Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

A Clark Colloquium:

Global Indigenous Modernisms: Primitivism, Artists, Mentors

May 6-7, 2011

 

Friday, May 6

9:00                 Welcome and breakfast in the Scholar’s Seminar Room at the Clark

9:30-10:30       Research Presentations

• Ruth Phillips: Introduction
  • Sandra Klopper : “Indigenous Modernisms Between the Local and the Global: The Work of Tivenyanga Qwabe”
  • Bill Anthes : “Indigenous Modernisms Between the Local and the Global”
  • Ian McLean: “Namatjira’s modernism”
  • Norman Vorano: “Inuit Prints, Japanese Footprints. The birth of fine-art printmaking in the Canadian Arctic”

10:30-10:45     Coffee break

10:45–12:00    Research Presentations

• Kobena Mercer : “Romare Bearden and Carl Holty: How Diaspora Problematizes ‘Primitivism’”
• Chika Okeke-Agulu : “The Art Society and the Making of Postcolonial Modernism in Nigeria”
• Nicholas Thomas: “‘Artist of PNG’: Mathias Kauage and his Contemporaries”
• Peter Brunt : “Island Modernists: Aloï Pilioko and Nicolaï Michoutouchkine”

12:00–1:30      Lunch in the Penthouse West Lounge

1:30-3:30         Research Presentations

• W. Jackson Rushing: “George Morrison: Being and Becoming in Modern Native American Art”
• Anitra Nettleton: “How to be a Modern African artist: Egon Guenther and the Enduring Mythology of Amadlozi”
• Elizabeth Harney : “Indigenous Modernisms and Prismatic Scatterings: Cosmopolitan Artists in the Post War Period”
• Susan Vogel : “Africanness and the Bugaboos:  Authenticity vs. Modernity”
• Ruth Phillips: “Making them Modern: The Self-Positioning and the Repositioning of Norval Morrisseau and Daphne Odjig”

3:30-3:45         Coffee break

3:45-5:30         Discussion of Convergences, Patterns, Differences

                        Open and informal discussion of the day’s presentations to begin the process of                                identifying key issues and problems, convergences and contrasts, problems of                                conceptualization, terminology and naming (e.g. “alternative” or “indigenous”                                             modernisms). These discussions will continue on day 2.

Saturday May 7

9:00                 Breakfast at Stone Hill Center

Today’s discussions will take place in the Hunter Studio at Stone Hill Center, the Tadao Ando building at the top of the hill behind the Clark. To get here, you will walk around to the west side of the Clark, and follow the path (marked with signs) to take you to Stone Hill.

 9:30–11:00      Discussion of Convergences, Patterns, Differences (continued)

Discussion Questions

1)     What is the value – if so agreed—of a global perspective on the emergence of indigenous modernisms?

2)     How do we conceptualize diasporic artistic productivity in relationship to ‘homelands’ and ‘mother countries’? For example, is the artistic activity of urban Indigenous people who move away from reserves parallel to that of diasporic artists living farther away from communities of origin?

3)     What are the differences, if important, between the development of indigenous modernisms in external and internal situations of colonization (e.g., now independent colonies in Africa and settler societies in North America, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere)?

4)     What would be the importance of a focus on the diasporic movements of mentors, and particularly of artists, patrons, and dealers, who fled Nazi Germany and Europe during the 1930s and 40s?

11:00-11:45     Coffee break

11:45-1:00       Possible Research Structures

Discussion Questions

1)     How should we think about chronology? What are the key time periods in other parts of the world?

2)     Would it be desirable to structure further meetings or publications in terms of specific regional or geo-social histories, cross-cutting themes, or a combination?

3)     In either or both cases, what regions/categories or themes could be identified?

 

1:00-2:30         Lunch at the Visiting Scholars’ Residence

 

2:30–4:30        Practical Issues: Future Meetings, Funding, Publication

 

Discussion Questions

1)     Should we think in terms of a further series of workshops, panels at conferences, symposia, or large conferences?

2)     Should we think in terms of a series of publications, and how should these be linked to such meetings?

3)     What other scholars doing interesting work in these areas should be invited?

4)     What should be the time span for such a project?

5)     What foundations, publishers, and research granting organizations could we apply to?

6)     How might we administer such a project?

7)     What could be the value of a closed collaborative worksite on the web in the development of such a project?

5:30 – 6:30      Public Panel in the Clark Café