Slade Lectures 2018 (5): Parmigianino: The Madonna of the Long Neck
History of Art: Slade Lecture SeriesShow Notes
Professor David Ekserdjian gives his fifth Slade Lecture on Parmigianino’s drawings for the Madonna of the Long Neck. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'.
David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.
More from History of Art: Slade Lecture Series
Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu argues that the extravagant hypermodernity of Isek Bodys Kingelez’s architectural sculptures, as with segments of popular arts, constitute a distinctive form of imaginative resistance to official culture under Mobutu. In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu discusses Mobutu Sese-Seko who, as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (1965-1996), exemplified the theatrical Big Man ruler in postcolonial Africa. By deploying anti-Communist rhetoric, he secured Western Bloc support of his spectacularly kleptocratic regime and, through his anti-Western Authenticité program, created a national culture in his own image. Against Mobutu’s repressive political practice and ideology, Okeke-Agulu reads the architectural sculptures of Isek Bodys Kingelez (1948-2015). He argues that their extravagant hypermodernity, as with segments of popular arts, constitute a distinctive form of imaginative resistance to official culture under Mobutu.
In the 1980’s, the painter and poet Obiora Udechukwu (b. 1946), a leading figure of the Nsukka School, was at the height of his powers, with drawings and paintings celebrated for their lyrical power and trenchant social commentary. Nigeria witnessed its first military coup in 1966, a civil war (1967-70), oil boom in the 1970s. In the 1980s, General Ibrahim Babangida, the smiling, brutal dictator, enforced Structural Adjustment, raised corruption to statecraft and impoverished the citizenry. In that same decade, the painter and poet Obiora Udechukwu (b. 1946), a leading figure of the Nsukka School, was at the height of his powers, with drawings and paintings celebrated for their lyrical power and trenchant social commentary. Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu considers the fate of art and the broader critical culture during the long decade, in the shadow of the military regimes.
In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the calligraphic figuration of Ibrahim El Salahi (b. 1930), the country’s leading modernist and onetime political prisoner. Two years after its political independence from Egypt and Britain in 1956, Sudan witnessed the first of many military coups that have been a recurring feature of the country’s postcolonial history. In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the calligraphic figuration of Ibrahim El Salahi (b. 1930), the country’s leading modernist and onetime political prisoner. Okeke-Agulu shows how the sophisticated formalism of Salahi’s drawings constituted a meditative critique of General Jaafar Al Nimeiry’s dictatorship (1969-1985), which survived multiple coups d’état, by stoking religious and ethnic crises, and systematic suppression of all political opposition.
Chika Okeke-Agulu examines art & politics in 1960s South Africa paying particular attention to Hendrik Verwoerd, the self-styled “Great Induna,” & architect of Apartheid, whose assassination in 1966 slowed the triumphant march of Afrikaner racist ideology In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu examines art and politics in the 1960s South Africa, paying particular attention to Hendrik Verwoerd, the self-styled “Great Induna,” and architect of Apartheid, whose assassination in 1966 slowed the triumphant march of Afrikaner racist ideology. Okeke-Agulu considers how Verwoerd’s total control of the political space and violent suppression of black resistance created the environment for the emergence of Dumile Feni (1942-1991) who was called “Goya of the Townships” because of his enigmatic, and disturbing and supposedly apolitical drawings.
Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu follows the formal and tonal shifts in Gazbia Sirry’s work as it responded to, and was shaped by Nasser’s and post-revolutionary Egypt’s political fortunes. Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the work of Gazbia Sirry (1924-2019), to illustrate how leading modernist artists were, in the wake of the 1952 Free Officers Revolution, swayed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s charisma, putting their art in the service of his brand of Egyptian nationalism and Pan-Arabist ideology. He considers how Sirry responded to Nasser’s increasingly strongman regime and the devastating outcome of 1967 War? Okeke-Agulu follows the formal and tonal shifts in Sirry’s work as it responded to, and was shaped by Nasser’s and post-revolutionary Egypt’s political fortunes.