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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CONGRESS THEME: MEMORY AND OBLIVION The Visual Resources Association will meet in conjunction with the Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA) during CIHA's XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art, September 1-8, 1996, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Specifically, the VRA Satellite Meeting program is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, September 4, and continue through Saturday, September 7; the program will include three formal sessions, three tours, and a workshop titled, "Writing Effective Job Descriptions." The three formal sessions are scheduled for Saturday, September 7, and will explore the visual dimensions of the Congress theme, "Memory and Oblivion." If you have questions or would like to receive additional information concerning general conference arrangements, please contact Jenni M. Rodda, VRA/CIHA Liaison Committee Co-chair, Curator, Visual Resources Collections, Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78th Street, New York, New York, USA 10021-0178, 212-772-5872, fax 212-772-5807, [log in to unmask]; or Joy Blouin, Curator of Slides and Photographs, Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 48109-1357, 313-763-6114, fax 313-747-4121, [log in to unmask] Prospective conference attendees desiring additional information concerning the workshop "Writing Effective Job Descriptions" should contact Margaret Webster, Visual Resources Collections, College of Architecture, Art & Planning, B-56 Sibley Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA 14853, 607-255-3300, fax 607-255-1900, e-mail [log in to unmask] To receive additional information or to register for one or more of the three half-day tours, please contact Jim Bower, Getty Art History Information Program, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, California, USA 90401-1455, 310-395-1025, fax 310-451-5570, e-mail [log in to unmask] To register for CIHA or to obtain information concerning local accommodations in Amsterdam, contact Memory and Oblivion, XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art, c/o Amsterdam RAI-OBA, P.O. Box 77777, 1070 MS Amsterdam, The Netherlands. SCHEDULE, VRA 1996 SATELLITE MEETING, CIHA CONGRESS September 4, Wednesday: Two half-day excursions, first to The Hague and then on to Rotterdam. Participants can take the two half-day tours consecutively or decide to remain in The Hague for the day and return to Amsterdam on their own. There should be time for tour participants who choose to participate in both tours to visit museums in The Hague on their own before the group goes on to Rotterdam. In The Hague the group will visit The Netherlands Institute for Art History (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, or RKD) which is a large archives of images and text of Dutch art history. In Rotterdam the group will visit the Dutch Photo Archive, with its large collections, and the national photo restoration laboratory. Preregistration required; to register contact Jim Bower. Participation in both tours is limited to forty, two groups of twenty participants each. September 5, Thursday evening: Writing Effective Job Descriptions Workshop, Session I (Discussion session). Leaders: Kim Kopatz, University of Rochester; D. Jo Schaffer, State University of New York at Cortland; Christina Updike, James Madison University; Margaret Webster, Cornell University. This two-part workshop will focus on the writing of effective and accurate job descriptions for visual resources professionals. Topics will include elements of job descriptions, evaluation and organization of responsibilities, and usage of appropriate terminology. Session I will provide an international forum for discussion of issues in the status, ranking, and employment circumstances of visual resources professionals. No preregistration required. September 6, Friday morning: Half-day excursion to Leiden University. Leiden is the cradle of Iconclass and the university is the oldest in The Netherlands. It is anticipated that participants will have time to visit on their own other Leiden museums, namely, the Boerhaave Museum and the Antiquities Museum, or the Leiden archives. Preregistration required; to register contact Jim Bower. Participation limited to twenty to thirty. September 6, Friday afternoon: Writing Effective Job Descriptions Workshop, Session II. Leaders: Kim Kopatz, University of Rochester; D. Jo Schaffer, State University of New York at Cortland; Christina Updike, James Madison University; Margaret Webster, Cornell University. Session II will concentrte on the writing and evaluation of actual generic visual resources job descriptions. This workshop will benefit those who are establishing a new position within their visual resources unit, who are realigning their unit within their institution, or who are considering a position review or promotion. Preregistration required; to register contact Margaret Webster. September 7, Saturday, Session I: At the Visual Border of Memory and Oblivion. Moderators: James M. Bower, Getty Art History Information Program, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, California , USA 90401-1455, [log in to unmask]; Claire L. Lyons, Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, 401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 700, Santa Monica, California, USA 90401-1455, [log in to unmask] Session Abstract: Papers in this session will consider the functions of visual surrogates for original art objects. Reproductive engravings, encyclopedic print and drawing collections assembled to form "paper museums," and plaster casts of sculpture and architectural fragments have long been used to replicate artifacts of aesthetic and historical significance. Central to the development of interpretive methodologies, they serve as visual repertories of iconography or chronology and provide instructive comparisons for consumers and producers of art and art history. The dissemination of such image corpora, from early print cabinets and documentary photography to lantern and 35-mm slides and the digital images of today, offers important keys to the formation and reception of artistic canons. Paneli will consider such questions as the fugitive nature of reproductive media; the ambiguous status of reproductions as "realistic" representations or decontextualized fragments; the use of surrogates in defining intellectual categories and in structuring catalogs; the pedagogical applications of visual archives; asymmetries between direct observation, textual description, and illustration; and the roles of images in establishing, sustaining, recovering, and replacing cultural memory. Participants: Eugene Dwyer, Department of Art History, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, USA, "Fulvio Orsini's Book of Famous Greeks and Romans: The Codex Capponianus 228;" Wolfgang Ernst, Kunstochschule fur Medien, Koln, Germany, "Surrogates for Laocoon;" Barbara Mathe, Robert Goldwater Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA, "Jessie Tarbox Beal's Photographs for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition;" and James M. Bradburne, Technologie Museum NINT/IMPULS Science and Technology Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, "The Merchants of Light: Supporting Cultural Memory with Virtual Reconstructions." September 7, Saturday, Session II: Recovering Self-Portraits by Women Artists. Moderator: Alicia Craig Faxon, 415 North Lane, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA 02809. Session Abstract: Of the self-portraits in visual collections and databases, how many are by women artists? When searching for books of artists' self-portraits, what does one find of women represented there? Books of artists' self-portraits often reveal none, or few, such as the eleven women among Goldscheider's 500 Self-Portraits. Are there indeed only a small number of self-portraits of women, or are there many that have been forgotten or omitted from the sources that constitute the art-historical canon? Preliminary research has discovered at least 200 painted self-portraits of well- and lesser-known artists from the Renaissance onward. Few of these appear in slide sets, digital image archvies, or in representations of museum collections. Papers in this session will address issues raised by these works including: differences in men's portraits of women and women artists' portrayals of themselves; the roles in which women artists show themselves; the groups with which women artists identify themselves; and the stylistic conventions women self-portraitists follow. Papers will consider who these women were and how we can recover their images and histories, with an understanding that what we see as valuable and worth remembering in the present shapes what is conserved and rescued from the past. Participants: Liana De Girolami Cheney, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, "Concealments and Revelations in the Female Self-Portrait in the Renaissance;" Kathleen Russo, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, "Serial Self-Portraits in the Work of Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun;" Helene Roberts, Editor, Visual Resources, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, "Metaphors of the Self in Works of Art;" and Alicia Craig Faxon, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Emerita, " The Symbolic Self: Women Artists' Quest for Identify in the Twentieth Century." September 7, Saturday, Session III: Faces and Names: Standards and Interfaces for Navigating Visual Databases. Moderator: David L. Austin, University of Illinois at Chicago, Architecture and Art Library, M/C 234, Box 8198, Chicago, Illinois, USA 60680, [log in to unmask] Session Abstract: The use of photographic reproduction as aides-memoire for research and study of art and architecture has been available to the art historian and student since the mid-nineteenth century. Black and white photographs, lantern slides and color transparencies became common tools found in both studios and classrooms. The reality of digital representations and the ability of the world wide web to provide global access to visual databases have added a new dimension to our resources. How can we be sure of finding the right image for our purposes with so many resources available to us today? Papers in this session will discuss standards necessary to accomplish the task of providing effective and efficient access to digital imagery, and suggest ways to help us navigate through a potential flood of visual information. Participants: Eric Childress, Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Core Bibliographic Record for Audiovisual Mateirals Task Group (CBR-AV TG), Special Materials Cataloger, Elon College, Elon College, North Carolina, USA, "Bibliographic Record Standard for Visual Materials;" Jennifer Trant, MESL Project Director and Manager, Imaging Initiative, Getty Art History Information Program, Los Angeles, California, USA, "Update on the Museum-Educational Site Licensing Project;" Roy McKeown, DeMontfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom, "United Kingdom Standards for Visual Information: What Are Their Implications?" David Austin, Architecture and Art Librarian, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, "Images in Space and Time;" Michelle Kaufman, Archivist of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, "Indexing Videotaped Holocaust Survivor Testimonies;" and Elisa Lanzi, Manager, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Getty Art History Information Program, Los Angeles, California, USA, "Square Pegs: Standards for Visual Resources." The Visual Resources Association Executive Board and the CIHA/VRA 1996 Satellite Meeting Planning Committee encourage visual resources professionals to take advantage of this unique opportunity to meet with colleagues and address issues on an international level.