UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Department of Art History at Penn State will host a discussion on "Faciality in Modern Art & Theory" from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.on Tuesday, April 10, in 121 Borland Building on the University Park campus.
Rico Franses, director of the Museum of the American University of Beirut (AUB), will give the keynote. His talk will be followed by responses from Penn State faculty members Leonard Lawler, Edwin Erie Sparks Professor of Philosophy; Sarah Rich, associate professor of art history; and Anthony Cutler, Evan Pugh University Professor of Art History. Lunch will be provided.
Franses is associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts and Art History, AUB, and former chair of the department. He completed his doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London in the field of Byzantine art. He also has taught at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, and the Pratt Institute, New York.
Franses' research interests include: Interrelations between Late Antique, Byzantine and Islamic art; monuments, memorials and portraiture, especially in Byzantine and Renaissance art; and visual theory, especially psychoanalytic theory in its relation to the world of the visual. His publications include “When all that is Gold does not Glitter: On the Strange History of Viewing Byzantine Art,” in Icon and Word, eds. L. James and A. Eastmond, (Ashgate, 2003); the translation of M-J Mondzain, "Image, Icon, Economy"; and "The Byzantine Origins of the Contemporary Imaginary" (Stanford University Press, 2004).
Rich specializes in art after 1940, with particular emphasis on art produced in the United States and France during the 1950s and 60s. Her current book project, forthcoming with the University of California Press, is titled "Past Flat: Other Sides to American Abstraction in the Cold War." The book addresses the often unintended overlaps between mid-century consumer culture and the abstract painting produced by figures like Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland. While completing her book about American abstraction, Rich has begun research for a second book about Jean Dubuffet’s collaborations with other artists. Rich has recently delivered papers at the National Gallery in Washington, MIT, Yale University, Harvard University, the Institute of Fine Arts, and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. She is a frequent contributor to Artforum, and her scholarly publications have appeared in American Art, Art Bulletin, October, Perspective, and the Oxford Art Journal, as well as in many exhibition catalogues and compendia of essays.
Lawlor received his doctorate in philosophy from Stony Brook University in 1988. Until 2008, he was Faudree Hardin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. Lawlor is co-founder and co-editor of Chiasmi International: Trilingual Studies Concerning the Thought of Merleau-Ponty. He has translated books by Merleau-Ponty and Jean Hyppolite into English. Lawlor completed a new English translation of Jacques Derrida's "La voix et le phenomene," which appeared with Northwestern University Press in 2011. He has also completed a new book called "Early Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy," which appeared with Indiana University Press in 2011.
Cutler teaches courses in late antique, early Christian, and Byzantine art. He also teaches graduate courses on theory, iconology and methods of research. He has taught at Penn State since 1967 and is firmly convinced that the practice of research, leading to publication, is an integral part of teaching. The author of numerous books and articles, he has established himself as an international expert on ivory carving, with such works as "The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium" (Princeton University Press). His most recent book is "Byzantium, Italy and the North: Papers on Cultural Relations" (Pindar Press). Cutler has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a resident in art history at the American Academy in Rome, and was awarded the Médaille François Ier of the Collège de France, Paris.
Cutler was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for 2002-2003 and was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2005. In 2007, he was awarded the College of Arts and Architecture Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. He is currently working on his book, "The Empire of Things: Gifts and Gift Exchange Between Byzantium, the Islamic World, and Beyond."