“The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity,” writes Walter Benjamin in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". Questions of authenticity dominate art history, from verification of an artwork’s claims to legitimacy, to rethinking, in the wake of rapidly evolving information technologies, the very concept of authenticity. This one-day graduate conference offers a platform to reflect for on the ways in which authenticity can serve to validate and verify, how it relates to historical truth, but also how faith in the power of authentication makes falsification dangerously easy.

New Voices postgraduate symposium, now in its sixth year, is organised by the Student Members’ Committee of the Association of Art Historians (AAH). The one-day events are intended to bring together postgraduates from different institutions to present and discuss a broad range of research and ideas. The day will consist of presentations from postgraduate students from the UK and abroad and a specal lecture by Mark Wilsher (Henry Moore Institute/Norwich School of Art and Design) “Unfinished Business: appropriated authenticity”. The day will also include a guided tour of the unique collection of the Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery. http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/

For further information and to book, please visit:
http://aah.org.uk/student/index.php
Association of Art Historians
70 Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6EJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7490 3211
Fax: +44 (0)20 7490 3277
admin@aah.org.uk

Booking fee: £5, to include lunch, refreshments, wine reception and a guided visit to Kettle’s Yard art gallery and a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum. Membership of the AAH is necessary to attend. It is possible to join when registering for the conference.

For more information please contact conference convenors, Olga Smith os243@cam.ac.uk
Louise Hughes lh1873@bristol.ac.uk

Programme

9.00-9.30 Registration
9.30-9.40 Opening and Welcome
9.40-10.20 Special Event: Mark Wilsher (Henry Moore
Institute/Norwich School of Art and Design) “Unfinished Business: appropriated authenticity”
10.20-10.40 Coffee
10.40-11.40 Panel 1 "Uses of Photography"
Rosemary Shirley (Sussex University) “A Fortunate Man: John Berger’s commitment to an authentic expression of the non-metropolitan everyday”
Leena Crasemann (Freie Universitat Berlin) “Orders and disorders: photography’s postcolonial critique”

11.40-13.00 Gallery visit
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.15 Panel 2 "Replica and Copy in the Museum and Institutions"
Greta Koppel (Estonian Academy of Art) “Priceless art in the collection of Kadriorg Art Museum in Tallinn”
Elizabeth Fritz (University of Vienna) “Site-specificity as an artistic strategy of authentication”
Isabelle Flour (Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne/Maison Français d’Oxford) “Reproducing architecture: architectural cast museums and the effet du réel”

15.15-15.45 Coffee
15.45-16.45 Panel 3 "Authenticity in the Digital Age"
Seb Franklin (University of Sussex) “Digital art and the concept of authenticity: opening ‘Closed Source’ in Jody and Cory Arcangel” Fanny Singer (University of Cambridge) “An immaculate deception: Richard Hamilton’s The Annunciation”

16.45-17.15 Roundtable
17.15-18.00 Wine reception
19.00 Conference dinner (optional)