11/18/2024
The Department of Art History is excited to host artist and filmmaker Panos Aprahamian for a screening and discussion on Tuesday, November 19th, at 2 PM in room 202 of the Buford House (922 W. Franklin Street)!
Panos Aprahamian is an award-winning Berlin-based, Lebanese-Armenian “unfiction” filmmaker, media artist, para-academic, and writer from Beirut’s peripheral rustbelt. His practice primarily focuses on slow violence, sacrifice zones, and Hypersitions. He studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and the University of the Arts London.
Following the screening and discussion, there will be a meet and greet with the artist on the first floor of the Buford House from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM!
09/09/2024
This Wednesday, September 11th, the Department of Art History will be hosting a Meet and Greet for all Art History majors, minors, and other enthusiasts to meet fellow students and faculty, as well as learn about upcoming news! The event will run from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm, and will be hosted on the first floor of the Buford House, 922 West Franklin St.
A light lunch will be provided for attendees. We hope to see you there!
09/04/2024
This Friday, September 6th, the Art History Club at VCU will have its inaugural meeting by hosting a First Friday Gallery Crawl from 5 PM to 9 PM! Stop by to join the club on a semi-guided tour of the Richmond Arts District!
More information about this meeting can be found via the RamsConnect page, linked in our bio. 🔗
05/01/2024
Cocktails and conversation in D.C. 🌸 🐏
Join VCUarts and fellow alumni for a reception at Bistro du Jour, designed by Jessi Mathews (B.F.A.’16), senior interior designer at //3877. See firsthand how design can transform space and bring a touch of Paris to our nation’s capital. All VCUarts alumni are welcome!
6-8 p.m.
Thursday, May 16
Bistro du Jour, Capitol Hill
Royal Sonesta Capitol Hill, 20 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Valet parking available.
Register now using this link (https://tinyurl.com/2whrd96f)!
Questions? Contact Emily Campbell, alumni engagement officer, at (804) 248-8050 or [email protected].
04/09/2024
Huge congratulations to recent alum Julia Seaborn Park (BA '23)! She will be presenting her research titled, “Institutional Power and the State of Culture: documenta, documenta fifteen, and ruangrupa” at the SUNY New Paltz Undergraduate Art History Symposium! Julia will present her research virtually via Zoom on Sunday, April 14th in Session 13B at 2:15 PM. The link to register for her presentation can be found here --> (https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/2024arthistorystudentsymposium/schedule/sun-4-14-day-4/ .6)!
‘’ [...] This project addresses the accusations of failure towards ruangrupa’s artistic direction of documenta fifteen and questions what failure means in the context of a massive contemporary art exhibition and who gets to define it. The argument considers the history of documenta and ruangrupa, lumbung as a curatorial (or anti-curatorial) “strategy,” data from past documenta editions, and analysis of ruangrupa’s writings and interviews. I argue that when ruangrupa moved into the role of the artistic directors of documenta, at the center of the global artistic paradigm, there was an inherent discord, an attempt by ruangrupa to forge a new type of relationship with documenta, but, in the end, an even greater crackdown of the institutional and political power structures. Despite pushing against colonialist, capitalist, and Western notions of exhibition-making, the nature of the structure and history of documenta meant that ruangrupa endured extreme mistreatment and often succumbed to the pressures of an art mega-exhibition.”
…
Image 2: Poster by Cem A. made as part of the Lumbung Harvest project of artworks responding to discussions at the exhibition. Photo by Ben Davis.
Image 3: ruangrupa in 2001. Courtesy ruangrupa.
Image 4: documenta fifteen: Fridericianum, exterior view, Kassel, 2022, Foto: Nicolas Wefers.
Image 5: Signage in front of the Museum Fridericianum at documenta, Kassel, Germany, 1955 Werner Lengemann / © documenta Archive.
03/19/2024
Let’s take another little peak at the research our grads have been conducting! 🚞🏛️
Second-year art history graduate student Meredith Glasco traveled to Washington D.C. to investigate the publicly accessible Lunder Conservation Center in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. During their trip, they had the opportunity to interview staff and explore the different galleries!
03/07/2024
Join us for a VCUarts Lecture Series event with Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair for Islamic Art and Associate Professor Hala Auji, Ph.D. on Tuesday, March 12 at the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, 5-6 P.M.
This talk explores nineteenth-century mass portraiture in Beirut and Cairo, featured in Arabic books, periodicals and everyday materials. These images, circulating across private homes and storefronts, played a crucial role in shaping the public image of local Arabic-speaking scholars. Using posthumously printed portraits of Syrian intellectuals, Auji will illustrate how this imagery negotiated views on authorship, representation and vision. She will also discuss the study of these portraits, which were published alongside text and other engravings, and considerations of their mediums and formats while addressing the challenges posed by today’s methods and technologies.
This is a hybrid event and can be joined either in person or via Zoom. You can register online for this event using this link! (https://arts.vcu.edu/event/vcuarts-lecture-series-hala-auji/)
Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
02/29/2024
Here is another look at a research trip one of our graduate students recently took! 🛫🗽
In January, second-year Master’s student Ashley Botkin traveled to New York to visit the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ashley was able to view the rare book, “The Men God Forgot,” by Egyptian author Albert Cossery, for her final research project. 📚
To inquire how you can become a part of our Art History graduate studies program, please reach out to Dr. Eric Garberson at [email protected].
02/28/2024
Over the next couple of days, we will be taking a peak into the life of our graduate students, many of whom travel to conduct research for their final research projects! ✈️
During this past winter break, second-year art history graduate student Kathryn Long traveled to Vienna, Austria where she spent time in the Austrian National Library and museum archives. Her research focuses on female Jewish art patrons in fin-de-siècle Vienna. During her trip, she was able to view primary sources pertaining to her final research project. Kathryn’s research trip was funded by the Margaret N. Gottwald Scholarship and the VCUarts Graduate Research Travel Grant. 💫
To inquire how you can become a part of our Art History graduate studies program, please reach out to Dr. Eric Garberson at [email protected].
02/21/2024
Come celebrate the registration of the Art History Club as an official VCU club! The celebration and club mixer will be held THIS Friday, February 23rd, 5-7pm in the Buford House Seminar Room! Snacks will be provided! 🎊💫
Interested in joining the Art History Club? Join us in the celebration and say hello! 👋
We hope to see you all there!
01/18/2024
Second-year MA student Liz Chung presented her paper at Arizona State University’s Council of Graduate Art Historians symposium TRANS\art: Transborder and Multilayered Art Histories in November 2023!
Her paper was entitled “’Where Are You (Really) From?’: Korean Artists in Diaspora and Exploring Notions of Home and Homeland” and looks at two case studies, Lee Isaac Chung’s film, Minari, and Do Ho Suh’s solo exhibition at SAAM, Almost Home, that explore the nebulous experience of migration and locating home. The paper considers how these works negotiate “home” as both shifting site(s) and processes of transcultural and transnational movement and exchange.