This conference examines the relationship among artist, action, surface, and reception within the modernist tradition. Technical, critical, formal, and historiographic analyses of the notion of the pictorial surface, and what can be “implanted” and “read,” will be considered. The “Surface,” which connotes everything from Clement Greenberg’s “material plane” to the site of performance, simulation, commodity, and materiality, is contested within, and central to, theories of modernism. What lies behind the surface? How do surface/form and meaning/motif interrelate? How does art history as a discipline intersect with conservation, and material history to re-imagine the surface? How have media and screen cultures, and recent theories of visuality and cognition, reconstituted the surface?

The conference is organized into three broad conversations: Vision, Touch, and Materials.

Papers are invited from art historians, philosophers, conservators, material historians, film and media theorists, neuroscientists, literary theorists, and others who consider the meaning and dynamics of the pictorial surface in modernism, and who are interested in the surface as a discursive arena.

Proposals for this conference must include (in English)
a) an abstract of maximum 300 words summarizing your argument;
b) your academic resume; and
c) your full contact information including email.

Papers will be 20 minutes in length and will be followed by discussion.

Contributions should be sent to elsebet.kjerschow@nasjonalmuseet.no by 1st May 2015. You will be notified by 1st June 2015 of your acceptance.