Arts and Entertainment

Talk examines 'Scandal! Society, Culture and Politics in Europe'

Phillip Dennis Cate will give a gallery talk at 4 p.m. Feb. 10, in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, on the exhibit, "Scandal!  Society, Culture, and Politics in Europe, 1889-1914," on display through May 30, in the Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library on the University Park campus of Penn State.

Cate, director emeritus of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, is a specialist in 19th-century French art, with an emphasis on the graphic arts (Toulouse Lautrec in particular), sculpture, and the Japanese influence on Western art. Cate has published extensively and has organized over 100 exhibitions and programs in international institutions, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

The gallery talk is sponsored by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities and by the Penn State Center for the History of the Book.

The exhibit features books, periodicals, photographs, and other original documents that highlight some of the cultural products, events, and movements at the turn of the last century.

There is a special emphasis on France, including the emergence of the cabaret culture of Montmartre; the new technology of book production and the interest in fine and illustrated books; the construction of the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 Exposition universelle de Paris; and the exposure of French anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair. The exhibition also documents the importance of the year 1909 as the date of publication of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto and the establishment of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and its debut in Paris.

Guest curator Willa Silverman, professor of French and Jewish Studies, and Sandra Stelts, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, made the selections from among the holdings of Penn State’s Special Collections Library.

The exhibition and talk are part of The Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities' second annual “Moments of Change” initiative, which explores the turn of the 20th century and its lasting impact on global society and culture. The yearlong project presents more than 40 events, including lectures, performances, exhibitions, and symposia, aimed at engaging a multidisciplinary audience of scholars, artists, students, and community members. The 2008–09 project explores the 25-year period from the World Fair in Paris in 1889 to the outbreak of World War One in 1914.

For a complete schedule, visit http://www.iah.psu.edu/programs/moments.shtml online. For information, contact Marica Tacconi, director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, at (814) 865-0495 or arts-humanities@psu.edu via e-mail.

For more information about the talk and exhibition, contact Sandra Stelts, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, at (814) 863-5388 or sks5@psulias.psu.edu
 

Front cover of the periodical Au Quartier Latin. 1894, Vol. 2, No. 1, published in Paris. Credit: Penn State Special Collections Library / Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated November 18, 2010

Contact