Repetition
Second Annual Art History Graduate Student Conference
University of California, Riverside
May 18, 2013
Repetition, as both logic and device, has played a significant role in the history of art. As logic, repetition underlies the very possibility of artworks as meaningful objects, as it is through repeated acquaintance with an object or form that it gains meaning in a prescribed context. And as stylistic device, the use of repetition has transcended historical periods and visual cultures. From prehistory to the present, the repetition of forms and objects has been used by practically all cultures as a way to define common identities, establish order, and inscribe sense and meaning into the world. The use of repeated forms stands at the center of, for instance, practices and objects as distinct as Inca tunic design, Buddhist and Hindu mandalas, Outsider art and 1960s Minimalism. Yet repetition was also part of painterly strategies in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and pervades the concepts of Early Modern print culture as well as sculptural practices. These various examples serve to highlight our expanded approach to the idea of repetition as an integral aspect of a series of diverse practices, including pattern design, seriality, doubling, mirroring, symmetry, recursion, copying and reproducibility.
Second Annual Art History Graduate Student Conference
University of California, Riverside
May 18, 2013
Repetition, as both logic and device, has played a significant role in the history of art. As logic, repetition underlies the very possibility of artworks as meaningful objects, as it is through repeated acquaintance with an object or form that it gains meaning in a prescribed context. And as stylistic device, the use of repetition has transcended historical periods and visual cultures. From prehistory to the present, the repetition of forms and objects has been used by practically all cultures as a way to define common identities, establish order, and inscribe sense and meaning into the world. The use of repeated forms stands at the center of, for instance, practices and objects as distinct as Inca tunic design, Buddhist and Hindu mandalas, Outsider art and 1960s Minimalism. Yet repetition was also part of painterly strategies in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and pervades the concepts of Early Modern print culture as well as sculptural practices. These various examples serve to highlight our expanded approach to the idea of repetition as an integral aspect of a series of diverse practices, including pattern design, seriality, doubling, mirroring, symmetry, recursion, copying and reproducibility.
Moreover, the significance of repetition extends to
the present moment as the concept has occupied an important place in the
theorizing of modern existence—as commodity or behavior, for instance.
More specifically within the visual arts, the advent of photography in
the mid-19th century has led thinkers to theorize the effects of the
repeated and repeatable image in modern life, often with inconclusive or
contradictory results. While Benjamin argued in 1936 that, “the
technology of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the
domain of tradition,” making a case for the revolutionary potential of
the technology of photography, Adorno and Horkheimer contended some
years later that in contemporary existence, “what is new is that the
irreconcilable elements of culture, art and distraction are subordinated
to one end and subsumed under one false formula: the totality of the
culture industry. It consists of repetition.”
We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words for
papers dealing with the intersection of art and repetition in any of its
forms. Topics from all art historical periods and geographical regions
are encouraged, in particular those dealing with the significance of
repetition as an artistic and critical strategy in early modern, modern
and contemporary art.
Please e-mail abstracts to ahgsa.ucr@gmail.com by March 15. The conference will be held at the California Museum of Photography in Downtown Riverside on May 18, 2013.
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