The Vigeland Seminar 2023
Boundaries or no Boundaries – Sculpture in the Intersection between Nationalism and Internationalism
Date: 12 and 13 June 2023
Place: Sentralen, Oslo, Norway
Tickets: TicketCo
The Vigeland Museum, in partnership with Eckbos Legat, Kulturbyrået Mesén and the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas at the University of Oslo, is organizing a two-day seminar on sculpture in the intersection between nationalism and internationalism in the period from around 1900 until today. The seminar will shed light on various aspects of this subject matter, both in a historical and contemporary setting.
The seminar will explore themes such as the role of sculptors and public monuments in nation building, international and transnational tendencies in the field of sculpture and who are represented in our public monuments.
Each presentation will be 20 minutes long, and each session will be followed by a discussion.
All participants are welcome to a reception at the Vigeland Museum, Nobels gate 32, Monday 12 June at 6pm.
Day 1: Monday 12 June
09:00: Registration and coffee
09:30: Welcome and short introduction by Museum Director Jarle Strømodden, Vigeland Museum
09:45–11:45
Transnationalism and National Identity I
Panel Chair: Caroline Ugelstad (Henie Onstad Kunstsenter)
Sebastian Muehl, Art Academy of Latvia: National identity and the cardboard puppet: the case of Taring Padi
Nicola Foster, University of Suffolk/Solent University, Southampton: National Pavillion at the Venice Biennial: The German Pavillion in 2013
Andrew J. Hennlich, Gwen Frostic School of Art, Western Michigan University/Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg: Disposability, Mobility, and Unbelonging: Kosovar Identity in Flaka Haliti’s Sculpture
Tobias Lund, Lund University: A vision/audition of Swedish modernity: Carl Milles’s sculptures at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
11:45–12:45: Lunch Break
12:45–14:15
Interwar Europe
Panel Chair: Drew Snyder (KORO, Art in Public Space)
Ulrike Müller, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium/University of Antwerp: The public monument as a boundary object. A transnational perspective on the emergence and afterlife of Constantin Meunier’s Monument to Labour
Maria Elena Versari, Carnegie Mellon University: Futurist sculptural canons in Fascist Italy
Linda Hinners, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm: International Acclaim and National Reproach. Sigrid Fridman’s Centaur, Ivar Johnson’s David, and Adolf Johnson’s Leda and the Swan. Three sculpted monuments in interwar Sweden.
14:15: Coffee Break
14:30–16:00
Transnationalism and National Identity II
Panel Chair: Gustav Jørgen Pedersen (Munchmuseet)
Emily C. Burns, University of Oklahoma / Erika Schneider, Framingham State University: Transnationalism and Sculptural Exchange between the US and France, c. 1900
Jean-Roch Dumont Saint Priest, Museum Curator: ‘Students of all languages’: international emulation in Antoine Bourdelle’s studio
Sara Touboul-Oppenheimer, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne: Sculpting Germanic Thought Across the Atlantic: The German Philosopher Statue in American Public Spaces
Day 2: Tuesday 13 June
09:00–11:00
The Heroic Monument
Panel Chair: Vibeke Waallann Hansen (The National Museum, Oslo)
Klaudija Sabo, University of Klagenfurt: The transnational dimension of heroic monuments – on the basis of artistic interventions in Eastern Europe
Ophélie Ferlier-Bouat, Musée Bourdelle: From Alvear to France: two monuments by Bourdelle emblematic of the nation
Chiara Pazzaglia, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa/Université Paris Nanterre: Towards Transnationalism. Public Monuments in Italy after World War II
Lily Vikki, City of Oslo Art Collection /Jon-Ove Steihaug, Munchmuseet: Tracy Emin’s The Mother: contemporary global icon, monument to a national hero and ecological utopia11:00. Coffee Break
11:15–12:15
Implications of National Style and Material
Panel Chair: Ragnhild M. Bø (University of Oslo)
Marthje Sagewitz, University of Leipzig: Medievalism at the Intersection between Nationalism/Regionalism and the Emergence of Modernity. References to Medieval Art in the Oeuvre of Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle.
Tobias Kämpf, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg/Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg: Material Ideologies: National and Transnational Dimensions of German Expressionist Sculpture in Wood
12:15–13:15: Lunch Break
13:15–14:15
Unrealized Projects
Panel Chair: Jarle Strømodden (Vigeland Museum)
Laura Ammann, Humboldt University, Berlin: The Monument to the Brazilian Man: an Impossible Sculpture or an Improbable Nation?
Carla Ribeiro and Carla Sofia Ferreira Queirós, Polytechnic of Porto: From winners to forgotten: the projects of the Monument to Prince Henrique The Navigator, in Sagres, Portugal
14:15 Break
14:30–15:30
Problematic Monuments
Panel Chair: Lill K. Stensrud (The City of Oslo Art Collection)
Ana María Bresciani, KORO (Art in Public Space, Oslo): The Beecroft Case: Has the Transnational Failed Us?
Stephanie von Spreter, University of Tromsø: Ghost of the Past? The (In)visible Hans Egede Monument at Trinity Church, Oslo
15:30–16:00
Concluding remarks
Two-day seminar: NOK 500,-/300,- (students)
One day seminar (Monday 12 June or Tuesday 13 June): NOK 300,-/150,- (students)
The fee covers coffee/tea, lunch and reception in the Vigeland Museum Monday afternoon.
Please register by buying your ticket here.
Please note that there is a limited number of tickets and the seminar may be full.
The planning committee: Øystein Sjåstad, Guri Skuggen and Kristine Wessel
For questions: guri.skuggen@kul.oslo.kommune.no