New book by Alistair Fox now in paperback
NOW IN PAPERBACK
List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction;
1. Italian Neorealism and the Emergence of the Male Melodrama: Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952)
2. The Migration of Male Melodrama into Non-Western Cultures: Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy (1955–59) and “Fourth Cinema”
3. Hollywood Melodrama as a Vehicle for Self-Projection: Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy (1956) and Home from the Hill (1960)
4. The Political Turns Personal: Neo-Neorealism and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone (1961)
5. Personal Cinema as Psychodrama: Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957), Winter Light (1963) and Hour of the Wolf (1968)
6. François Truffaut and the Tyranny of Romantic Obsession: The Soft Skin (1964), Mississippi Mermaid (1969) and The Woman Next Door (1981)
7. Figuring an Authorial Fantasmatic: Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), A Room In Town (1982) and Parking (1985)
8. Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the Emergence of Queer Cinema: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975) and In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
9. Visual Aestheticism and the Queer Prestige Melodrama: Call Me by Your Name (2017) and Luca Guadagnino’s Desire Trilogy; Conclusion
List of Films Cited; Select Bibliography; Index.
New article by Leoni Schmidt on the art of Michele Beevors
See Leoni Schmidt, “Anatomy Lessons: Michele Beevors as Eco-Political Agent,” Lagoonscapes 4, no. 1: 181–199.
Abstract: This article responds to the large scale sculptural work by eco-political artist
Michele Beevors, whose work has recently been extensively exhibited in New Zealand,
Australia, and Austria. She brings her audience close to the tragedies of eco-extinction
and the brutalities of human interaction with our vulnerable animal co-species. The
article considers her work through four frames: 1. Violence: Dissection and Restitution;
2. Death: Specimen and Requiem; 3. Grief: Solastalgia and Entanglement; and 4. Labour:
Materiality and Companionship. Through these four frames, the artist’s exploration of
human relationships with non-human forms of life is highlighted as based in decolonial,
feminist and activist values. The text includes memories and reflections from the au-
thor’s life where relevant to the themes presented by the artist.
Keywords: sculpture, eco-political, animal ethics, extinction, solastalgia, care
Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network 15 May 2024
Leoni Schmidt
Power, Menace, and Care
Animal and Human Intersections in the Work of Three Contemporary Artists
Jane Alexander, Roger Ballen, and Michele Beevors
This seminar focuses on the recent work of artists Jane Alexander, Roger Ballen, and Michele Beevors. Animals feature large in their exhibitions to address the fraught relationships with humans. Their works unmask the abuse of power, suggest hidden menace, and signal the urgency of care.
Michele Beevors in her studio (photograph: Adrian Hall)
Leoni Schmidt is an art historian and theorist, writer, reviewer, and postgraduate assessor. She was the Head: Dunedin School of Art (2009-2017), Director: Research & Postgraduate Studies (2017-2022) at Otago Polytechnic and the DCE: Academic at the Otago Polytechnic International Campus in Auckland (2019-2022). A full professor since 2006, she is currently professor emerita at Otago Polytechnic/Te Pūkenga. Her research focuses on contemporary visual arts practice with an emphasis on political agency.
5 for 5:30, Room F209 Puna Kawa, F Block, Otago Polytechnic, Forth Street, Dunedin
If you wish to participate online, please email
Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network 20 March 2024
Ed Hanfling
Otago Harbour, 1978, an “intimate map”
by Joanna Margaret Paul
R00m F209 Puna Kawa, F Block
Otago Polytechnic, Forth Street
Dunedin
Wednesday 20 March 5:30 pm
Joanna Margaret Paul, Otago Harbour, 1978.
Synthetic polymer paint and collage on paper, 535 x 740 mm.
Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago, acc. no. 78/205.
Otago Harbour is a picture in the Hocken Collections made by Joanna Margaret Paul in 1978. It is, in large part, a lively acrylic-painted and pencil-drawn view, or views, of Dunedin from the top of Southern Cemetery, Mornington, with collage additions – notably, a cropped reproduction of Johannes Vermeer’s Milkmaid (c1660), a scrap of still life drawing and a carefully sliced aerial photograph of the part of Dunedin represented in the painted view. In combining different modes of representation, Otago Harbour has much in common with a series of works Paul called “Intimate Maps.” Paul draws attention to the subjective or contingent act of representing place, rather than place as an objective fact, and exhibits a curiously contemporary sense of intimacy with, or embeddedness in, her environment. This seminar presents a detailed analysis of a complex picture, considering its significance in the context of other bodies of work by Paul (including her photographs and films) and New Zealand art history.
Ed Hanfling holds the position of Lecturer in Art History and Theory at Dunedin School of Art. He writes regularly as a critic for Art New Zealand, and has published journal articles and books on such topics and artists as modernism in New Zealand art, values and judgements, Morris Louis, Milan Mrkusich and Ian Scott. His recent publications include 250 Years of New Zealand Painting (Bateman 2021) as co-author, and as co-editor, a special issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies, “Art and Aotearoa New Zealand: Cultures, Controversies and Histories,” forthcoming December 2024. He currently serves as co-editor of Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue.
Research Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network 18 October 2023
Research Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network September 20 2023
Colonial panorama to digital reality:
A Practice-based analysis of nineteenth century and contemporary
immersive arts
Philip Madill, Auckland University of Technology
Wednesday 20 September
Room F209, F Block, Otago Polytechnic, Forth Street, Dunedin: 5 – 7 pm
Philip Madill, Displacement of Accent, graphite on paper, 2023
This seminar will explore, through practice-based research, the evolution from pre-cinema to contemporary mixed-reality entertainment. Mixed reality in this context refers to the coexistence of overlapping virtual and physical spaces achieved by creating and experiencing immersive environments. It will also cover the historical role pre-cinema played, as a form of instructive entertainment, in the promotion and colonisation of New Zealand during the Nineteenth Century. The artistic phenomenon not only served to inform prospective immigrants but propagate ideas of ‘otherness’ through the selective use of imagery and the layout of the exhibition spaces. The discussion will conclude with an analysis of contemporary works by Janet Cardiff, William Kentridge, and Victor Burgin and their use of digital animation to explore the historical impact of pre-cinema entertainment.
Philip Madill is a Dunedin-based artist whose practice explores the historical relationship between photography and drawing. In 2014, he completed a master’s degree from the Dunedin School of Art and holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Otago. Madill is also working towards a Doctor of Philosophy in Art and Design at the Auckland University of Technology.
Dunedin School of Art and University of Otago (Languages and Cultures)
Research Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network July 19 2023
Research Seminar: Cultures, Histories, Identities in Visual Studies Research Network July 19, 2023
Room F209, F Block, Otago Polytechnic, Forth Street, Dunedin: 5 – 7 pm
Visual diffusion and spiritualist practice: a research project on three spiritualists in Aotearoa New Zealand. Minnie Chapman (1856-1949) Sophia Garland Allan (1867-1959) Berta Sinclair Burns (1893-1972)
Joanna Osborne
Image credit: New Zealand Truth, 8 May 1930
With an emphasis on the joys and pitfalls of primary research, Osborne shares some of her findings on the practice of ‘spirit drawing’ in early 20th Century Aotearoa New Zealand. Within a broader scope of new religious movements, histories of feminism and the arts, emerge questions that consider the international diffusion, material expression and interpretive complexities of this art as spiritual practice.
Joanna Osborne is an independent researcher in art history with interests in studies of religion and spirituality. She has a PhD from the University of Otago, was the Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2020 Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Curatorial Intern and has published on the work of Allie Eagle (1949-2022) and Joanna Margaret Paul (1945-2003). She currently works as an academic literacies tutor and quality assurance specialist for an international student support company.
For further information email: visual-studies@otago.ac.nz
