ISABELLE BONZOM

SYMPOSIUM

" American Painting. Hopper, Pollock and their legacy"

January 11 and 12, 2013 at IESA, 5 avenue de l'Opéra, Paris

Edward Hopper "Office in a Small City" 1953 - Oil on canvas - 71,1x101,6cm © Metropolitan Museum of Art ( RMN)

As an artist and art historian, Isabelle Bonzom curated this symposium with the art school l'Institut d'Études Supérieures des Arts.

 

Symposium organized by l’Institut d’Études Supérieures des Arts, in conjunction with the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris and commemorating the anniversary of Jackson Pollock’s birth. 

 

This symposium explored monographic, iconographic and transversal themes that run through the works of two great artists who have come to symbolize important aspects of American painting. Among the topics of discussion were landscapes, the human body, grand-scale works, narration, chaos and possible filiations.

 

The first day of the symposium was mostly dedicated to an examination of the art of Edward Hopper while the second day focused more on issues related to Jackson Pollock’s.

 

This interdisciplinary and international symposium brought together several generations of art historians, art critics, artists, curators and philosophers from the United States, Belgium, Greece, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

 

This symposium fostered stimulating exchanges. It discussed the particularities and vitality of painting in the United States.

 

This symposium has been created in the context of the Master of Arts in History and Business of Contemporary Art Market managed by IESA art&culture and accredited by Warwick University (UK). This 2 year-MA welcomes international students. Courses are given in English in Paris and London, in partnership with the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

Program

 

Friday, January 11

 

Morning

 

Laurence Debecque-Michel - Hopper and his peers: resonances and relationships of Hopper’s work within the American and European pictorial contexts 

 

Elena Lespes Munoz - The Hopperian universe: Spaces of interiority

 

Gail Levin - Where Life Meets Art: The Iconography of the Couple in Edward Hopper

 

Afternoon

 

Ron Peck - Before and After : Edward Hopper and the movies 

 

Eurydice Trichon-Milsani - Punctum image: the compelling call from beyond the painting

 

Isabelle Bonzom - American Icons with a French touch: Hopper and Fischl, the most French of American painters 

 

Fabrice Hergott - The America of Christopher Wool 

 

 

Saturday, January 12

 

Morning

 

Isabelle Bonzom - American landscape, a new sensation of space 

 

Gail Levin - Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and a New Concept of Nature

 

Diego Scalco - Symbolism or abstraction? Jackson Pollock’s paths to painting

 

Afternoon

 

Ann Hindry - The Pollock effect and its shock waves 

 

Pierre Sterckx - After Pollock: Mehretu, the Big Bang and its disappearance 

 

Roundtable discussion with Gail Levin, Ann Hindry, Pierre Sterckx, Demosthènes Davvetas and Isabelle Bonzom

Lecturers :

 

Gail Levin is an art historian and Distinguished Professor at Baruch College, City University of New York. An expert on Hopper’s painting, she was the first curator of the Hopper Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the author of a biography of Edward Hopper and of the Catalogue Raisonné on his work. She also wrote a biography of Lee Krasner. 

 

Fabrice Hergott is an art historian and museum curator. He is the director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Prior to that, he was the director of the museums of the city of Strasbourg. As a former curator at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Pompidou Center), he curated major retrospective exhibitions. He is a specialist of Christopher Wool. 

 

Ann Hindry is an art critic and art historian. She is the former editor-in-chief of Artstudio. She is the author of numerous works on American art, notably on art critic Clement Greenberg, gallery owner Leo Castelli and artists such as Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella or Sol LeWitt. She is currently the curator of the Renault collection. 

 

Pierre Sterckx is an art critic, historian and curator. He has co-organized the exhibition Turbulences held at the Louis Vuitton cultural center. He is the author of numerous books, including 50 Géants américains which was published by Beaux-Arts Magazine. He was on the faculty of l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts of Paris and l’IESA. 

 

Laurence Debecque-Michel is an art critic and art historian. An anglicist by training, her first book on Edward Hopper was published in 1992 by the Hazan Publishing House. She lectures widely on American art. Her book Hopper et l’art américain was just released by the Ligeia Publishing House. 

 

Ron Peck is a British filmmaker. His work explores the midfield, the middle courses and the intermediate situations. He directs feature films as well as documentaries such as Edward Hopper (1980) which was recently restored and re-released by the British Film Institute. In this movie, he examines the work of the American painter with the collaboration of Gail Levin. Ron Peck also teaches and writes. 

 

Eurydice Trichon-Milsani is a poet and a writer. A Doctor in art history, she teaches at the Sorbonne. She is the author of Au Musée National d’Art Moderne and Dufy, published by Hazan. Also a curator, she created, among other exhibitions, the show Voyageur sans boussole. Sur les traces de Dubuffet at the Pompidou Center. 

 

Isabelle Bonzom is an artist, a painter, as well as an art historian. She teaches modern and contemporary art at IESA. She lectures at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Pompidou Center). She has also lectured at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, at Baruch College-City University of New York and at the New York Academy of Art. She is an expert on American artist Eric Fischl.

 

Demosthènes Davvetas is an artist, an art critic and a professor in aesthetics. He is also the cultural advisor of the Prime Minister of Greece.

 

Diego Scalco is a doctor in aesthetics and art sciences. He teaches at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. His research deals with the genesis of the various forms of abstract art and its relationships with the notions of beauty and the sublime. He focuses on Pollock and abstract expressionism. 

 

Elena Lespes Munoz has a master in research from the University Denis Diderot (Paris VII) in art and aesthetics. She focuses on Edward Hopper’s work. She writes for the contemporary art magazine

Art critic Pierre Sterckx and Fabrice Hergott, director of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris