Picturing a Nation of Local Places in the Observatoire photographique du paysage and France(s) territoire liquide

2019 ◽  
pp. 186-216
Author(s):  
Ari J. Blatt

The history of French photography has been marked by the preponderance of photographic ‘missions’, whereby a collective of artists charged with documenting the nation’s shared common spaces traverse the territory with cameras in tow. From the Mission héliographique (1851) to the Mission photographique de la DATAR (1983-89), these projects have much to tell us about the place that landscape occupies in the national imaginary. This chapter surveys two of the most recent and most compelling photographic missions that set out to render the contours of the nation intelligible. While the Observatoire photographique du paysage, inaugurated in 1991, mobilizes a rigorously implemented procedure of rephotography to sensitize the public to the evolution of the French landscape, the group of photographers united since 2011 under the moniker France(s) territoire liquide has produced a decidedly more personal and subjective view of a territory in flux. Though they differ greatly in the way they envision space, this chapter suggests that both groups privilege the lesser seen, the interstitial, and the vernacular to provide a nuanced vision of France that challenges the most dominant conceptions and clichés—in the rhetorical and graphic sense of the word—of the nation as a whole.

Chapter One deals with several central issues with regard to understanding the role of religious motifs in contemporary art. Besides being a repetition of imagery from the past, religious motifs embedded in contemporary artworks become a means to problematise not only the way different periods in the history of art are delimited, but larger and seemingly more rigid distinctions as those between art and non-art images. Early religious images differ significantly from art images. The two types are regulated according to different sets of rules related to the conditions of their production, display, appreciation and the way images are invested with the status of being true or authentic instances of art or sacred images. Chapter One provides a discussion of the important motif of the image not made by an artist’s hand, or acheiropoietos, and its survival and transformation, including its traces in contemporary image-making practices. All images are the result of human making; they are fictions. The way the conditions of these fictions are negotiated, or the way the role of the maker is brought to visibility, or concealed, is a defining feature of the specific regime of representation. While the cult image concealed its maker in order to maintain its public significance, and the later art image celebrated the artist as a re-inventor of the old image, contemporary artists cite religious images in order to reflect on the very procedures that produce the public significance and status of images.


Author(s):  
María Luz Mandingorra Llavata

Resum: El nomen sacrum ihs se hallaba presente en infinidad de manifestaciones artísticas y objetos de la vida cotidiana durante la Edad Media, por lo que era bien conocido por los fieles. El objetivo del presente artículo es mostrar de qué modo san Vicente Ferrer se sirve de esta abreviatura como símbolo de la crucifixión de Jesucristo con el fin de fomentar la devoción al nombre Iesus y erradicar el recurso a adivinos y sortílegos. Para ello, analizaremos el sermón de la Circuncisión del Señor predicado por el maestro dominico y estableceremos la conexión de los elementos integrantes del texto con representaciones coetáneas de la crucifixión.Paraules clau: san Vicente Ferrer, predicación, Nomina Sacra, crucifixión, historia de la cultura escrita Abstract: The nomen sacrum ihs was present in many paintings as well as other artifacts during the Middle Ages, therefore, it was very well known by the public. The aim of this paper is to show the way Saint Vincent Ferrer uses this abbreviation as a symbol of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ in order to increase the devotion to the Name of Jesus and prevent people from consulting diviners and sorcerers to solve daily life problems. To this end, we analyse the Sermon of the Circumcision of the Lord preached by the Dominican master and establish the relationship between the elements that compose the text and some contemporary images of the Crucifixion.Keywords: Saint Vincent Ferrer, preaching, Nomina Sacra, crucifixion, history of literacy


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-311
Author(s):  
Ilja Nieuwland

THE DINOSAUR’S AMBIGUITY Sea snakes, Iguanodons and why Brussels did not receive its Diplodocus In the opening years of the twentieth century, the Scottish magnate Andrew Carnegie used the donation of plaster casts of the dinosaur Diplodocusas a means to influence European heads of state in favor of his scheme for conflict arbitration. This contribution examines the way in which these casts became a border object between the worlds of science, high and popular culture, and politics, by looking at the history of the public assimilation of dinosaurs. Specifically, it focuses on an earlier example of such donations: the Iguanodons which were given away by the Belgian state and the Belgian king Leopold II personally, after 1890. These developments collided when Carnegie’s donation of a Diplodocus was cancelled after Leopold’s reputation began to suffer when details of the Congolese genocide became known to the public. This illustrates that for Carnegie, despite the cultural and scientific appeal of his donations, politics remained at the center of his campaign.


Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Martinon

This article investigates a principle inscribed at the top of most codes of ethics for curators: they should always “serve the public good.” No self-respecting curator would ever admit to serve “the private good,” that is, the good of the few, whether that of an elite in power or of a circle of friends or allies. The principle of “serving the public good” is inalienable and unquestionable even in situations where it is most open to doubt. However, what exactly is the meaning of this seemingly “true” and on all accounts “universal” principle: “to serve the public good”? To address this question, I look at this principle for the way it is perceived as being both majestic in its impressive widespread acceptance and cloaked in ridicule for being so often disregarded. I will argue—with an example taken from the history of curating—that it is not the meaning attached to the principle that counts, but the respect that it enjoins. I conclude by drawing a few remarks on how the value of the “good” remains, after the principle has been cast aside and the priority of respect is acknowledged, a ghost on the horizon of all curators’ work.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Egeland

AbstractConsiderations of scientific evidence are often thought to provide externalism with the dialectical upper hand in the internalism–externalism debate. How so? A couple of reasons are forthcoming in the literature. (1) Williamson (2000) argues that the E = K thesis (in contrast to internalism) provides the best explanation for the fact that scientists appear to argue from premises about true propositions (or facts) that are common knowledge among the members of the scientific community. (2) Kelly (Philosophy Compass, 3 (5), 933–955, 2008; 2016) argues that only externalism is suited to account for the public character of scientific evidence. In this article, I respond to Williamson and Kelly’s arguments. First, I show that the E = K thesis isn’t supported by the way in which we talk about scientific evidence, and that it is unable to account for facts about what has been regarded as scientific evidence and as justified scientific belief in the history of science. Second, I argue that there are internalist views that can account for the publicity of scientific evidence, and that those views indeed do better in that regard than the (externalist) view proposed by Kelly. The upshot is that considerations of scientific evidence do not favor externalism over internalism.


Muzealnictwo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Redakcja "Muzealnictwo"

If we want to describe the surrounding reality, while at the same time trying to grasp the best key to it, it seems that the word “change” is the most appropriate. Museums rank among that category of culture institutions which, while undergoing changes, and caring for their own institutional and axiological autonomy, attempt at the same time to influence the very changes; this, however, makes them face identity dilemmas, the necessity to find the right balance between the responsibilities that are sometimes referred to as “traditional ones”, namely the ones they have towards the collections, and the obligations commonly regarded to be an attribute of “modernity”, these towards the public in the variety of their impressive turnout growth and the increase of their expectations. The way to stabilize change effects, while at the same to stimulate them, also with respect to the closest editing of the museum Annual, are legislative efforts and bills. One could even be tempted to make the statement, this not fully irony-free, that the history of Polish museology is actually the history of implemented and unimplemented legislative projects (the latter dominating), of the attempts to define the position of museums in the context of the synergically perceived “cultural legacy”, of finding for them the appropriate governance model, without rejecting the above-mentioned identity dilemmas. The goal of the “Muzealnictwo” Annual No. 60 is to present an overview of the past and current trials to amend the “Museum Act”, to identify areas for essential corrections, reasons for negligence, yet first and foremost, difficulties in applying them to the culture domain in which the most frequently applied word next to “change” (and most highly appreciated by museum circles) is the word “specificity”. This overview will hopefully contribute to the reflection on the capacity of institutional operating under the circumstances in which the inadequacy between the letter of the law and its enforcement can be observed. Next to the theme that is key to the present issue of the “Muzealnictwo” Annual, you will find the well established and known sections describing the spheres of museum operations, these occurring regardless of the lapse of time and their legislative creations. Piotr Majewski Professor at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw Editor-in-Chief


2020 ◽  
pp. 208-242
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Hudson

This chapter centers on the work of Ruby McKnight Williams, Edna Griffin, and other southern Californians who fought racial restrictions. Williams and her allies in the NAACP touched a nerve in the wealthy enclave of Pasadena when they joined forces to integrate the public swimming pool. The backlash against their efforts was swift and lengthy. While segregating bodies in water was not solely a western project, California had more pools than any other state by the 1920s and pioneered systems of restricting these spaces. Pools became a focal point for the battle over Jim Crow in the state, just as streetcars had in the previous century. The struggle over the Brookside pool lasted longer than any other case in the history of the Pasadena NAACP and shaped the memories of black Californians, including Jackie Robinson.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002436392110146
Author(s):  
Gerard M. Nadal

There has been a long-simmering disquiet in Catholic circles regarding the use cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue. This concern has exploded into the public consciousness given the use of questionable cell lines in the development and/or testing of the current COVID-19 vaccines, and the debate within the Church over the permissibility of using these vaccines. The history of cell culture and how the biological community came to rely on HEK293 fetal cell lines is explored, as is the way forward, moving the biotech industry away from ethically problematic cells and toward the development of more ethically sourced cell lines. The role of the Church in leading the way forward and the acceptable use of medicines utilizing HEK293 cell lines are all explored.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Pedro Regatão

Public art is one of the most relevant artistic manifestations in urban spaces, by the way it interacts with the public and relates to the surrounding environment. Today it is possible to observe a set of artistic interventions that are inspired, directly or indirectly, in the cinema, giving special importance to its aesthetic and cultural dimension. This text intends to analyze and to reflect critically on a set of works of public art dedicated to the cinematographic art and its main protagonists. From the commemorative sculpture that deals with the history of the seventh art, to the sculptural installation that celebrates a character or an actor.


Author(s):  
Anthony Tibbles

The manner in which historic houses have been maintained and regarded has varied over the centuries and has been subject to the attitudes and lifestyles of their owners. Acquisition by the National Trust or other heritage organisations is often regarded as bringing an end to this process and effectively ‘freezing’ the appearance of the house. Since it was completed in the early seventeenth century, the way in which Speke Hall, near Liverpool, has been treated and lived in by its owners has altered regularly according to fashion and taste, at times cherished, at other times neglected. However, even in the decades since the National Trust accepted the house in 1943, there have been different approaches to the house’s presentation to the public. This article examines the changing attitudes to Speke Hall over four centuries and suggests that the period of public ownership should be seen as another phase in the history of the house.


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