Curating Baroque Art in the 21 st Century
Event details
The period of Western art history known as “the Baroque” has traditionally been interpreted as a stylistic phenomenon, the result of shifts in elite taste between classical restraint and rococo exuberance. Yet artistic production in Europe c. 1600–1750 was enabled by a proto-industrial world system dominated by Spain and Portugal, the Netherlands and later Britain, entangling material culture in networks of trade and colonial rule that stretched from Naples to Nagasaki. As scholars and curators have been keener to emphasise than ever before, the cultural politics of early modern art are, in many ways, akin to those of our own globalised and media-saturated twenty-first-century reality.
This roundtable event seeks to broaden perspectives on the Baroque from a museum perspective, embracing its diverse and multi-media character. Curators from London and Dublin will discuss issues of display, collections management and public engagement in relation to specific museum objects and exhibition projects.
Convenors:
- Dr Adam Sammut, University of York
- Dr Tomasz Grusiecki, Boise State University
- Dr Richard McClary, University of York
- Prof Cordula van Wyhe, University of York
Speakers:
- Dr Lizzie Marx, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Art, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
- Ms Helen Hillyard, Head of Collection, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
- Mr Timothy Revell, Communications & Outreach Officer, Articulation, The National Gallery, London
- Dr Simon Spier, Curator, Ceramics & Glass 1600-1800, V&A Museum, London
All welcome, no ticket required.
Organised in tandem with The Global Baroque: European Material Culture between Conquest, Trade and Mission, 1600–1750, 10–11 July 2025.
Supported by York Art History Collaborations, Association for Low Countries Studies, and Association for Art Historians.
Image caption: Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1669. Oil on panel, 23.2 x 18.1 cm.National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Andrew W. Mellon Collection.
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