27.04.2006

 

THE THEORETICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF ART, OR THE HISTORY OF ART IN THE LOOKING GLASS OF LAS MENINAS

 

Curator: Daniel Muzyczuk

 

The last quarter of a century was a period of intense methodological development of the history of art as a scientific discipline. The modernisation process of the history of art was initiated at some time around 1970 and resulted in the appearance of new research perspectives in the 80’s, which have changed the theory and practice of this discipline so much that in Anglo-Saxon circles it has been labelled with the watchword “New Art History”.

 

These changes were mainly connected with the double opening of the history of art onto two different humanity disciplines and to contemporary social reality.

 

If the first opening bore fruit in the form of absorbing new theoretical impulses by the history of art - from linguistics (for instance semiotics, the aesthetics of reception) through psychology (psychology of reception, psychoanalysis) , history (for example, new historiography) to philosophy (hermeneutics, deconstructivism), the other opening has included the academic history of art in the broader, less-academic trend of social transformation, due to which it has become one of the vital areas of the crystallisation and functioning of new inter-disciplines such as gender studies, post-colonial studies or visual culture studies.

 

The theoretical changes in the history of art in the last quarter of a century were also connected with the interdisciplinary modification process of traditional research categories, which took place especially within the range of hermeneutic research perspectives, formulated on the basis of the German language history of art.

 

The lecture will start with a synthetic outline of the theoretical landscape of the contemporary history of art, formulated as a result of two processes which were running simultaneously. In the latter part of the lecture - on the basis of reception history and interpretation of the famous painting by Velazquez Las Meninas – the basic categories of this discipline will be characterised (such as picture, representation, the viewer, intention, context, medium, visuality) and the research perspectives connected with them. 

 

 

Dr Mariusz Bryl – employee of the History of Art Institute at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań

 

research interests: contemporary art, history and theory of art

 

grant holder of Humboldt Stiftung (Hamburg Universität) and J. P. Getty Foundation (Columbia University)

 

books: Group of artists “Świt” (Dawn) (1992), Artur Grottger’s Series (1994)

 

Currently, he is preparing a publication concerning the theoretical development of the history of art after 1970.