Conference on "Art and Power: Patronage and Politics in Europe from the Old Regime to the Present" (February 23)
Art and Power: Patronage and Politics in Europe from the Old Regime to the Present
This conference examines the history of state arts patronage in Europe and its legacy in the present. Presentations on literature, music, theater, and the visual arts will provide an interdisciplinary examination of the origins and the tensions underlying the European model of state arts funding, along with a contemporary perspective on how and why European governments seek to support the arts today by the Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in the United States. The panels will address questions such as: How have the arts been used to secure domestic political legitimacy or project power internationally at different times? What kinds of art are deemed worthy of support, and what artistic forms have been excluded from such patronage? What are the different historical genealogies of this state patronage, and what do they tell us about why European governments remain committed to funding the arts when such support is controversial in the United States?
RSVP to andreip [at] stanford.edu (andreip[at]stanford[dot]edu)
Conference schedule
Breakfast served at 8:45am
Introduction: 9am (Dan Edelstein)
Panel 1: Representations of Power in the Old Regime (9:15-10:45am)
· Sarah Grandin (Harvard), “'To Preserve and Augment’: Printing the Cabinet du Roi, c. 1670”
· Chandra Mukerji (UCSD), “Meaning vs. Imagination in the Art of the Sun King: Sculpture, themes, and political possibility”
· Gerardo Tocchini (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice), “The Aristocratic Romance: Greuze’s ‘Bourgeois’ Scenes”
Coffee break (10:45-11am)
Panel 2: Patronage, Circulation, and Institutions (11am-12:30pm)
· Rahul Markovits (École Normale Supérieure), “Actors of soft power: French theatre and the paradoxes of cultural grandeur in eighteenth-century Europe”
· Audrey Calefas-Strebelle (Mills College), “Turkish and French delights: From Turkish origin to French manufacture, the circulation of artefacts and savoir faire in French-Ottoman cultural diplomacy”
· Andrei Pesic (Stanford), “Patronage on the Cheap: Monopolies and Enlightenment Cultural Markets”
Lunch (12:30pm-2pm)
Art and Power Today: France’s Cultural Policy. Presentation and Discussion (2-3:00pm)
· Bénédicte de Montlaur (French Embassy in the U.S.) and Matthew Tiews (Stanford Arts Initiative)
Coffee break (3-3:15pm)
Panel 3: After the Revolution: Rethinking Art and Power in the New Regime (3:15-4:45pm)
· Robert Morrissey (U. of Chicago), “Enlightenment and Liminality: Mme de Staël, Victim as Arbiter of Taste and Glory”
· Anne Higonnet (Barnard College of Columbia University), “Sumptuary law failure, fashion magazine success”
· Heather Hadlock (Stanford), “Verdi’s Aida from Italian tourist to French resident: Paris, 1876-1880”
Organizers:
Dan Edelstein
Andrei Pesic
Sponsored by The Europe Center of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Stanford Department of French and Italian, and the Stanford Humanities Center.