CFP: Outside the Gallery: Public Sculpture in New England, 14 March 2015

Martha McNamara Discussion

CFP: Outside the Gallery: Public Sculpture in New England, 19th century-present

A one-day symposium sponsored by the Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art at Wellesley College and the Office of Academic Programs at Historic Deerfield.

Date: Saturday, March 14th, 2015

Location: Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, MA

This day-long symposium will explore the art and function of public sculpture in New England from the 19th century to the present. As objects of art and material culture, commissioned works of public art reflect aesthetic, civic, and institutional ideals as well as choices made by both artists and clients working at a particular moment in history. Such sculptures also offer special opportunities to explore the ways in which communities and individuals have chosen to commemorate, memorialize, mourn and/or celebrate people and events in a public setting.

We invite papers that will explore public sculpture in New England as individual productions or through conceptual interpretations of a larger body of work by an artist/s.  How has public sculpture been informed by or helped shape regional memory and identity?  What civic and aesthetic ideals are at work? What is the relationship between the artist and those who commissioned his/her work? What economic and material conditions and assumptions have informed the commissioning and siting of public sculpture? In what ways do such sculptures reflect New Englanders’ didactic goals, historical, regional or group identities and perspectives? Have interpretations of these quintessentially public works of art changed over time, and if so, how and why?

Papers should be theoretical or analytical in nature rather than descriptive and should be approximately 20 minutes long.  Speakers invited to present papers are expected to participate fully in the symposium program. The symposium offers an honorarium and the possibility of a modest travel stipend. The deadline for submissions is October 30th, 2014.

Please submit 250-word proposals and a two-page c.v. via electronic mail to Barbara Matthews bmathews@historic-deerfield.org and Martha McNamara mmcnamar@wellesley.edu. Proposals should include the title of the paper and the presenter’s name.

For further information, please contact Barbara Mathews bmathews@historic-deerfield.org or Martha McNamara (mmcnamar@wellesley.edu).