Modernisms and the South
In his essay “Sahara of the Bozart,” H.L. Mencken famously lambasted the South for its absence of artistic production: “In all that gargantuan paradise of the fourth-rate there is not a single picture gallery worth going into… when you come to critics, musical composers, painters, sculptors, architects and the like… there is not even a bad one between the Potomac mud-flats and the Gulf.” Despite Mencken’s critique, the South produced art clubs, galleries, and artists engaged with ideas and experiences of modernism throughout the first half of the 20th century. Further, regional folk art and craft traditions influenced modernist artists and, simultaneously, drew from visual vocabularies associated with modernism. This panel invites proposals which consider relationships between modernism in the arts and the U.S. South, between 1900 and 1945. Some questions to consider might include how modernism developed outside Northern urban centers such as New York, how artists of the Harlem Renaissance made use of Southern references in their work, how documentary photography depicted the South in relation to ideals of modern life, or how Southern artists related to, resisted, or appropriated modernist visual forms and ideas in their work.

Contact: Dr. Tina Yarborough, Georgia College & State University / Laura A. Lindenberger Wellen, The University of Texas at Austin, tina.yarborough@gcsu.edu; lauralindenberger@mail.utexas.edu

Additional submission guidelines and information about the conference can be found at:
http://www.secollegeart.org/annual-conference.html