Showing papers by "Mieke Bal published in 2007"

Conceptual odysseys : passages to cultural analysis

Abstract: The 'theoretical turn' within the arts and humanities in the 1970s and 1980s has, for many, had its day, with work produced under its rubric all too often feeling tired or even downright lazy. In its place - whilst hazarding against an outright rejection of theory - this book, introduced by Mieke Bal, presents work by a new generation of scholars responding directly to Bal's idea of the 'travelling concept'. By taking a concept from one discipline and, with a genuine understanding of its origin, thoughtfully applying this in a new context, exciting new possibilities are opened up for analysis of artworks and other cultural objects. Here, we find these 'travelling concepts' employed in fresh explorations of subjects as diverse as the paintings of Poussin and of Adam Elsheimer; Chantal Akerman's film; the Museum of the French Revolution and the work of German Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon. This is a uniquely illuminating contribution to the edgy territorial conflicts between visual culture, art history and cultural studies.

Take your time : Olafur Eliasson

Abstract: Plates, 1990 - 2000 Introduction by Madeleine Grynsztejn Eliasson and Relational Aesthetics A Conversation Your Light and Space Light Politics Photography and Photocinema Eliasson and Architecture Plates 2001 - 2006.

Doris Salcedo : shibboleth

Abstract: Doris Salcedo was born in 1958 in Bogota, Colombia, where she continues to live and work. Widely recognised as one of the leading sculptors of her generation, over the past five years Salcedo has increasingly addressed the public sphere in her practice and has completed several large - scale projects around the world. This will be Salcedo's first public commission in the UK.Responding to specific architectural, geographic and political situations, all of Salcedo's projects are grounded in meticulous research, the exact nature of which is mostly hidden by the silent and hauntingly beautiful poetry of her work. Common themes include the destructive force of violence, personal and collective trauma, and the tragedy of human loss.In 2002 over the course of two days Salcedo lowered 280 chairs down the facade of the Palace of Justice in Bogota to pay homage to those killed in a failed guerrilla coup seventeen years earlier. More recently in 2006, Salcedo lined a room in the eighteenth-century Castello di Rivoli, Turin with a brick skin, as a memorial to those excluded from power, both in the past and the present. These public works are an extension of her earlier sculptures which frequently featured ordinary household objects worn by age such as chairs, tables and wardrobes. Juxtaposing these relics of domestic life with unorthodox materials such as human hair, cement and garments, Salcedo turns familiar objects into visual metaphors for the suffering experienced by victims of violence and injustice.Salcedo's intervention in the vast space of the Turbine Hall will be among her largest and most dramatic projects yet and is certain to attract worldwide media attention.