Linda Colley: A Changing Magna Carta: Past, Present and Futures?

2015 will witness celebrations of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Yet how this iconic text has been understood, used and commemorated has changed markedly over the centuries, not just in England, but throughout the British Isles and in the one-time British Empire. This lecture explores some of these shifts over time, and discusses how – and how far – the cult that evolved around this text can be related to the UK’s lack of a written constitution.

Inaugural Symposium: Allies, Enemies, and Citizens: Figuring Asianness in World War II America

“Allies, Enemies, and Citizens” will focus on the visual representation of Asianness and Asian-Americanness in the United States during World War II, featuring presentations by leading scholars in the field, including Gordon H. Chang, Professor, Department of History, and Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities, Stanford University; Amy Lyford, Professor of Art History, Occidental College; ShiPu Wang, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, UC Merced; and K. Scott Wong, James Phinney Baxter III Professor of History and Public Affairs, Williams College. Read more

See the poster

4th Annual Graduate Student Conference: On Whose Authority? (Re)Assessing the Malleable Canon of Visuality

Minor White, American, 1908-1976, Cemetery, Ponce Puerto Rico, 1973, Gelatin silver print, 14in x 11in, California Museum of Photography, gift of James Haddad (1982 0039 0002) , Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum (MWA 73-16), © Trustees of Princeton University

Dr. Rafael Cardoso, Keynote
2014 – 15 Getty Research Institute Scholar
Professor, Universidade do Estadodo Rio de Janiero

Although the term canon implies rigidity, internal and external pressures have often forced canons to be reevaluated and reformed. A look at art and objects a global scale, from past to present, inevitably reveals the complexity as well as the exclusionary equality of canonicity. As such, a canon can be shown to have a malleable nature, one that yields or resists challenges to authority. Because the concept of a canon in relation to visuality permeates a wide variety of disciples, this multidisciplinary conference seeks explore the relationship between canonicity and the arts, in any of its forms, within an expanding global context. Read more

Visiting Artist, Lecture Series: William Leavitt

TRANCE-Rebecca Rupel, Tracy Tran and Colleen Wei

The Provoke Era: Japanese Photography from the Collection of SFMOMA

Named for the magazine Provoke, which sought to break the rules of traditional photography, this exhibition presents the avant-garde tradition that emerged in Tokyo in the 1960s and continued in the 70s and 80s. The exhibition traces Japanese photographers’ responses to their country’s shifting social and political atmosphere. The influence of Provoke photography in Japan continues today. The Provoke Era features work by internationally recognized artists including Masahisa Fukase, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, and Shomei Tomatsu.

The Provoke Era is organized by SFMOMA, and is curated by Sandra S. Phillips, SFMOMA senior curator of photography. The exhibition is made possible by The James Irvine Foundation, Bank of America, and The Japan Foundation.