Marble. Connections and Refractions

Forever associated – at least from a western perspective – with the influential cultures of Greece and Rome, marble evokes, first and foremost, magnificence. And yet, the ways in which it has been employed, between sculpture, architecture, ornament and applied arts, has been extremely varied. This workshop, promoted by the recently established network NeReMa - International Network for Research on Marble and Decorative Stones - will address, among others, questions such as the following: How have socio-cultural, epistemological or technical conditions transformed the uses and meanings of marble? In what ways may the choice for marble affect the perception of an artwork? And at what moments in history did marble transcend its own materiality, suggesting new aesthetic outlooks?

Thursday, 16.09.2021, 18:00
Key-note lecture, open to the public, by Dario Gamboni, Université de Genève
Marble and Marbling: Pattern, Material, Process
Is the artistic and architectural recourse to marble but one technique of “marbling’, that is of producing patterns appealing to humans by their combination of regularity and irregularity, or are there properties of the material that affect its uses and justify a specific research on marble and “decorative stones”? Following an essay recently published by Raphael Rosenberg on the subject, this lecture will raise this question and propose a few answers.

Dario Gamboni is Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Geneva. He was a Fellow at many institutions including the American Academy in Rome. He has written extensively on the visual arts, treating among other topics iconoclasm, visual ambiguity, and the display of art. His latest publications are The Museum as Experience: An Email Odyssey through Artists’ and Collectors’ Museums (2020), and, co-edited with Gerhard Wolf and Jessica N. Richardson, The Aesthetics of Marble: From Late Antiquity to the Present (2021).

Only the Keynote Lecture is open to the public via Zoom, following the link HERE.
The workshop itself is not accessible to the public.

Workshop

Participants:
Buket Altinoba, LMU München
Christine Casey, University of Dublin
Grégoire Extermann, Universidad de Sevilla
Anna Frasca-Rath, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Joris van Gastel, Universität Zürich
Pascal Julien, Université de Toulouse
Marthe Kretzschmar, Universität Wien/Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris
Greg Sullivan, York University/St Paul's Cathedral
Ariane Varela Braga, Universität Zürich
Iris Wenderholm, Universität Hamburg

Discussants:
Sante Guido, Università di Roma Tre
Ruggero Longo, Bibliotheca Hertziana/ Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca
Cigdem Ӧzel, Bibliotheca Hertziana
Lucia Simonato, Scuola Normale di Pisa
Amalie Skovmøller, Københavns Universitet
Steffen Zierholz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Scientific Organization
Concept: Ariane Varela Braga, Universität Zürich; Joris van Gastel, Universität Zürich
Organizing committee: Grégoire Extermann, Universidad de Sevilla; Anna Frasca-Rath, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg; Joris van Gastel, Universität Zürich; Marthe Kretzschmar, Universität Wien/Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris; Ariane Varela Braga, Universität Zürich