Скачать или смотреть Dr Joost Joustra - Opening Remarks

Dr Joost Joustra introducing 'Art of the Invisible' An interdisciplinary conference at The Courtauld Institute of Art exploring art’s relationship with the invisible

Friday 19 October 2018
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre

‘He even painted things that cannot be represented
…’, Pliny eulogized Apelles in his Naturalis historia.
‘How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image
whose celestial splendour the host of heaven
presumes not to behold?’, asks a Byzantine hymn
dedicated to the celebrated Image of Edessa. Cennino
Cennini, in the first chapter of his Libro dell’arte, writes
that painting ‘...calls for imagination, and skill of hand,
in order to discover things not seen, hiding themselves
under the shadow of natural objects, and to fix them
with the hand, presenting to plain sight what does not
actually exist.’ In her 1949 essay Some memories of Predada:
Picabia and Duchamp, Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia
tried to summarise the art of her era: ‘It would seem
… that in every field, the principal direction of the
20th century was the attempt to capture the

Art has been preoccupied with the invisible before, between, and beyond these disparate yet kindred
statements. One of artists’ greatest challenges is and has been representing the invisible subject, in its many
guises. Artists working in media based on perception, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, photography,
and installation, must devise strategies to visualise the invisible: It is a foundational paradox of art. Art of
the Invisible investigates artistic strategies for the invisible, across disciplinary, chronological, geographical,
and medial boundaries. This interdisciplinary conference brings together a variety of speakers to examine
the problems and strategies for visualising the invisible, providing answers across these boundaries.