Vanderbilt University History of Art Blog

Responding to a Cultural Heritage Crisis: The SHOSI Project

An overflow crowd spilled into Cohen’s lecture hall on September 22 for Brian Daniels’ sobering yet inspiring Goldberg Lecture entitled Protecting Cultural Heritage in Syria and Iraq: Lessons Learned in the Present Crisis.   

Considerable attention has been given to the ongoing destruction of cultural heritage as part of the current crisis in Syria and Iraq. While many academic responses have started the important work of documenting the extent and scale of the damage to cultural sites in both countries, there have been fewer attempts to work within a humanitarian framework in order to support Syrians and Iraqis who are undertaking emergency efforts to protect heritage at risk.

Daniels co-directs the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq Project (SHOSI), which aims to enhance the protection of cultural heritage by supporting professionals and activists in conflict areas, and leads a National Science Foundation-supported study about the intentional destruction of cultural heritage in conflict.

Daniels, along with Salam Al Quntar, Katharyn Hanson, and Corine Wegener, wrote an article, “Responding to a Cultural Heritage Crisis:  The Example of the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq Project,” that recently appeared in a special issue (September 2015) of Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol. 78, No. 3).

This article discusses the strategies employed by the SHOSI Project to assist in-country professionals and civil society activists in their attempts to protect key heritage sites. The approach combines the empowerment of Syrians and Iraqis in decision-making about their heritage while supporting them with the logistics and resources necessary to carry out emergency efforts. It demonstrates one case study of how on-the-ground protection can be achieved.

*Temple of Bel at Palmyra

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 30, 2015 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Exhibit Commemorates Recently Destroyed Monuments at Palmyra

Palmyra, or Tadmor, rising out of the Syrian desert between Damascus and the Euphrates, has been called the “Bride of the Desert,” because of its spectacular geographical setting and a history of bringing diverse peoples together.  Today, Syria is widowed.

Syria Widowed:  Remembering Palmyra commemorates recently destroyed monuments at Palmyra, only one of a growing number of ancient sites devastated by ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).  On view through December 10 in the rear atrium of Cohen Memorial Hall, the exhibit was organized by Betsey A. Robinson, associate professor of the history of art, and E.B. Armstrong, a junior in the College of Arts and Science.

Working for the French ambassador to the Ottoman court, Louis-François Cassas (1756-1827) documented ancient sites in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus and Asia Minor.  He visited Palmyra in 1785, and his views and studies of the site were reproduced as copper-plate engravings in Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoenicie, de la Palaestine, et de la Basse Aegypte, volume 1.  Published in Paris in 1799, this volume is the source of all framed prints in the exhibit, which juxtaposes 18th-century engravings of temples, tombs, and cityscapes with photographs taken by Robinson in August 1995.

“Ancient ruins and antique prints are not the usual stuff of ‘pop-up’ exhibits, but we felt we must do something, sooner rather than later,” write Robinson and Armstrong who worked with Joseph Mella and Margaret Walker, Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery, to hang the exhibit by September 22 when Brian Daniels delivered the Goldberg Lecture on “Protecting Cultural Heritage in Syria and Iraq.”

“Relying on the power of images, we respond to ISIL not with scenes of violence and destruction but with memories of more peaceful times.  By celebrating the history and humanity encapsulated in the stones of what was an amazing place, we hope to make Palmyra, and Syria, more real and accessible to our community.”

The exhibition owes much to work done in an Honors Seminar on “Ancient Landscapes” in fall 2014.  Syria Widowed is just one among several programs planned at Vanderbilt to address current cultural, religious, political, and environmental issues in Syria and neighboring countries.

The exhibit co-sponsors are History of Art, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, and Classical Studies, as well as the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Divinity School, Fine Arts Gallery, and syriaca.org.

Limited parking is available in Lot 95 outside Cohen Hall, off 21st Avenue South on the Peabody campus and across from Medical Center East. For more information, call the department at 615.322.2831.

*Ruines d’un Arc de Triomphe, à Palmyre, from Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoenicie, de la Palaestine, et de la Basse Aegypte, volume 1, published 1799, copper-plate engraving.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 29, 2015 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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HART Alumnus Alan LeQuire to Discuss “Musica” on September 26

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 25, 2015 in Events, HART, HART in Nashville, Lectures, Student/Alumni, VRC

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Maria Liston to Deliver Archaeology Lecture on September 24

Maria Liston, associate professor and chair of the anthropology department at the University of Waterloo, will deliver an Archaeological Institute of America lecture on Thursday, September 24, at 6 pm at the Nashville Parthenon in Centennial Park. In her lecture, “Short Lives and Forgotten Deaths: Infant Skeletons in the ‘Bone Well’ near the Athenian Agora,” Liston, a bioarchaeologist, will speak on a remarkable find from the Athenian Agora, the excavation where she has worked with Barbara Tsakirgis, associate professor of classical studies and the history of art at Vanderbilt.

Liston pursues research as a skeletal biologist and archaeologist, focusing on the excavation and analysis of human remains and their mortuary contexts. “If you are a fan of Patricia Cornwell’s novels of forensic anthropology, you will love how Maria Liston solves the mysteries of ancient murders from the evidence of the surviving bone.” 

Since 2001 Liston has worked as the skeletal biologist in the Athenian Agora, the civic and religious center of ancient Athens. In her work there she has recently identified the oldest case of battered child syndrome known from the archaeological record. She also works in Greece with the excavations at Mycenaean Iklaina, and the new excavations in the Sanctuary of Ismenion Apollo in Thebes. She is currently publishing the skeletons from tombs found at Kavousi, Crete.  She also has directed the analysis of the remains of British and colonial soldiers at Fort William Henry, in New York.

Free and open to the public, Liston’s lecture is sponsored by the Nashville Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park, and Vanderbilt’s Department of Classical Studies and Department of Anthropology. Those who plan to attend the AIA lecture on September 24 are encouraged to call the Nashville Parthenon at 615.862.8431 to reserve a seat.

On Friday, September 25, Liston will present “Barbarians at the Gate: Victims and Perpetrators of the Herulian Sack, 267 CE,” at an informal lunchtime seminar sponsored by the departments of classical studies and anthropology.  This lecture will be held at noon in Cohen Hall 324.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 22, 2015 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC

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From New Zealand to New York and now Nashville: HART’s new Visual Resources Curator Assistant Millie Fullmer

Born and raised in Te Wai Pounamu, which translates “waters of greenstone” or as the European colonists creatively named it… the South Island of New Zealand (a.k.a. Aotearoa “land of the long white cloud”),  I suppose I have always been a southerner of sorts. Admittedly, the last six years were spent living in New York City, cultivating a fair amount of cynicism typical of urbanites.

In my chosen career, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, with a well-known ceramic artist father and a gallery director mother.  At university Art History was a no-brainer; my other major was Religious Studies, a result of growing up in a secular country intrigued by the religiosity of my American relatives, and the fanaticism that brought about 9/11.  After completing my B.A., I lived in London for a year, and then returned home to attend graduate school where I wrote my thesis, “Modernism’s Impact on Religious Art and Architecture.”

My latest preoccupation is folk art and outsider artists, so I am enjoying learning about local self-taught genius William Edmondson.

Since earning a masters degree in library and information science at New York’s Pratt Institute, my professional experience has been limited to traditional art librarianship (Metropolitan Museum of Art’s library and Columbia University’s Avery Library).  During my studies at the Pratt Institute, however,  I took several courses related specifically to emerging trends in digital humanities and the field of visual resources.  Art librarianship and visual resources are no longer considered mutually exclusive, and in joining the HART’s Visual Resources Center I am confident this will be demonstrated under the vision of our director Chris Strasbaugh. I feel quite fortunate to be working with such a supportive team, collaborating on such exciting projects as DIMLI and Scalar, and exposure to faculty research.  Another wonderful perk of my new employment is Vanderbilt’s many extracurricular engagements, especially gallery talks, visiting lecturers, film screenings, and perhaps the odd adventure through the Outdoor Recreation Center.

As for the city itself, Nashville has charmed me with the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Country Music Hall of Fame, Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art, vintage shopping, farmer’s markets, cycling trails, lakes, the Belcourt Theatre, the “Bonut” (google it), and hipster coffee to rival Portland, Oregon.  Oh and I love the fireflies here!

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 22, 2015 in HART, VRC

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Mireille Lee Lectures on Archaeology of Ancient Greek Dress

Mireille Lee, assistant professor of history of art and classical studies, delivered the Richard H. Howland Lecture on September 20 to the Milwaukee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America. Her title was The Archaeology of Ancient Greek Dress. Lee has published widely on the social functions of dress in ancient Greece, including her monograph Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Archaeology provides important evidence for ancient Greek dress, which was essential to the construction of social identities. Although no complete garments survive, preserved fragments of silk and embroideries indicate the elite status of the wearer. Jewelry, dress fasteners, toilet implements, perfume vessels, cosmetics, and mirrors are also important indicators of status and gender.

The visual sources, including sculpture and vase painting, depict men and women performing various dress practices. Although some practices, such as bathing and the use of perfumes, are common to both genders, others are specific to either men or women. The visual sources demonstrate other aspects of identity: age and social role are often indicated by hairstyle, whereas ethnicity is also conveyed by means of garments and body modifications. Although dress is often considered a mundane aspect of culture, Lee argues that dress provides unique insight into ancient Greek ideologies.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 22, 2015 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Goldberg Lecture, Exhibit Address Protection of Cultural Heritage

Concerns about cultural heritage feature prominently in the present humanitarian crisis in Syria and Iraq. With more than 250,000 dead and millions displaced, all aspects of daily life have been upended. Destruction of the region’s famed archaeological sites, most recently Palmyra, has prompted an outpouring of international concern. Despite many humanitarian interventions designed to address the current crisis in Syria and Iraq, there have been fewer efforts to protect the heritage that represents the cultural identity of Syrians and Iraqis inside both countries. What can we do to protect cultural heritage in this crisis?

Brian Daniels, director of research and programs, Penn Cultural Heritage Center, University of Pennsylvania Museum, will deliver the Norman L. & Roselea J. Goldberg Lecture on Tuesday, September 22, in which he will discuss how the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq (SHOSI) Project has answered this question. His lecture, entitled Protecting Cultural Heritage in Syria and Iraq: Lessons Learned in the Present Crisis, will begin at 4:10 pm in Cohen Memorial Hall, room 203, followed by a reception in the atrium.

Daniels co-directs the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq Project, which aims to enhance the protection of cultural heritage by supporting professionals and activists in conflict areas, and leads a National Science Foundation-supported study about the intentional destruction of cultural heritage in conflict. He has worked with local communities on issues surrounding heritage rights and repatriation for more than fifteen years. He previously served as manager of the National Endowment for the Humanities regional center initiative at San Francisco State University, where he developed strategies for community engagement and outreach on folklore documentation. Daniels received his doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Sponsored by the Department of History of Art and the Archaeological Institute of America, the Goldberg Lecture is free and open to the public. The talk will be accompanied by an exhibit in the rear atrium of Cohen Hall that was organized by Betsey Robinson, associate professor of the history of art, and E.B. Armstrong, a junior in the College of Arts and Science.

“Syria Widowed: Remembering Palmyra” commemorates recently destroyed monuments in Palmyra, Syria. The exhibit, on view through December 10, juxtaposes 18th-century engravings of temples, tombs, and cityscapes with photos taken by Robinson in 1995. The organizers hope to counter ISIL’s violence with memories of more peaceful times.

The exhibit co-sponsors are History of Art, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, and Classical Studies, as well as the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Divinity School, Fine Arts Gallery, and syriaca.org.

Limited parking is available in Lot 95 outside Cohen Hall, off 21st Avenue South on the Peabody campus and across from Medical Center East. For more information, call the department at 615.322.2831.

*Monumental arch in the eastern section of Palmyra’s colonnade

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 22, 2015 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, Lectures, VRC

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Vanderbilt Portal to Mexico City Promotes Global Citizenship

The Vanderbilt Portal to Mexico City—a custom-designed gold shipping container with immersive audio and video technology—will offer the entire Nashville community now through October 12 an opportunity to converse face to face with new acquaintances in Mexico’s capital city.

Interested individuals must sign up in advance to reserve a time for a 20-minute conversation in the portal, which is located on the South Patio Lawn of The Commons Center, 18th Avenue South and Horton Avenue. When you enter the portal, you will meet someone standing in another shipping container located in Mexico City. Translation will be provided if needed.

“Portals,” a public art initiative offered in collaboration with Shared_Studios arts collective, will also provide educational programming for the Vanderbilt community related to artistic, academic and professional endeavors. Those interested in arranging special programs should email their request to vanderbilt@sharedstudios.com. The portal will remain at Vanderbilt through October 12.

“We are excited to bring this technology that opens a window to other cultures on our campus,” said Vanessa Beasley, dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt and associate professor of communication studies. “In addition to holding some ‘public hours’ in the portal, we will utilize the technological tools and artistic design of this project for enhanced programming.”

The founder of Shared_Studios is Amar C. Bakshi, a former journalist who worked at The Washington Post and CNN and is a graduate of Yale Law School. He and a team of artists, designers, engineers, technologists and digital explorers at Shared_Studios launched the project in December 2014. Vanderbilt is only the third higher education institution to have a Shared_Studios portal on its campus.

“What is especially appealing about having the portal at The Ingram Commons is that this project offers curricular as well as co-curricular learning opportunities in a variety of disciplines,” Beasley said. “For example, we can use the portal for conversations about issues raised in the book that all of our first-year students were assigned to read this past summer, The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse.”

“The Vanderbilt Portal to Mexico City illustrates how new technologies are fostering innovation in learning, teaching and discovery,” said Cynthia Cyrus, vice provost of learning and residential affairs. “Through the audio-video exchange, the portal expands the possibilities of cross-cultural engagement at Vanderbilt, promoting global citizenship through technological innovation. The ability to form meaningful connections by bridging distance and location will allow the community to explore, discover and contemplate the ‘human’ questions and issues that we all face.”

Sponsors for The Vanderbilt Portal to Mexico City are The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, Center for Latin American Studies, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery, Blair School of Music, International Legal Studies Program at Vanderbilt Law School, Department of Art, Department of History of Art, and Political Science Department.

*Shared_Studios Portal (courtesy of Amar C. Bakshi); article by Ann Marie Deer Owens

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 21, 2015 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, Student/Alumni, Technology, VRC

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Two Exhibits Featured at Cohen Gallery Opening on September 18

The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery celebrates the opening of two exhibits with a reception on Friday, September 18, from 5 to 7 pm in the atrium of Cohen Memorial Hall. On view through December 4, the exhibits are in conjunction with “Fall for the Arts” and Parents’ Weekend.

In honor of the centenary of World War I, Forging Identity—Imagining the Enemy: American Propaganda and the Great War features posters by some of the early twentieth century’s most accomplished artists and illustrators, including Howard Christy, Charles Dana Gibson, Charles Buckles Falls, Joseph Christian Leyendecker, and James Montgomery Flagg, who found their role in wartime by appealing to the hearts and minds of the American people. Their artwork, distributed nationwide for display in public spaces, defined patriotism and spread the news of the atrocities committed by enemies of the United States. Several of the posters carry traces of how and where they were actually used in Nashville, giving the exhibition a strong tie to local history.

Using images, the posters appealed to the emotions of those on the home front and directed their energies—to a recruiting station, a bank, a book drive, or a backyard garden. While lithographs were one part of a larger propaganda machine, they have endured in the memory of the Great War because of their artistic merit and their ability to stir the emotions of viewers a century later.

Forging Identity—Imagining the Enemy: American Propaganda and the Great War is organized by the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery and curated by Margaret F. M. Walker, art curator assistant. The exhibition is supported, in part, by the Ewers Gift for Fine Art.

Presented in honor of Mathew Ramsey, professor emeritus of history, Selma Freeman Ramsey and the Social Realist Tradition explores 150 years of art about city life, work, and community. The daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Ramsey took a distinctly social-minded approach to her artwork of the 1930s, with a focus on the working class. Her art from this period, along with that of other social realists featured in the exhibition such as Reginald Marsh and Isabel Bishop, grew out of a tradition of exposing through art the lives of the downtrodden and those whom society tends not to see.

The exhibition features paintings, prints, and illustrations by Ramsey from the collection of her son, Mathew Ramsey, and related works. It places importance on the roots of Ramsey’s art, found in European Realism with Honoré Daumier’s popular caricatures and the urban-focused Ashcan School art of Kenneth Hayes Miller, George Bellows, Martin Lewis, and John Sloan. It also explores how this politically and socially charged movement took hold outside of the United States, particularly in Latin America, and still compels artists today.

Selma Freeman Ramsey and the Social Realist Tradition is presented in collaboration with the Class of 2019 Commons Reading, The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse. It is organized by the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery and curated by Joseph S. Mella, director.

The exhibits are free and open to the public, and gallery hours are Monday through Friday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 1-5 p.m. The Fine Arts Gallery is located in Cohen Memorial Hall, 1220 21st Avenue South, on the western edge of the Peabody College campus. Parking is available in Lot 95 outside Cohen Hall, off 21st Avenue South on Peabody campus and across from Medical Center East.

For more information, call the gallery (615.322.0605) or the curator’s office (615.343.1702); or visit vanderbilt.edu/gallery.

*World War I poster; and Selma Freeman Ramsey, Family at the Table, 1941

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 18, 2015 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, VRC

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#AskACurator Day at the Getty Set for Wednesday, September 16

Have your questions ready and join nine Getty curators for #AskACurator Day on Wednesday, September 16. Curators from the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute will join their colleagues at nearly 1,000 institutions in 50 countries on Wednesday, September 16, for the sixth annual #AskACurator Day on Twitter.

Curators will be available to answer questions throughout the day from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time), covering such areas as manuscripts, photographs, paintings, drawings, antiquities, and sculpture and the decorative arts.

Tweet your question with the hashtag #AskACurator. To direct your question to a curator at the Getty Museum or Getty Research Institute specifically, also include @GettyMuseum in your tweet.

Posted by vrcvanderbilt on September 15, 2015 in Events, HART, Student/Alumni, VRC

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