February 10, 2006

Religious Art, Politics, and Destruction Subject of Symposium at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Ten international academics and museum professionals will reflect on the broader issues of the problematic search for meaning in the display of one culture by another in a symposium titled "Religion Matters: Art, Piety, Destruction, and the Politics of Display" on Feb. 26 beginning at 9:30 a.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. There is no charge for the symposium; registration is required. To register, please e-mail Patricia Hinchliffe at phinchli@holycross.edu.

The symposium is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Catholic Collecting, Catholic Reflection 1538-1850: Objects as a Measure of Reflection On a Catholic Past and the Construction of Recusant Catholic Identity, which runs from Feb. 22 to April 13 in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at Holy Cross.

Symposium presenters will discuss the inevitable loss of meaning in the display of one culture by another — both for current cultures geographically separate but also cultures separated by time. The themes will include Jewish, African, Buddhist, and Native American art as well as that associated with Catholic practice.

The accompanying exhibition contains more than 60 objects, most from Jesuit institutions across the United States and in England, and includes centuries-old and extremely rare stained glass, liturgical vestments, paintings, books, sculpture and other works of art important to Catholic culture and worship. More than half of the pieces have never before been exhibited in the United States.

There are three sessions to the symposium. To view abstracts on each talk visit: http://college.holycross.edu/projects/catholiccollecting.

Session I - 10 - 11:45 a.m.
Virginia Chieffo Raguin, College of the Holy Cross, curator of the exhibition, Introduction and Overview
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas Austin: Salvaging Saints, the Rescue and Display of Relics in Reformation Times
Sarah Brown, English Heritage: England’s Iconoclasm and the Survival of the ca. 1500-1510 Stained Glass Cycle at St Mary’s, Fairford
Gail McMurray Gibson, Davidson College: The Towneley Plays, a Recusant Family, and the Survival of English Medieval Drama

Session II - 1 - 2:30 p.m.
Roderick O’Donnell, English Heritage, London: "The Real Thing": A. W. N. Pugin and the Reintegration of Works of Art in the Architecture of the Catholic Revival
Charlene Villaseñor Black, University of California, Los Angeles, Inquisitorial Practices of Hispanic Past and Present: Artistic Censorship and The Virgin Mary
Elisabeth Cameron, University of California, Santa Cruz: Kuba Kingdom (Congo) African Textile Art appropriated in Christian Church Decoration

Session III - 2:45 - 4:45 p.m.
Tom Freudenheim, former director of the Museum Program at the National Endowment for the Arts and former Deputy Director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin: The Challenge of Jewish Context within the Object-Oriented Museum
Ena Heller, Director, Museum of Biblical Art, New York: A Delicate Balance: Modernism and Religion in Museums Today
Dina Bangdel, Virginia Commonwealth University, Pleasures of Viewing: Agency, Power, and the Politics of Display in Buddhist Art
Tiffany Jenkins, Institute of Ideas, London: From the Profane to the Sacred: The Rise of Reverence in Secular Institutions from the National Museum of the American Indian to the British Museum

A reception at the Gallery, which will be open until 6 p.m., will follow the syposium.

For additional information contact Cristal Perriello at 508.793.2419