The Department of History of Art, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta is organising the international conference Peripheral Alternatives to Rodin in Modern European Sculpture: with particular emphasis on Josef Kalleya's art and the visual dialogues of an island scene, on Tuesday, 15 December.
This conference aims to bring together international scholars and researchers to discuss and debate the role sculpture was playing in the formulation of a new artistic language and to also analyse the various idiomatic alternatives to Rodin co-existing during the first decades of the 20th century and beyond. The French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is widely considered as the forbearer of modern sculpture, whose pervasive influence proclaimed him as the authority of sculptural art.
The objective is to create a trans-cultural scholarly relationship between the work of European sculptors and other relevant artists. It endeavours to question and debate the artistic hegemonic relationship between Rodin and other sculptors. The conference is to further analyse the works of those pioneering sculptors who directed art towards original modes of representation within their respective socio-political situation and the international context.
Participants include Dr Sophie Biass-Fabiani (Musée Rodin, Paris), Dr Julia Kelly (Loughborough University), Professor Joseph Paul Cassar (University of Maryland University College), Dr Jon Wood (Henry Moore Institute, Leeds), Ulrich Meinherz (Kesselhaus Josephsohn, St Gallen), Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci (University of Malta) and Barbara Vujanović (Atelijer Meštrović, Zagreb).
The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale and the Valletta2018 Foundation.
For further information and to register for the conference visit https://www.um.edu.mt/events/parmes2015