Symposium | Colonisation & Wilderness: nineteenth-century American and Australian landscape painting

An international symposium organised by the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and the Visual Arts, University of Western Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Symposium Convener: Richard Read.

This two-day symposium with leading scholars from America, Australia and Europe will provide innovative intercultural exchange on aesthetic and environmental issues prompted by thirty original American and Australian nineteenth-century landscape paintings brought together in Continental Shift (30 July 2016 – 5 February 2017), an exhibition from the collections of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.

The focus will be on the vexed relationship between environmental change and aesthetic innovation as colonial settlements supplanted indigenous territories and wilderness across both countries. Eighteen years after the pioneering exhibition New Worlds From Old: 19th Century Australian & American Landscapes took place at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra,* this symposium revisits its themes from the new perspective of Anthropocenic studies that have revolutionised disciplinary relations between the sciences and the humanities in recent years.

Speakers will explore the complex relationship between clearing the land, celebrating settlement and worshipping the sublimity of nature through a genre of art that with various degrees of optimism and anxiety developed uniquely materialist potentialities and new methods of distribution and display for reinterpreting the environmental, literary, religious, scientific, perceptual, economic, indigenous, conservationist, technical, military and geo-political relations of colonial modernity in both countries. Speakers include Professor David Peters Corbett (Courtauld Institute, London and University of East Anglia), Associate Professor Rachael Z. DeLue (Princeton University), Dr David Hansen (Australian National University), Professor Kenneth Haltman (University of Oklahoma), Christopher Pease (Western Australian artist), Dr Ruth Pullin (Independent Scholar), Emeritus Professor Richard Read, Symposium Convener (University of Western Australia) and Professor Catherine Speck (University of Adelaide).

* Julie K. Brown, review (2000), New Worlds from Old: 19th Century Australian and American Landscape Paintings, exhibition (1998): ‘Placing the art of these countries side by side should be seen not as a finished statement, but the first phase of a much larger project, the beginning of a new dialogue for cultural historians of both countries.’

Registration

Members of the public, students and postgraduate students are particularly welcome to attend.

Registration is free, bookings essential.

REGISTER HERE

Queries in relation to this symposium can be emailed to admin@artgallery.wa.gov.au

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Accommodation

Alex Hotel is a boutique hotel located within an easy walk to AGWA. Created by locals, Alex Hotel appeals to the modern traveller keen to explore Northbridge, the cultural heart of Perth. Alex Hotel has a range of accommodation options, as well as the Shadow Wine Bar and restaurant to make your stay even more enjoyable. Visit their website for details alexhotel.com.au

The Terra Foundation for American Art

‘The Terra Foundation for American Art is dedicated to fostering exploration, understanding, and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States for national and international audiences. Recognizing the importance of experiencing original works of art, the foundation provides opportunities for interaction and study, beginning with the presentation and growth of its own art collection in Chicago. To further cross-cultural dialogue on American art, the foundation supports and collaborates on innovative exhibitions, research, and educational programs. Implicit in such activities is the belief that art has the potential both to distinguish cultures and to unite them.’