CFP: Foreign artists in Paris (Paris, 6-7 Nov 13)

From: Pauline Chevalier <[email protected]>
Date: Jun 13, 2013
Subject: CFP: Foreign artists in Paris (Paris, 6-7 Nov 13)

Paris, November 6 - 07, 2013
Deadline: Sep 1, 2013

Passing through Paris - Passages à Paris - Les artistes étrangers à Paris
de la fin du XIXe à nos jours

International conference
6th - 7th November 2013, Paris, INHA

Submission deadline : September 1st 2013

Fanny Drugeon (Independant scholar, Labex Cap, Associate researcher at the
Musée national d'art moderne Centre Pompidou and HiCSA/Université Paris I)
Pauline Chevalier (Assistant-professor, Aesthetics and Art History,
Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon)
Alain Bonnet (Professor, Art History, Université Pierre Mendès France –
Grenoble 2)

http://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/page.php?r=3&id=631&lang=fr

Migrations, population displacements, and diasporas have always been of
great interest for historians (cf. in France, Antoine Marès, Pierre
Milza or Michel Espagne and Michael Werner). Art historians have been
looking at that phenomenon quite recently. The role played by the
circulation of artists in the development of artistic movements and in
the constitution of social networks is now a field of research dealing
with different geographical areas (cf. the work done by France Nerlich
and Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel). The topic is rather important when dealing
with the “passage” of artists through a given place, such as Paris, for
example. Historical upheavals, from colonization to decolonization,
national liberation struggles, or oppression from dictatorships, or
communism in  Eastern Europe, generated important movements of
circulation of artists and intellectuals across the world. « Thinking
somewhere else » has become a leitmotiv of the modern world (cf. Nicole
Lapierre) and contributed to forging the identities of the Parisian
avant-gardes of the early 20th century.
    Furthermore, passing through or settling in Paris, marked several
generations of artists who came to encounter a myth or a community,
sometimes looking for an artistic filiation by rooting themselves in
Paris. These stays often constituted major stages in the artists' lives
at key moments in their careers, from the obligatory training to the
quest for a fantasy of modernity.
    This interdisciplinary conference aims at discussing the reasons,
the conditions, and the potential consequences of these decisive times
abroad, in Paris, for foreign artists. It wishes to analyze the induced
exchanges between artists, critics, gallery owners, collectors, as well
as the essential mutations of the different socio-political contexts
that could have contributed or that could have been catalysts for the
circulation of artists, sometimes going against the generally
acknowledged models. The constitution of national and international
communities with artists
coming from geographic areas that tend to gain a better insight in
today's historiography (Central and South America, Africa, Eastern
Europe, etc.) will be of a greater interest. Taking into account the
stay in Paris and its effects tends to change the main narratives, and
to slightly shift the debate that prompts to directly oppose Paris and
New York in the middle of the 20th century.

1. The persistance of the myth : the « City of Lights »
If Paris loses part of its international aura starting in the middle of
the 20th century, foreign artists did not stop to settle here,
sometimes trying to find the image of a long-gone Paris, contributing
to the myth: Paris as the « capital of modernity » (cf. Walter
Benjamin, David Harvey, Patrice Higonnet). How has the image of Paris
evolve since the end of the 19th century? Is it possible to notice any
historical gaps, any anachronisms, in the perception of Paris by
foreign artists during the 20th century? This conference will try to
deepen our understanding of how the French capital has been seen
according to the different artistic and intellectual national contexts.
To what extent did artists associate settling in Paris with
constructing a connection with the historical avant-gardes of the early
20th century, even several decades later? What are the fantasies or
utopias that foreign artists contributed to building or deconstructing
about Paris? It will also be necessary to look closely at the media and
carriers of the myth : the press, correspondence between artists, as
well as literature and cinema.

2. Artist' life in Paris
Artists' long-term visits in Paris bring to light the constitution of
interesting social networks. In conjunction with actual research (work
on the French-German exchanges lead by France Nerlich at the Université
François-Rabelais in Tours, French-American by Eric de Chassey at the
ENS-Lyon, or the ARTL@S project by Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel at the
ENS-Ulm), this second topic ranges from the private space of the studio
to the more mundane life of the Salons, galleries, as well as more
informal gathering places.
Training and learning places – workshops, studios, schools – show the
recurring presence of foreign artists : how did they open to foreign
students and how did some of them welcome several generations of
artists in exile or traveling artists? Communication proposals could
dwell upon some spaces that were of special interest to foreign
artists, as well as their integration among a cosmopolitan artistic
community. The studio as political space, or on the contrary as
apolitical space, should be analyzed in order to better understand the
studio as an intellectual and cultural melting pot.
As training and learning places cannot be reduced to studios and
schools, communication proposals dealing with other forms of social and
gathering places - galleries, art patrons’ houses, cafes, or Parisian
neighborhoods - will be welcome. These places constituted in themselves
a training environment or « milieu », a theatre for artistic education
that will have to be taken into account, leading to a potential
artistic cartography of Paris.

3.  Paris’ experience– Individual paths and communities
Besides an attraction for the « capital of modernity », one of the
reasons of the Parisian exile is the quest of the artist's life in
Paris, the fantasized life of the Bohemia that some artists will be
searching until the 1980s. Their installation was often made easier by
the settlement of various national communities over the course of
several generations. How did these national networks develop in Paris?
The attitudes of the national communities between cultural melting pot,
disorientation and nostalgic fallback position, can be studied in their
nuances and their specificities.
Beyond well-known exiles who established in Paris and developed there
the main part of their career, there are many artists who passed
through the capital and developed a singular relation with the city,
its institutions, its artistic communities. Some found a political
refuge there, running away from dictatorships for example - the example
of the State supporting the artists and the Greek intellectuals fleeing
the Greek military junta is one among many – or an artistic refuge when
others try to find a way out of national artistic movements which they
consider as oppressive – for example artists such as Nancy Spero or
Leon Golub who left the United States for Paris. The individual path
will not become an exemplary nature, but seeks to further understand
the intricacy of the personal, artistic, political, and national
motives bringing artists to Paris.

4.  Institutional Paris and foreign artists
The study of the settling modes of foreign artists in Paris shows the
existence of institutional networks which provide financial support,
but also residences and exhibition places, etc. How did the French
public collections benefit from the presence of foreign artists in
Paris?
Furthermore, the State regularly supported and financed artists' stays,
in particular in the case of political exiles. What were these
supporting modalities and what impact did they have on the French
artistic scene? At the same time, the foreign authorities also
supported these stays. What networks of international collaborations
are then set up and what are the aesthetic, legal or political
implications?
The opening of Parisian institutions to foreign artists also takes
place through the press, and the art critique: could be studied the
factors of reception and the critical reviews testifying an interest -
or  a rejection - for these artists and for a "poetics of the diverse".
Expectations from institutions, reception of this Parisian
cosmopolitanism by the public and the press will have to be envisioned
through the study of public collections, but also through the analysis
of private patronage, newspapers reviews and art publications.

5. Leaving Paris
Considering the passage in Paris by the motives, the modalities and the
settling places in the capital is not enough to grasp the complexity of
the topic: we can also wonder about the return trip, or about the
journeys extending a Parisian stay. How and when does one leave Paris?
Did the artists return there? The departure is sometimes synonymic of
new settling, outside of Paris, for example in the South of France, in
Normandy or in Touraine. It can also become a new exile, extending
singular forms of the "Grand Tour". Furthermore, the artists having
settled down in Paris sometimes saw their practice being transformed
according to their environment, their relations with other fellow
artists and intellectuals: what did they draw from it? What did they
take away with them? Also, it can be useful to initiate a comparative
approach between Paris and other artistic capitals (Vienna, London,
Berlin, New York, etc.) in order to better grasp Paris’ specificity
among an international network. Some quantitative analysis could
provide a singular perspective to the moments when Paris was neglected,
and a better understanding of the artist’s movement within the
political and intellectual mutations, both French and international.

Proposals - title, abstract (about 1500 signs) with a brief CV - should
be emailed by September 1st to  [email protected]
The notification of the Scientific Committee will be sent to you via
email by September 10th, 2013

Scientific Committee
Natalie Adamson, Senior Lecturer, Art History, University of St Andrews
Andreas Beyer, Directeur du Centre allemand de l'histoire de l'art
(Paris)
Alain Bonnet, Professeur d’Histoire de l’art contemporain, UPMF,
Grenoble 2
Pauline Chevalier, Maître de conférences en Esthétique et histoire des
arts, Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and
Archaeology, Princeton University
Philippe Dagen, Professeur d’Histoire de l'art contemporain, Université
Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, directeur de l'HiCSA et du Labex CAP
Judith Delfiner, Maître de conférences en Histoire de l’art
contemporain, UPMF, Grenoble 2
Fanny Drugeon, Chercheuse associée Labex CAP (HiCSA/Centre Pompidou)
Marie Gispert, Maître de conférences en Histoire de l’art contemporain,
Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
Michèle Greet, Associate Professor of Art History, George Mason
University
Catherine Grenier, Directrice adjointe du MNAM-CCI, chargée du
programme Recherche et Mondialisation
Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Maître de conférences en histoire de l’art
contemporain, Ecole Normale Supérieure
Anne Lafont, Maître de conférences en histoire de l'art moderne,
université Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée
Michael Leja, Director, Visual Studies Program, Professor, History of
Art Department, University of Pennsylvania
France Nerlich, Maître de conférences en Histoire de l’art, Université
François-Rabelais, Tours
Veerle Thielemans, Responsable des Programmes Académiques de la Terra
Foundation for American Art
Julie Verlaine, Maître de conférences en Histoire, Université Paris 1
Panthéon-Sorbonne

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