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| Albert Irvin, Almada, 1985 |
A one-day symposium, co-hosted by the University of Gloucestershire and the RWA (The Royal West of England Academy) will be held on Monday 4th February 2019 at the RWA in Bristol.
The symposium is timed to coincide with the exhibition Albert Irvin and Abstract Expressionism (8 December 2018 – 3 March 2019). This exhibition, curated by RWA President Stewart Geddes will be the first major retrospective of Albert Irvin, placed in tandem with a 60th anniversary celebration of the seminal exhibition, The New American Painting.
The focus of the symposium will be on the current
status of non-figurative painting, within contemporary art practice, considered
against the background of the history delineated by the exhibition Albert Irvin and Abstract Expressionism. That
is, from the high-water mark of American painting in the 1940s and 50s and its seminal
influence on a generation of British artists, non-figurative painting has often
been sustained against the grain of artworld fashion. Nevertheless, it
continues to thrive.
Papers are invited which address, either:
-
the issues and debates arising
from the post-war history of non-figurative painting
-
the specific critical status of
Irvin and his peers
-
the challenges, relevance and
critical status of non-figurative
painting in contemporary art practice
Themes may include, for example, the Cold War
politics of Abstract Expressionism; the critical language and theory of
abstraction; the influence of and later rejection of critics such as Greenberg;
abstraction and postmodernism; the gendering of abstraction; art education and
non-figurative painting; current practice.
Papers are invited from artists, writers,
historians, educators, researchers.
Please submit proposals (500 words maximum) providing
title and abstract for a paper to last no more than 25-30 minutes, to Richard
Salkeld: rsalkeld@glos.ac.uk
Please insert ‘Abstract Painting Now’ in the subject
header and include your name, email address and institutional affiliation (if
appropriate).
Deadline for submissions: Monday 12 November 2018
