CONF: Movement and Transformation in the Making of Iberian and Latin American Art and Visual Cultures (Emerging Researchers Symposium, Durham/online, 22-23 Jun 2023)


On 22 and 23 June 2023, the Zurbarán Centre at Durham University will host its third student-led symposium showcasing innovative doctoral and early career research in Iberian and Latin American art and visual culture. The theme of this year’s symposium is movements and transformations, with presentations exploring a wide variety of topics, periods and regions. The 20 papers, drawn from 17 academic institutions, range from the movement of artists and artworks and their impact on visual culture to the transformative power of art in the forging of social, religious and political identities. The presentations will address important questions relating to artistic agency and reception, the circulation of art and artefacts, visual traditions across different media and societies, and artistic innovation.

The symposium will begin with an opening address by José María Robles Fraga, the Minister-Counsellor for Cultural and Scientific Affairs at the Spanish Embassy, London. It also features features a keynote address by Prof. Claudia Hopkins, Director of the Zurbarán Centre. Opportunities for questions and answers will follow the presentations and the keynote lecture. The aim is to stimulate interdisciplinary conversations and connections among emerging and established scholars engaged in the field of Iberian and Latin American art.

Organised by Durham University doctoral students, the symposium will be held as a hybrid event for in-person attendance in Durham or virtual attendance via Zoom. Booking is essential. Register above to attend either virtually or in person. Please note that booking will close on Wednesday 15th June:

durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/zurbaran/news-and-events/events/emerging-researchers-symposium-2023/

Symposium Programme:

MORNING SESSION, THURSDAY 22ND JUNE, 10:00 AM-12:45 PM BST 

10:00-10:30 Registration

10:30-10:45 Welcome and opening remarks: José María Robles, Minister-Counsellor for Cultural and Scientific Affairs, Embassy of Spain 

10:45-11:45 Panel One – Art in Motion: Moving Artworks and Artistic Practices

Stephanie Bernard (Durham University, UK) Juan Sánchez Cotán’s Adoration of the Magi, Between Tradition and Innovation

Nora Guggenbühler (University of Zurich, Switzerland), The Travels of the Madonna di Trapani: Records of a miraculous image’s journey throughout the Iberian world

Q&A

11:45-12:00 Break

12:00-1:00 Panel One – Continuation

Rafael Japón (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain), Flemish Paintings by an Italian Painter: The decoration of the cloister of the monastery of San Agustín in Lima

Annemarie Iker (Princeton University, USA), Secrecy in the Paris Paintings of Santiago Rusiñol (1861—1931) and the Catalan Modernistes

Q&A

1:00-2:00 Lunch

AFTERNOON SESSION, THURSDAY 22ND JUNE, 1:45-6:00 PM BST

2:00-3:30 Panel Two – Art and the Transformation of Iberian Identities

Paola Setaro (Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura della Compagnia di San Paolo, Italy), From Painter of Friars to Painter of the Soul. The Gaze on Zurbarán in Francoist Spain  

Vega Torres Sastrús (Universitat de València, Spain), Transformations in and Through the Arts. Catholicism and Visual Culture in the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1936)

Andrea Garcés Galarreta (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain), From Equipo Realidad (1966) to Nueva Escuela Valenciana (circa 1980): De-sacralising visual practices in post-Francoist Spanish Mediterranean Coast 

Q&A

3:30-3:45 Break

3:45-5:00 Panel Three – Jewish Identity on the Move in the Hispanic World

Laura Feigen (The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK), Exodus and Expulsion: the Barcelona Haggadah as a Material Witness to Sephardi Migration 1391-1459

Jorge Oliaga Vázquez (University Autónoma of Madrid, Spain), The Old Testament in Seventeenth Century Spanish and Novo-Hispanic Painting: circulation of models and ideas in the Modern Age

Drew Erin Becker Lash (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Jacob and Intertextuality: Old Testament images in seventeenth century Spain

Q&A

5:10-5:25 Refreshments

5:25-6:00 Keynote speaker: Prof. Claudia Hopkins, Director of the Zurbarán Centre (Durham University, UK) Politics and Nostalgia for Al-Andalus in Art and Visual Culture in Franco’s Spain around 1950

MORNING SESSION, FRIDAY 23rd JUNE 11:00 AM-1:00 PM BST

10:00-10:45 Coffee

10:45-11:45 Panel Four – Reception and Reimagining the Artistic Cultures of the Past.

Montserrat Andrea Báez Hernández (University of Teramo, Italy) “Per metterlo in venerazione nel lontano paese…” Translation, Reception and Devotion of Roman Catacomb Martyrs in Latin America (1830-1880)

Richard Jacques (Durham University, UK), Zurbarán’s Image of Saint Serapion and the Transformation of a Body in Pain

Q&A

11:45-12:00 Break

12:00-1:00 Panel Four – Continuation

Pablo Sánchez Izquierdo (Universitat de València, Spain), The Vernacular Moroccan Construction and the Spanish Modern Architecture Theories

Élodie Baillot (Sorbonne Université, France), From One Century to Another: French historiography and the fortune of « Hispano-mauresque » art

Q&A

1.00-2:00 Lunch

AFTERNOON SESSION, FRIDAY 23rd JUNE 2:00-5:30 PM BST

2:00-3:30 Panel Five – Expressions of Power: Arts and Politics of the Americas

Alexis Salas (University of Arkansas, USA), “¡Dále Gas! [Give It Gas!]: Art and Oil in The Petrochemical Americas

Francesca Romana Gregori (University of Padua, Italy), “Antimonumenta” Artistic Practice in Feminist Mexico

Alessandra Simões Paiva (Federal University of Southern Bahia, Brazil), Revolution from the Margins: The decolonial turn in the Brazilian contemporary art

Q&A

3:30-3:45 Break

3:45-5:00 Panel Six – Innovative Artforms and Artistic Agency

Ana Plaza Roig (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero AGENCIA I+D+i/UNTREF, Argentina), A Saint Prince in Northwest Argentina: The patronage of Juan José Fernández Campero de Herrera

Julieta Pestarino (4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics, Germany), Botanical Portraits: Anatole Saderman native plants photographs, between Science and Art

Lariana Olguín (University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico), The Female Figure in the Spanish and Puerto Rican Satirical Press from 1860-1900

Q&A

5:15 Closing remarks