmoor created more than 150 handmade sculptures that represent religious, national and populist stories that set about his home in Lucas. It is currently listed on National Register of Historic Places, but due to its relatively remote location it has proven difficult to maintain.

Already well known for its preservation of folk and vernacular art environments the Kohler Foundation stepped in assist in the sites preservation and conservation.

To learn more please refer to the story at: http://www.news.wisc.edu/19793

Exciting New Website/Blog: War and the Visceral Imagination

How does Material Culture shape our sense of War?

Share in the discussion at: http://warandvisceralimagination.wordpress.com/

This is just one of many questions that you are invited to explore on this blog and in Baltimore during the annual meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA) this October. 

The blog and ASA panel is called “War and the Visceral Imagination” because it is interested in how embodied experiences of the material shape wartime notions of citizenship, obligation, and the national imaginary.

The broader aim is to inspire conversation about the multi-sensory nature of human encounters with the material world. For example:

• How do sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste serve as means to transmit cultural values?
• What questions become possible when traditional Western classifications of the senses are challenged?
• Which scholars have influenced your work with material culture?
• What challenges do scholars of the past face in their study of embodied material experience? What approaches can help overcome these obstacles?
• How does your own work relate to the issues raised here?  

The blog hopes to expand the conversation to include material culture scholars—particularly representatives of museums and archives—who are not able to attend the conference. All are welcome to pose questions, share ideas, and contribute to the discussion.

So, please, join in the conversation and sign up for the RSS feed. And, if you are on Twitter, follow @cjceglio and look for the #warvi hashtag.

Lecture: Elissa Auther talks about her work and String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art

Elissa Auther has taken on the movement from textiles as "craft" to textiles as "art" and helps us to understand the more radical contemporary craft movement.

She is an associate professor of contemporary art at the University of Colorado and the author of String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art, which presents an unconventional history of the American art world, chronicling the advance of thread, rope, string, felt, and fabric from the "low" world of craft to the "high" world of art in the 1960's and 1970's and the emergence today of a craft counterculture. She is interested in how feminist artists have embraced these homey craft materials as a critique of the prevailing hierarchies and social structure.

Her scholarly work has been supported by major research grants from the J. Paul Getty Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Georgia O'Keefe Museum and Research Center, among others.

Funding provided by the Anonymous Fund.

When: October 5th at 4:30pm - 5:30pm

Where: Room L160 Chazen Museum of Art, 800 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706.

Lecture: 'The Chinese Scholar Pattern: Style, Merchant Identity, and the English Imagination'

Please join us for this lecture sponsored by the Chipstone Foundation with Sarah Fayen Scarlett on
Thursday, September 29th at 6:15pm
Milwaukee Art Museum, Lubar Auditorium

Before this summer's The Way of the Dragon, MAM's Decorative Arts Gallery featured Enter the Dragon (Winter 2006), which explored the first three decades of the English Chinoiserie style. Curator of that exhibition, Sarah Fayen Scarlett, returns to present research that grew out of that show. Come hear the story of the Chinese Scholar pattern, a simple image of a seated Chinese figure that English potters adopted from Dutch copies of Japanese versions of Chinese Ming porcelain. This tale of seventeenth-century global trade and European fascination with Asia will appear as a full-length article in Chipstone's next issue of Ceramics in America.

 

Fall 2011 Material Culture Classes (re-posted from April 11th with additions)

AH/CLAS 330/700: The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece (Cahill)

TR 8:25-9:40am, L140 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

Explores the art and archaeology of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period.

AH/LCA 379: Cities of Asia (Chopra)

TR 1:00-2:15pm, 104 Van Hise Hall

Historical overview of the built environment of cities of Asia from antiquity to the present; architectural and urban legacy in its social and historical context; exploration of common themes that thread through the diverse geographical regions and cultures of Asia. 

AH 430: The Art of Natural History (Foutch)

T&TR 9:30-10:45pm, L166 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

This course will examine the intertwined notions of art and science from the early modern period to the present: cabinets of curiosities, taxidermy and dioramas, botanical and anatomical models, natural history illustrations, expeditions, and more! At the end of the semester we'll turn to contemporary artists who engage with traditions of natural history or aesthetics usually associated with science, from artists whose work is informed by natural history illustration and field guides (Walton Ford, Fred Tomaselli), incorporates taxidermy or natural history museum display tactics (Damien Hirst, Mark Dion), or "bio-art" (Laura Splan, Marc Quinn). Field trips will include sessions held at the UW Zoological Museum, the Geology Museum, the State Herbarium, and the UW Botanic Gardens & Greenhouses.

AH 463: American Suburbs (Andrezejewski)

MWF 12:05-12:55pm, L150 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

This course examines the landscape and material culture of American suburbs, particularly of the twentieth century, for what it can tell us about suburban cultures in the United States. The class will include a historical examination of suburban architecture and landscapes from the nineteenth century through the present, but will also focus on topics related to suburbia that include considerations of race, class, gender and region, as well as how suburban life has been represented in print and visual culture. Students will work on research projects related to Madison area suburbs as well.

AH/DS/HIST 464: Dimensions of Material Culture (Andrzejewski and Gordon)

W 2:25-4:55pm, 1310 Sterling Hall

Approaches to the interdisciplinary study of the material world in order to analyze broader social and cultural issues. Guest speakers explore private and public objects and spaces from historic, ethnographic, and aesthetic perspectives.

AH 479: Art and History in Africa (Drewal)

MW 1:05-2:20pm, L150 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

Selected African art traditions in their historical and cultural settings.

AH 563: Factory Craft: Art, Skill, and the Industrial Age  (Lasser)

R 2:00-4:00pm, L166 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

This seminar investigates the changing relationship between art and industry.  How have artists responded to the factory and engaged with industrial production in their work?  How are artists today responding to our present post-industrial era?  What is the difference between studio skill and factory skill?  What separates the solitary labor of the mythical garreted artist from the collaborative labor of the assembly line  This course will assist in the development of a Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition.  In addition to historical issues, matters of curatorial practice will be addressed.

AH 579: Exhibiting Africa in a Museum (Drewal; Honors Seminar!)

M 6:00-8:00pm, L170 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

No description available.

AH 805: Seminar-Ancient Art and Architecture (Cahill)

R 400-6:00pm, L166 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

No description available.

AH865: US Modernism and the Culture of Things (Kroiz)

M 4:00-6:00pm, L166 Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

This seminar will introduce students to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of “thing” theory to examine the relationships of objects, subjects and things. We will consider the materiality and agency of inanimate objects themselves, as well as the role of objects in establishing and mediating social relationships. In addition to our theoretical focus on things, we will also focus historically to consider U.S. modernism as a phenomenon formulated within a culture of proliferating consumer goods. We will draw on methodologies from art history and material culture studies, as well as literature studies, anthropology, and political science. We will also examine primary source materials from the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century.

ANTH 354: Archaeology of Wisconsin. (Schroeder; fulfills ethnic studies req.)

T 6:00-8:30pm, 6102 Sewell Social Sciences

Introduces students to the archaeological evidence for the diverse Native American cultures of Wisconsin over the past 12,000 years.
 

ANTH 690: Things and Lifeworlds: Theoretical and Ethnographic Perspectives. (George)

F Location and Time: TBD

A Social Theoretical Compass for the study of Things and Lifeworlds.

CLAS 430: Troy: Myth and Reality (Aylward)

TR 8:25-9:40am, 114 Van Hise Hall

Explores topics in the archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, such as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the archaeology of Greek and Roman religion, or Late Antique Palaces.

DS 430: History of Textiles  (Gordon)

TR 2:30-3:45pm, 1335 Sterling Hall

Designs and meanings and interrelationships of textiles in selected cultures and time periods.

DS 501: History of Interiors  (Boyd)

TR 2:30-3:45pm, Location: TBD

The course will delve into the designers who gave form to interiors during the Twentieth Century. The careers of these individuals will be viewed within the broader international design community during the period.

DS 642: Taste (Chopra)

T 4:00-6:30pm, 399 Van Hise Hall

Exploration of the idea of taste - both "good" and "bad", in "popular" and "high" culture. Cross-cultural readings from theoretical and historical perspectives, relating to architecture, landscape, public space, art, and clothing.