Conference Presentations by Misa Nikolic
Presented at Congress 2016 in Calgary, to the Canadian Historical Association
What is " primitivism " in art? Picasso first encountered the primitive during a visit to the Mus... more What is " primitivism " in art? Picasso first encountered the primitive during a visit to the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1907, which resulted in perhaps his most famous work – Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. He recalled this encounter as traumatic, violent, and subversive, but this does not adequately describe the exchange between artist as spectator and ethnographic museum as exhibitionary complex. I wish to throw light on two factors that would have shaped this encounter, and in so doing retrieve the long nineteenth century's notion of the primitive in greater complexity. The first is Picasso's peculiar stance towards the primitive, distinct from that of other artists such as Matisse, Gauguin, and the surrealists. The second is the ideology underlying ethnographic collection and display, which is grounded in anthropological debates about social development and the taxonomy of race. " Primitivism " will be investigated through a combination of personal accounts, ethnological museum practices, and especially through the counter-discourse of anthropologist Franz Boas, who challenged accepted notions of race and culture. He offers the term " appropriation " to better describe the cultural exchange between modern artist and primitive artefact. Boas articulates appropriation as a cross-cultural norm, rather than as a subject-object relation between unequal powers. Picasso could therefore appropriate the morphological qualities of primitive artefacts while imbuing them with his own meaning, reinscribing modern art with the lost aura of magic. In this light primitivism is essentially a property of modernity, and not of colonized peoples – it is an absence which then projects its loss onto the cultural other.
In the early modern period a curious shift of emphasis takes place between two key physiognomists... more In the early modern period a curious shift of emphasis takes place between two key physiognomists – Giambattista Della Porta and Johann Caspar Lavater – a shift that is marked by the disappearance of animals from the discourse of physiognomy. Della Porta employed repeated images of historical figures paired with animals, while the heightened role of empiricism in Lavater’s time lent his images the weight of evidence. It was no longer enough to merely show correlations of appearance and behaviour, but to investigate their root causes, and animals could play no part in interpreting human appearances. This scepticism eventually led to the complete discreditation of physiognomy as a science, but the key to understanding Della Porta is through allegory. The true significance of early modern physiognomy is that the inner and outer body were intimately connected and that each could influence the other for either good or ill. Using visual and literary depictions of Socrates from both authors, I demonstrate how physical traits were allegorically interpreted, justifying the practical and prescriptive value once placed in physiognomy. Our own ambiguity about appearances can benefit from this, since we still set store by appearances just as much as we still need to see through the false appearances of others.
Papers by Misa Nikolic
Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of... more Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms.
New German Critique, Aug 1, 2017
In 1851 Karl Marx published an essay on Louis Napoléon's coup and the faltering French republic. ... more In 1851 Karl Marx published an essay on Louis Napoléon's coup and the faltering French republic. He began: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." 1 In other words, the tragedies of history-war, corruption, injustice, and especially class struggleare subsequently reenacted in a comedic form, providing a type of closure not originally forthcoming. Tellingly, Marx describes Louis Napoléon as a caricature of his famous uncle, although in practice the Second Empire was anything but an amusing reminder of the first. Instead of expansionist imperial ambitions, Napoléon III turned his attention to regulating his own citizens through repressive laws, censorship, urban planning projects, and increased class stratification. The farcical element of his reign resided in the thin pretense to democracy and the complete inversion of the principles of the French Revolution. Louis Napoléon was therefore a prime target of caricature. The Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs noted that ridicule and mockery are essential weapons in the caricaturist's arsenal in that they undermine the authority and lay bare the shortcomings of their targets:
The Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) made major contributions to our understan... more The Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) made major contributions to our understanding of caricature which are of continuing relevance today. Although he has been criticised for his inconsistent methodology, the question of whether Fuchs treats caricature in a dialectical fashion remains insufficiently answered. To address this question I examine Fuchs'
Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of... more Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms.
New German Critique, 2017
Apart from Eduard Fuchs, there has been little Marxist scholarship on caricature and satire. This... more Apart from Eduard Fuchs, there has been little Marxist scholarship on caricature and satire. This is a glaring omission, especially in light of the work of John Heartfield, whose photomontages were viewed across the political spectrum as well as across class boundaries. To discover how Heartfield’s photomontages interpellate their subject as a politically engaged viewer, this article investigates the mechanisms by which satire addresses its audience, how it communicates its message, and to what degree we might judge its effectiveness as a means of persuasion. A Benjaminian analysis of the Verfremdungseffekt produced by montage, the alienating distanciation of unexpected juxtapositions, contributes to the construction of a true dialectical image of satire, which allows us to plot the oppositional axes of satire and to extrapolate the characteristics of other forms of mass persuasion such as state propaganda. In this way we can trace how mass persuasion results in political action.
The Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) made major contributions to our understan... more The Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) made major contributions to our understanding of caricature which are of continuing relevance today. Although he has been criticised for his inconsistent methodology, the question of whether Fuchs treats caricature in a dialectical fashion remains insufficiently answered. To address this question I examine Fuchs'
New German Critique, 2017
Apart from Eduard Fuchs, there has been little Marxist scholarship on caricature and satire. This... more Apart from Eduard Fuchs, there has been little Marxist scholarship on caricature and satire. This is a glaring omission, especially in light of the work of John Heartfield, whose photomontages were viewed across the political spectrum as well as across class boundaries. To discover how Heartfield’s photomontages interpellate their subject as a politically engaged viewer, this article investigates the mechanisms by which satire addresses its audience, how it communicates its message, and to what degree we might judge its effectiveness as a means of persuasion. A Benjaminian analysis of the Verfremdungseffekt produced by montage, the alienating distanciation of unexpected juxtapositions, contributes to the construction of a true dialectical image of satire, which allows us to plot the oppositional axes of satire and to extrapolate the characteristics of other forms of mass persuasion such as state propaganda. In this way we can trace how mass persuasion results in political action.
This report was published online in February 2017 as part of a website examining community-based ... more This report was published online in February 2017 as part of a website examining community-based museums in Alberta. In addition to taking stock of the entire museum movement in Alberta, the data is compared to earlier studies in 1956 and 1986. The theme of this multi-year SSHRC-funded project was "Sustaining Identities, Economies, and Places", and the website includes an interactive map of all 300+ museums in the province.
http://albertamuseumsproject.com/index.html
Artichoke, 2004
There is a crisis in art education in North America. The two established art educational institut... more There is a crisis in art education in North America. The two established art educational institutions, the art college and the university art department, each focus on a specific area of artistic development at the expense of the other. The art college's studio-based programs emphasize creativity, originality, and social commentary, all highly problematical concepts, while downplaying the theoretical underpinnings of cultural production. The university reverses this emphasis in favor of the theoretical or the academic, often to the detriment of studio development. This general assessment can be verified at each institution by the number of hours per week an art student is required to spend in the studio as opposed to attending lectures or seminars.
The work of the Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) has been criticised for its i... more The work of the Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) has been criticised for its inconsistent application of historical materialism to the fields of caricature and erotica. Although this criticism does have some merit, the question of whether Fuchs treats caricature in a dialectical fashion remains insufficiently answered. To address this I examine Fuchs’ early study on the caricature of 1848, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution. My approach is also grounded in historical materialism, and uses the concept of the dialectical image to re-evaluate the interaction of image and text in his publications. My goals in this research are therefore twofold: first, to define the dialectical image and demonstrate how caricature presents a dialectical image of the past; and secondly, to determine to what degree Fuchs has achieved this in his study of the caricature of 1848.
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Conference Presentations by Misa Nikolic
Papers by Misa Nikolic
http://albertamuseumsproject.com/index.html
http://albertamuseumsproject.com/index.html