A seminar will be organized in celebration of the 60th birthday of Professor Pirjo Lyytikäinen, who is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Birch and the Star.

The language of the seminar if Finnish.

Kotimaisen kirjallisuuden professori Pirjo Lyytikäinen täyttää 60 vuotta 10.10.2013. Järjestämme hänen kunniakseen perjantaina 11.10.2013 juhlaseminaarin “Esitetty nainen taiteissa”.

Seminaarissa julkistetaan professori Lyytikäisen juhlakirja “Kirjallisuuden naiset. Naisten esityksiä 1840-luvulta 2000-luvulle” (SKS), jonka ovat toimittaneet Riikka Rossi ja Saija Isomaa. Myös päivänsankarin uusin teos “Leena Krohn ja allegorian kaupungit” (SKS) julkistetaan samassa tilaisuudessa.

Seminaari pidetään Helsingin yliopiston pienessä juhlasalissa (Fabianinkatu 33, 4. krs), ja se on kaikille avoin. Lämpimästi tervetuloa! Continue reading →

Call for Papers

The decades around 1900 were a period of such varied experimentation that any attempt to apply labels, particularly those based on formal style, inevitably creates artificial exclusions and divisions. Despite much work in recent decades on the art, architecture and design of the period, it remains conceptually difficult to work outside the categories that are deeply embedded in our scholarly traditions. Symbolism and Art Nouveau are both labels whose definitions have been widened to try and accommodate the diversity and geographical range of the period. Both movements resist straightforward positioning in relation to the dominant discourse of Modernism. It remains challenging to reconcile the ideas of escape, nostalgia and the subjective dream space that prevailed at this time with the engagement with the contemporary world valorised by the label Modern.

This session invites researchers to consider how their work relates to the binaries that still linger behind our sense of what is progressive or modern but that were in such a tangled relationship at this period. Progress: retreat; forwards: backwards; reveal: conceal; clarity: obscurity. We welcome contributions with a focus on any area of visual or material culture between 1880 and 1920.

Please submit your proposal (max. 250 words) by 11 November 2013 to:

Charlotte Ashby c.ashby(at)bbk.ac.uk
Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff  Anna-Maria.vonBonsdorff(at)ateneum.fi

Click here for more information about the AAH Annual Conference 2014

Richard Wagner and the North

International Symposium, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, November 8–9, 2013

ORGANIZERS: The University of the Arts (Sibelius Academy/DocMus and the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts), Opera on the Move project (the Academy of Finland), the Finnish Wagner Society, and the Birch and the Star Association.

Keynote speakers: Barry Millington (UK), Hannu Salmi (Finland) and Eero Tarasti (Finland). Continue reading →

A three-day interdisciplinary symposium is organized by Art History, Södertörn University, 11- 13 September 2013. Attention will be given to the avant-gardes of the period c. 1910-1930 across Europe, with a certain focus on those of the Nordic Countries, Central and Eastern Europe, and their orientation to the Parisian avant-garde.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor David Cottington (Kingston University, London)

• Professor Piotr Piotrowski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan)

Venues: Södertörn University and Moderna Museet, Stockholm

At a time when modernist art history of the early avant-garde is urgently questioned from different positions, an exploration of theoretical tools for the study of the early avant-garde and its transnational strategies is needed, as well as a mapping of the research within the field that is now developing in different parts of Europe. This symposium is intended as a starting-point for such (a) collective project (s).

 avant-garde-Call_for_Papers.pdf  call.papers.full.version.pdf

We welcome scholars to submit proposals before April 15th, 2013.

Seminar on Beda Stjernschantz 10 April 2013 at Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland

The seminar is open to the public but pre-registration is required. Anyone wishing to attend should send an email to itha.oneill(at)amosanderson.fi by 3 April 2013.

The Seminar is in English.

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Seminaari on yleisölle avoin, mutta osallistuminen edellyttää ennakkoilmoittautumisen. Ilmoittaudu lähettämällä sähköpostiviesti 3.4.2013 mennessä osoitteeseen  itha.oneill(at)amosanderson.fi

Seminaari on englanninkielinen.

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Programme

10–10.30 Registration

10.30 Welcome Speech: Museum Director Kai Kartio. Opening Words: Torsten Stjernschantz.

10.45 Juha-Heikki Tihinen, University of Helsinki

Tangible Elusiveness ­– Realized and Unrealized Artistic Ideas in the Oeuvre of Beda Stjernschantz

11.15 Asta Kihlman, University of Turku

“The unmoved eye and the look of eternity”

11.45 Nina Kokkinen, University of Turku

As an Initiate of Spiritual Art. Beda Stjernschantz’s Aphorism (1895) and Fin-de-siècle Occulture

12.15–13.15 Lunch break (not included)

13.15 Marja Lahelma, University of Helsinki

Beda Stjernschantz and the Timeless Ideal

13.45 Bart Pushaw, University of Chicago

A Swedish Karelia?  Beda Stjernschantz’s Everywhere A Voice Invites Us

14.15 Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

In search of sacred art  – Beda Stjernschantz and Anna Bremer on the Island of Vormsi 1895

14.45–15.00 Coffee break

15.00  Edyta Barucka, University of Warsaw

”I embrace the common…”: Beda Stjernschantz’s, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s and Stanislaw Wyspianski’s botanical drawings

15.30 Salla Heino, Design Museum, Helsinki

Beda Stjernschantz’s Sketches for The Friends of Finnish Handicraft – Designing Finnish Textiles

16–17.30 Roundtable Talks

17.30 Cocktail Reception

Venue: Amos Anderson Art Museum, Yrjönkatu 27, 00100 Helsinki, Finland www.amosanderson.fi

An exhibition on the work of the Finnish artist Beda Stjernschantz (1867-1910) is scheduled to open at the Amos Anderson Art Museum in February 2014. Beda Stjernschantz was an important member of the generation of Finnish Symbolist artists that emerged in the 1890s but art historical research on her work is insufficient, in part due to her limited oeuvre. Thus, The Birch and the Star and Amos Anderson Art Museum are organizing a one-day seminar to bring together researchers who share an interest in Beda Stjernschantz and the art and culture of the fin-de-siècle. The aim of the seminar will be to coalesce and interpret existing art historical knowledge pertaining to Beda Stjernschantz and to reassess the significance of her work in an international context. Interdisciplinary by nature, the seminar will act as a springboard for the exhibition and will hopefully open up new and interesting perspectives on the artist who has hitherto remained under the scholarly radar.

The seminar is open to the public but preregistration is required. Anyone wishing to attend should send an email to itha.oneill(at)amosanderson.fi by     3 April 2013.

For further enquiries, please contact Marja Lahelma, marja.lahelma(at)helsinki.fi.

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Programme

10–10.30 Registration

10.30 Welcome Speech: Museum Director Kai Kartio. Opening Words: Torsten Stjernschantz.

10.45 Juha-Heikki Tihinen, University of Helsinki

Tangible Elusiveness ­– Realized and Unrealized Artistic Ideas in the Oeuvre of Beda Stjernschantz

11.15 Asta Kihlman, University of Turku

“The unmoved eye and the look of eternity”

11.45 Nina Kokkinen, University of Turku

As an Initiate of Spiritual Art. Beda Stjernschantz’s Aphorism (1895) and Fin-de-siècle Occulture

12.15–13.15 Lunch break (not included)

13.15 Marja Lahelma, University of Helsinki

Beda Stjernschantz and the Timeless Ideal – Pastoral (Primavera) and Autumn

13.45 Bart Pushaw, University of Chicago

A Swedish Karelia?  Beda Stjernschantz’s Everywhere A Voice Invites Us

14.15 Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

In search of sacred art  – Beda Stjernschantz and Anna Bremer on the Island of Vormsi 1895

14.45–15.00 Coffee break

15.00  Edyta Barucka, University of Warsaw

”I embrace the common…”: Beda Stjernschantz’s, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s and Stanislaw Wyspianski’s botanical drawings

15.30 Salla Heino, Design Museum, Helsinki

Beda Stjernschantz’s Sketches for The Friends of Finnish Handicraft – Designing Finnish Textiles

16–17.30 Roundtable Talks

17.30 Cocktail Reception

Venue: Amos Anderson Art Museum, Yrjönkatu 27, 00100 Helsinki, Finland www.amosanderson.fi

Towards the end of the nineteenth-century, European artists began to express a new profound interest in their unique local pasts and cultural inheritances. This growing sense of identity prompted a major flowering of Nationalist debate concerning the fast disappearing regional cultures throughout Europe. This was a discourse largely shaped by the desire within several countries for cultural and artistic, and ultimately social and economic, independence.

The project and its aim:

Established in 2009, the ‘European Revivals’ research project aims to reflect upon these national revivals in Europe, where art historical scholarship on the subject has already been broadly established. However, there has never been a joint project that examines this phenomenon on a wider-scale and that has sought to analyse the multifarious connections and correspondences, which helped shape the identities of each of these modern nations. The ‘European Revivals’ project, therefore, aims to study and show the similarities and differences of these countries for the first time on a European-scale and will explore different aspects at each conference. ‘European Revivals’ will continue to 2017 and will end with a publication and an international exhibition.

European Revivals – Modern Identities, International Conference will be held the 10th – 12th October 2012. Our aim is to continue the project in Helsinki by drawing National Museums and Galleries and scholars together in the second European Revivals Conference at Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery.

The Modern Identities Conference will be accompanied by an extensive exhibition on Helene Schjerfbeck (1862−1946). The major retrospective exhibition shows artworks throughout her career from the 1870s to 1940s. The exhibition is open to delegates during the conference.

See the conference programme

Booking fee:
60 euros (speaker) or 100 euros (delegate) participating in the excursion
30 euros (speaker), 50 euros (delegate)

70 euros (student) participating in the excursion
30 euros (student) without the excursion

Conference fee will include the Reception on Wednesday, visiting the Ateneum Art Museum and Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) exhibition, the conference programme (Wed-Fri) and coffee/tea.

Conference fees exclude: travel, accommodation and lunch (Thu-Fri).

The Excursion day on Saturday will include lunch, refreshments and visits to the museums and transportation.

Registration form and payment info

For further information please contact:

Conference Producer Anu Utriainen
anu.utriainen@ateneum.fi
tel. +358 9 17336 385, mobile +358 40 673 5064
Finnish National Gallery
Kaivokatu 2, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

Curator Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff
abonsdor@ateneum.fi
Finnish National Gallery
Kaivokatu 2, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

An exhibition on the work of the Finnish artist Beda Stjernschantz (1867-1910) is scheduled to open at the Amos Anderson Art Museum in February 2014. Beda Stjernschantz was an important member of the generation of Finnish Symbolist artists that emerged in the 1890s but art historical research on her work is insufficient, in part due to her limited oeuvre. Thus, The Birch and the Star and Amos Anderson Art Museum are organizing a one-day seminar to bring together researchers who share an interest in Beda Stjernschantz and the art and culture of the fin-de-siècle. The aim of the seminar will be to coalesce and interpret existing art historical knowledge pertaining to Beda Stjernschantz and to reassess the significance of her work in an international context. Interdisciplinary by nature, the seminar will act as a springboard for the exhibition and will hopefully open up new and interesting perspectives on the artist who has hitherto remained under the scholarly radar.

The organizers invite proposals for 30 minute presentations that provide scholarly perspectives into the life and work of Beda Stjernschantz. We particularly welcome papers that examine Beda Stjernschantz’s artistic activities in the international context of fin-de-siècle art and culture and thus help to shed new light on her relationship with other artists, art forms, and cultural phenomena.

Those interested in presenting a paper at the seminar should send an abstract proposal of circa 300 words to marja.lahelma@helsinki.fi and birchandstar@gmail.com by 15 November 2012. Proposals may be written in English, Finnish, or Swedish.

Speakers will present their papers and engage in roundtable talks. After the seminar speakers will have the opportunity to elaborate on their papers and produce essays for the exhibition catalogue. Deadline for the final essays is 15 May 2013.

For further enquiries, please contact Marja Lahelma, marja.lahelma@helsinki.fi.

Venue: Amos Anderson Art Museum, Yrjönkatu 27, 00100 Helsinki, Finland, www.amosanderson.fi

The 2-day international conference will take place on 4 and 5 October 2012 at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Eight 30-minute papers and a plenary lecture will be given and will include a visit to the exhibition Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910 (14th July ? 14th October 2012).

The distinguished group of speakers include Sharon Hirsh (Rosemont College), Patricia Berman (Wellesley College), Michel Draguet (Royal Fine Arts Museums of Belgium) and Dario Gamboni (University of Geneva).

Click here for full programme

Booking Information

Tickets* cost £25 (£15 concessions); £10 student ticket and are available from the Information Desk at the Scottish National Gallery or call 0131 624 6560 between 9.30am-4.30pm with debit/credit card details.

*Includes exhibition ticket and wine reception

For enquiries, please contact Craig.Landt@ed.ac.uk (0131 651 4248)

http://sites.ace.ed.ac.uk/symbolism/

http://www.nationalgalleries.org

For entrance to the National Galleries: http://www.nationalgalleries.org/visit/gardens-entrance/

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Redefining European Symbolism, 1880-1910 is a network funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The partners are the University of Edinburgh, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Musée d?Orsay  and the Institut National d?Histoire de l?Art, Paris and the University of Geneva. It has staged two research seminars (on the Nabis, VGM, November 2010 and Symbolist landscape, INHA, March 2011) and two conferences: on the Nabis, Amsterdam, VGM, October 2011 and on European Symbolism, Musée d’Orsay, April 2012. Further information can be found on the website: http://sites.ace.ed.ac.uk/symbolism.