Organized by the Munch, Modernism, and Modernity Research Group at the University of Oslo,
the Munch Museum, and the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo.

Venue: National Museum, Oslo, Norway;

November 13, 2015.

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.

From current historical work on material and visual cultures, to anthropological research on the social life of things and new approaches to seeing and reading in historical scholarship, the study of the physical evidence of culture has become a pressing issue. This interdisciplinary symposium will bring together conservators, curators, and scholars of art history, literary studies, book history and bibliography to reflect on the historical relation between materials, objects, and practices and different forms of visual and textual production in nineteenth-century America.

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PROGRAMS OF SESSIONS:

Thursday April 9 Rare Book and Manuscript Library

(Butler Library, Room 523)

12:30 pm: Welcome and introductory remarks

12:45-2:30 pm: Session 1. Inter-Media Translations

Christopher Lukasik (Purdue University), “The Image in the Text”
Margit Peterfy (University of Heidelberg) “The Author’s Carnival”
Jennifer Greenhill (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), “An undictionarial reading of Mark Twain’s materialities”
Paul Edwards (University of Paris Diderot), “A Persistent Novelty: The Multiple Origins of the American Literary Photobook”
Chair: Marie-Stephanie Delamaire (Columbia University)

2:45-4:15pm: Session 2. Industrialization of Texts and Images

Michael Leja (University of Pennsylvania): “Almanacs and the ‘Image Campaign' of 1840”
Todd Pattison (Northeast Document Conservation Center), “Outside Information: Nineteenth-Century Bookbinding Mistakes”
David Jaffee (Bard Graduate Center), “New York and the Culture of Capital in the Nineteenth Century”
Chair: Paul Erickson (American Antiquarian Society)

4:15 pm-5:00 pm: Coffee
Rare Book and Manuscript Library Hands-on Session

5:00pm Keynote

Jennifer Roberts (Harvard University) “Wood-Work”

6:15pm: Reception (Judith Lee Stronach Center, Department of Art History and Archaeology. Schermerhorn Hall, 8th Floor)

Friday April 10 Department of Art History and Archaeology

Schermerhorn Hal