Designing for God and Mortals: Dom Martin Martin osb (1889–1965) and the Liturgical Applied Arts in Belgium from Art Deco to the Fifties (working title)
Silversmith-designer Dom Martin Martin osb (1889–1965) of Leuven’s Benedictine Keizersberg Abbey created some of the most quintessentially Art Deco design made in Europe during the 1920s–1940s. Inspired by the Liturgical Movement’s interest in contemporary arts and architecture in creating a fitting environment for the Roman Catholic liturgy, Martin strove to bring ecclesiastical applied arts to new heights. His calling card was an opulent aesthetic, visually stunning and colourful, combining calculated geometry with the most precious materials. To realise his artistic vision, Martin surrounded himself with specialist craftspeople and artists under the label La Croix Latine (1928–1939). Their work was exhibited at world fairs and retailed internationally, with commissions destined for Belgium and Congo, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Indonesia, Portugal and Brazil, the USA and even the Vatican.
This doctoral thesis (supervisor Prof. dr. Werner Adriaenssens) will shed new light on an under-researched area of European Art Deco design. Starting from Dom Martin’s artistic biography and an exhaustive oeuvre catalogue, Ko Goubert aims to present a critical case study of Martin’s work, and by extension of the position of contemporary ecclesiastical applied arts within the evolving liturgical and artistic landscapes of the interwar period in Belgium.
Researcher: Ko Goubert
Supervisor: Werner Adriaenssens
Teghenstellinghe. Prints and Religious Identity in the Low Countries (1555-1609)
As significant instruments in the dissemination of Protestant ideas, oral, visual, and written media affected early modern culture and its mentalities in an unprecedented way. Through word and image, religious oppositions (or Teghenstellinghe) were exacerbated in order to encourage the process of conversion. This research studies the specific way in which illustrated broadsheets contributed to the formation of religious identity in the Low Countries between 1555 and 1609. It focuses both on prints of a Protestant stripe as well as prints with a less pronounced religious orientation. The main objective is to analyze their active role in the formation of identity. Therefore, a thorough insight into how prints interacted with viewers is required. Prints will not be approached within the isolated framework of visual communication, but as embedded in a society in which the coexistence of oral, visual and written communication was a cornerstone of the dissemination of ideas. A comparative study of prints on the one hand, and a selection of sermons, rhetorician plays, and songs on the other hand, aims to reveal mutual cross-pollinations and divergences. Hence, the perspective of multi- and intermediality is used as a scientific window on early-modern prints, and their reception.
Researcher: Eva Janssens
Supervisor: Tine Meganck
Allies in architecture? WWI and the Americanisation of Belgian Architecture (1914-1928)
In 1918, Belgian architects faced daunting challenges: an enormous task of postwar reconstruction and a nationwide lack of housing were aggravated by a catastrophic economic situation. American architecture arose as a source of inspiration. Globally known for its commercial drive, technical ambition and cost efficiency, it offered solutions to Belgium’s architectural crisis. This research proposal aims to explore how the Belgian architectural field welcomed or rejected this ‘Americanisation’ as a model for postwar reconstruction and innovation. It will examine how Belgian-American architectural collaboration arose during and after WWI, and how these collaborations had a more lasting impact on Belgian postwar architecture. The focus lies on the first decade after the war (19181928), with wartime friendships and alliances fresh. A broad network of actors with diverse goals is considered: individual architects, architectural associations, pressure groups, philanthropic foundations, politicians, contractors and investors. The scrutiny of contemporary manuscripts, plans, magazines, exhibitions and lectures will reveal how the encounter with American architecture forced Belgian architects to question and redefine their attitudes and practices in relation to similar evolutions elsewhere in Europe. Providing this answer will enrich Belgian architectural history, enhancing our understanding of the mechanisms at play in international architectural exchange.
Researcher: Tom Packet
Supervisor: Pieter Martens; co-supervisor: Werner Adriaenssens
Sustainable yet forgotten. Rediscovering the contribution of the Belgian art networks to the second wave of environmentalism
Sustainable yet forgotten is an investigation that discovers the art practices and international networking of Belgian sustainable environmental art during the sixties until early eighties. In this period the second wave of environmentalism peaked. Contrasting the 19th century first wave, this movement saw nature not as the mystic antipode of manmade, rational, culture but as an important actor that influences and enforces our life in system-like environments. Multidisciplinary studies called for nature to be incorporated respectfully to create situations in which all involved benefit equally. Sustainable environmental art pictures these systems and exposes the danger that occurs when the milieu is neglected in a globalizing and modernizing world. Answering the question: What is the contribution of Belgian sustainable environmental art to the second wave of environmentalism, and how were their practises embedded in international art networks? provides new insights in how art was created, presented and positioned in the Western World.
Researcher: Senne Schraeyen
Supervisors: Inge Arteel, Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans
Camera and Colony: The Audiovisual Documentary Approach to the Historical Relation between the Congo and Belgium by Contemporary Artists and Filmmakers (1990-2016)
Camera and Colony will be the first PhD research project to explore an underdeveloped field in postcolonial research: The practice of contemporary artists and filmmakers active in Belgium, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries reflecting on the Belgian colonial past by means of appropriation and an activation of time based arts. Camera and Colony considers the possible role of appropriation in relation to temporal concerns evoked by the films and artworks. Unlike previous studies, Camera and Colony embraces the complexity of perspectives involved in the colonial past and the notion of an international contemporary art and film field, which results in a selection of works by artists and filmmakers such as Sammy Baloji, Monique Mbeka Phoba, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Vincent Meessen.
Researcher: Sanne Fleur Sinnige
Supervisor: Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans
Female European artists in the Société Anonyme and the interesting dynamic between Europe and the United States in the field of Modern Art in the 1920s
In 1920 the German American artist and art patron Katherine Dreier founded the Société Anonyme together with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, with a clear objective: introducing the American public to the new ‘modern’ art. This the Société Anonyme did by organizing exhibitions and a large number of lectures and by building an exceptional art collection which Dreier donated to the Yale University Art Gallery in 1941 and is still there today.
Several women artists were given significant attention and early recognition within the Société Anonyme. And an important number of innovative works by female avant-garde artist are still part of the collection today. In my well received master’s thesis I made a first analysis of the general motivation, mission and context of the Société Anonyme, and of three female artists that it presented: the Belgian artist Marthe Donas and the Austrian artists Erika Giovanna Klien ans Stefi Kiesler.
In my PhD I look more profoundly into the collection and into other continental female artists that got a platform within the Société Anonyme like Jacoba van Heemskerck, Maria Uhden, Liubov Popova, Ragnhild Keyser a.o. In the footsteps of the theories of art historians that worked on gender and avant-garde like Amelia Jones, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, Ruth Hemus, Paula K. Kamenish and of the more general emancipatory and intersectional thinking of Donna Haraway, I seek to rewrite the art historical narratives of these female artists and put them and their work in a new light.
Researcher: Helke Smet
Supervisor: Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans
Re-imag[in]ing the Landscape of the Anthropocene
In recent Western history, people have predominantly believed that humans occupy a special place in the Universe and have the (God-given) right to shape the environment according to their will and needs. This belief has culminated in the Anthropocene thesis adopted by Earth Scientists, recently claiming that 'we' - the human species - have become a 'force of nature' ourselves and have not only the power to shape the land we dwell on but alter the Earths' systems on a global scale. This universalizing discourse transforms us all into agents with equal responsibilities, and it is as much political as aesthetic.
This research project will analyze photography's role in conceptualizing and visualizing the landscape of this so-called 'Anthropocene.' It will also identify and analyze possible counter-narratives to the dominant rhetoric that have emerged in the wake of climate change and environmental injustice. The focus will lay on the various figurations this counter-narrative could come to encompass, ranging from a critique on Petrocapitalism, Multi-species environmental justice to Post-humanism and how they are embedded in the contemporary photographic practices.
Researcher: Katrien Verbeke
Promotor: Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans
Copy, yet Original: Re-examining ‘fang Ni Zan’ paintings in the 15th - 17th centuries
Traditionally, Chinese painters favoured, and would be praised for, forming a link between contemporary work and classic paradigms. A typical example of this pursuit of antiquity is the ‘fang’ (artistic imitation) paintings omnipresent in the art of the Ming-Qing period. There is more to making a copy than imitating an original; there is more to quoting a commonly known style than paying tribute to the master. Through an investigation of the ‘fang’ paintings made in the style of the scholar-painter Ni Zan (130-1372) during the 15th-17th centuries, this study unravels the social meaning of a style, the changing perceptions of the same model in different historical contexts, and the role of ‘fang’ paintings in the evolution of style.
Researcher: Penny Xu Dan
Supervisors: Karin Nys; co-supervisor: Gao Mingly
Ingenious craftsmanship: a performative and art historical study of gold and silversmithing in sixteenth-century Antwerp
In the sixteenth century, Antwerp reached an artistic and commercial peak. The city became Europe’s epicenter of gold and silversmithing, thanks to the direct supply of raw materials through its harbor and the presence of wealthy merchants and skilled craftsmen. While Antwerp’s Golden Age is well studied, little research has been done on the art of gold and silversmithing or on the networks in which these luxury objects and their makers circulated, nor are their making processes and cross-craft exchanges fully understood.
Combining my skills as art historian, archaeologist and goldsmith, this research project aims to reveal the artisanal and technical gestures of the early modern gold and silversmith by employing an innovative research methodology known as Reconstruction, Replication and Reenactment (RRR). Focusing on ornamental cups, I will analyze and remake key parts of selected artefacts to distinguish exceptional manifestations of ingenuity from standard levels of craftsmanship. This will not only enrich our understanding of the materiality of the objects, but also of their social value and cultural significance. Connecting social and art historical studies of sixteenth-century Antwerp gold and silversmithing and infusing them with new insights about ingenuity and value, this project aims to write a cultural history of Antwerp ornamental cups from a maker’s perspective, while also offering a methodological test-case for future applications of RRR in related fields.
Researcher: Hanne Schonkeren
Supervisor: Pieter Martens; co-supervisors: Tine Meganck, Sven Dupré (Utrecht University)
Let Me Tell You Something. An Intersectional and Decolonial Approach to Women Artists’ Appropriation of the Colonial Archive since the 1990s
Researcher: Brenda Bikoko
Supervisor: Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans
Flanders in Florence: Architectural Exchanges from North to South, 1400-1600
This project will be the first to investigate the role of ‘Le Fiandre’ for Florence’s architectural culture in the period 1400-1600. It does not argue for a marked Flemish influence on Florence’s Renaissance architecture but intends to study how the intense commercial, artistic, political and military ties with the Low Countries have enriched Florence’s broad architectural culture. While the impact of Flemish painting on Florentine art is well-studied, the transfer of architectural ideas, images, materials and techniques from Flanders to Florence remains a blind spot in scholarship on Renaissance Florence’s internationalism. The project analyses what Tuscan merchant-bankers working in Flanders wrote about its local manners of building and dwelling, and how they adorned their palaces in Florence with Flemish paintings, tapestries and luxury objects. It also examines how depictions in the admired Flemish paintings of a distinctly northern, gothic architecture were perceived in Florence, where most artists, patrons and architects ostensibly favoured a totally different all’antica style. And it studies the decoration of major Florentine buildings with Flemish black marble and stained glass and with painted battle scenes and cityscapes from the Low Countries. Assessing how all these aspects interacted and evolved will enhance our understanding of a vital chapter in Europe’s cultural history and elucidate also the (perceived) characteristics of ‘Flemish’ art and architecture.
Researcher: Caterina Cardamone, Alicia Rojas Costa
Supervisors: Pieter Martens; Gianluca Belli (Università degli Studi di Firenze)