The Lives of Form: Abstract Art and Nature
International Symposium
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University, Bremen
13.-15. August 2009
Program
Thursday, August 13, 2009
14:00 Registration starts
15:00 Opening Remarks
Hendrik Birus, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
15:00 – 18:00 Session 1: Abstracting from Nature
Chair: Isabel Wünsche
Paul Crowther
Abstracting-In: A Theory of Meaning for Abstract Art
Andrew Inkpin
The Complexities of “Abstracting” from Nature
Coffee Break
Henning Engelke
Geometry and Contingency: Changing Aesthetic Concepts in Abstract Film
Andrew McNamara
The Nature of Modernity & the Dilemma of Creativity, Then & Now
Discussion
18:00 – 20:00 Dinner
21:00 Opening Reception
Friday, August 14, 2009
9:30 – 12:30 Session 2a:
The Other Side of Abstraction: Nature and Formative Processes
Chair: Birgit Mersmann
Manfred Milz
Henri Bergson and the Formation of Abstraction (1889-1914)
Alison Syme
Frantisek Kupka’s “Floral Romances”
Coffee Break
Herb Hartel
Natural Forces and Phenomena as Inspiration and Meaning in Early American Abstraction
Isabel Wünsche
Evolutionary Thought and Creative Intuition: Organic Ideas in Russian Avant-Garde Art
Discussion
12:30 – 14:30 Lunch Break
15:00 – 18:00 Session 2b:
The Other Side of Abstraction: Nature and Formative Processes
Chair: Paul Crowther
Elitza Dulguerova
Kazimir Malevich: Form between Nature and Photography
Christina Lodder
Man, Space and the Zero of Form: Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism
Coffee Break
Marek Wieczorek
The Matter of Spirit: Piet Mondrian between Physics and Metaphysics
Fabienne Eggelhöfer, Marianne Keller
Paul Klee’s Teaching Notes on Formative Creation: From Nature as a Model to Abstraction
Discussion
18:00 – 20:00 Dinner
Saturday, August 15, 2009
9:30 – 12:30 Session 3: Abstraction and the Unconscious
Chair: Isabel Wünsche
Irena Kossowska
A Heliographic Cosmogony: Karol Hiller’s Abstract Compositions
Birgit Mersmann
Tracing Creation: Pictorial Writing as a Pathway to Abstraction
Coffee Break
Elizabeth Langhorne
Jackson Pollock: “Sinfully Producing Images”?
Stephen Polcari
Jackson Pollock’s Shamanic Idea of the Unconscious
Discussion
12:30 – 14:30 Lunch Break
15:00 – 18:00 Session 4: Beyond Nature? Abstraction in Late Modernism
Chair: Birgit Mersmann
Eva Ehninger
“Man is Present”: Barnett Newman’s Search for the Experience of the Self
Laura Petican
The Arte Povera Experience: Nature Re-Presented
Coffee Break
John G. Hatch
Nature, Entropy, and Robert Smithson’s Utopian Vision of a Culture of Decay
Suzaan Boettger
Dirt into Earth: Transformations in the Material and Cultural Construction of Nature in Environmental Art since the Sixties
Discussion
18:00 – 18:30 Wrap-Up Session
18:30 – 20:30 Dinner