Eighth Graduate Workshop
The Problem of Religious Art in Modernity: Uses and Abuses of the Icon in Russia
Program
14.00-17.00 (Vienna)
8-11 am (NYC) | 3-6 pm (Moscow) | 8-11 pm (Singapore)
The recordings of the talks are now available on YouTube.
In Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche wrote: “that species of art can never flourish again which—like the Divine Comedy, the paintings by Raphael, the frescoes of Michelangelo, Gothic cathedrals—presupposes not only a cosmic but a metaphysical significance in the objects of art.” In his usual provocative manner, Nietzsche attracted attention to the problem of religious art in a secular modernity. This issue was already implicit in Kant’s notion of the viewer of the work of art as “indifferent to the real existence of the object of representation.”
The eighth graduate workshop of the Russian Art and Culture Group in collaboration with the “Eurasia in Global Dialogue” Program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, will consider the deep implications posed by the problem of religious art by examining the various ways in which the icon was adapted in modern Russia to serve different artistic, philosophical, and political agendas.
Wednesday, October 14
13.30 (Vienna) | 7.30 am (NYC) | 2.30 pm (Moscow) | 7.30 pm (Singapore)
Opening: Welcome Address
Isabel Wünsche, Jacobs University Bremen
13.45 (Vienna) | 7.45 am (NYC) | 2.45 pm (Moscow) | 7.45 pm (Singapore)
Some Inquiries Concerning the Understanding of Icons
Thomas Németh, University of Vienna
Panel I: Russian Icon-Painting
Chair: Clemena Antonova
Recording (YouTube).
14.00 (Vienna) | 8.00 am (NYC) | 3.00 pm (Moscow) | 8.00 pm (Singapore)
The Icon-Painters’ Pattern-Books and the End of the Byzantine Iconicity in the Post-Medieval Russia
Alexei Lidov, Lomonosov Moscow State University
14.30 (Vienna) | 8.30 am (NYC) | 3.30 pm (Moscow) | 8.30 pm (Singapore)
The Icon Within the Icon: The Rhetoric of the Composition and the Peculiarities of Icon Veneration in Russia
Oleg Tarasov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Break
Panel II: Fin de Siècle Russian Art
Chair: Isabel Wünsche
Recording (YouTube) – Not available yet, due to technical difficulties.
15.30 (Vienna) | 9.30 am (NYC) | 4.30 pm (Moscow) | 9.30 pm (Singapore)
Uniting the Opposite: Orthodox Script and Imagery in Russian Folklore Depictions
Ludmila Piters-Hofmann, Jacobs-University Bremen
16.00 (Vienna) | 10.00 am (NYC) | 5.00 pm (Moscow) | 10.00 pm (Singapore)
From Sacrilegious Monstrosities to Modernist Masterpieces:
The Changing Reception of Mikhail Vrubel’s Religious Murals at the Fin de Siècle
Maria Taroutina, Yale-NUS College Singapore
Thursday, October 15
Panel III: The Mother of God and Her Portrayals
Chair: Clemena Antonova
Recording (YouTube).
!!! SPEAKER COULD NOT ATTEND, DUE TO POLITICAL TURMOIL IN BELARUS !!!
14.00 (Vienna) | 8.00 am (NYC) | 3.00 pm (Moscow) | 8.00 pm (Singapore)
Marion Iconology and Women’s Agency
Viktoria Lavriniuk, University of Ottawa
14.30 (Vienna) | 8.30 am (NYC) | 3.30 pm (Moscow) | 8.30 pm (Singapore)
Liubov Popova and Reality as a Site of Construction
Petra Carlsson Redell, Stockholm School of Theology
Break
Guest Lecture
Recording (YouTube).
15.30 (Vienna) | 9.30 am (NYC) | 4.30 pm (Moscow) | 9.30 pm (Singapore)
Presence and Power: Reflections on the Politics and Theology of Icons
George Pattison, University of Glasgow
Friday, October 16
Panel IV: Philosophical Ideas on Icons
Chair: Isabel Wünsche
Recording (YouTube).
14.00 (Vienna) | 8.00 am (NYC) | 3.00 pm (Moscow) | 8.00 pm (Singapore)
The Power of Images and the Failure of Aesthetics: The Russian Position
Clemena Antonova, Eurasia in Global Dialogue (IWM), Vienna
14.30 (Vienna) | 8.30 am (NYC) | 3.30 pm (Moscow) | 8.30 pm (Singapore)
Divine Darkness and Uncreated Light: Byzantine Meanings of Avant-Garde’s Icons
Tatiana Levina, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Break
Panel V: Twentieth Century Russian Art
Chair: Ludmila Piters-Hofmann
Recording (YouTube).
15.30 (Vienna) | 9.30 am (NYC) | 4.30 pm (Moscow) | 9.30 pm (Singapore)
Abstraction as Expression of Religious Truths in Wassily Kandinsky’s Painting
Lilia Sokolova, University of Cologne
16.00 (Vienna) | 10.00 am (NYC) | 5.00 pm (Moscow) | 10.00 pm (Singapore)
Stalin Christ as a Czar: On “Anachronic” (Socialist) Realism
Nikita Balagurov, independent scholar, St. Petersburg