Clark Art Lecture On Phenomenology and the Understanding of Conical Artworks

Print Story | Email Story
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Tuesday, Sept. 16 at 5:30 pm, the Clark Art Institute's Research and Academic Program (RAP) hosts a talk by Michael Ann Holly exploring what phenomenology (the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view) might contribute to the understanding of canonical works of art. 
 
Holly is the Starr Director Emeritus of the Clark's Research and Academic Program. The event takes place in the Manton Research Center auditorium.
 
Michael Ann Holly directed RAP and taught in the Williams College/Clark Graduate Program in the History of Art from 1999–2016. Previously, she cofounded and chaired the Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester (1988–1999). A noted scholar, Holly is the author and co-editor of essays and books on the critical theory and history of the history of art, including authoring Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History; Past Looking: Rhetoric and the Historical Imagination; The Melancholy Art, and editor of Visual Culture; Visual Theory; The Subjects of Art History; Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies; and What is Research in the Visual Arts?. Holly has received national and international awards, grants, visiting professorships, and fellowships from the Guggenheim, the Getty Research Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Senior Fellowship at The Center at the National Gallery of Art, among others.
 
Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event. 

Tags: Clark Art,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Williams Grads Told: Be Kind to 'What Is Strange Within You'

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — After describing herself as neither a speech writer nor a public speaker, Williams College Commencement speaker Cécile McLorin Salvant said that she watched "millions" of similar addresses when figuring out what she would say to the school's Class of 2026.
 
"I watched Valerie Jarrett's commencement speech from last year here at Williams, and it was so incredibly inspiring," Salvant said. "It was great, but, after watching, I felt like I had even less I wanted to say.
 
"And then I thought: What if I just showed up here as myself? I have spent so much of my life looking at what other people are doing and trying to fit myself into that, but I don't really fit. And I know you don't really fit, and, actually, I've been most rewarded when I remembered that and when I've honored that."
 
Salvant said that graduation day is a good time for the graduates to think about what drives them and trust themselves to find a path.
 
"We're so often looking at what everyone else is doing, distracting ourselves from our own desires and our own idiosyncrasies, and the result is that we get a little more mean, a little less understanding of others, a little more stingy, a little less kind," Salvant said. "So what I'm advocating for, ultimately, is a kindness that goes both ways. That kindness toward yourself, toward what is strange within you, is that same kindness with which you can meet the people in the world around you, and you can keep giving that kindness both ways, even when you think you have none left to give."
 
And, with that, the three-time Grammy winner and MacArthur fellow told the crowd that she was going to be true to her self, launching into a stirring a cappella rendition of West Side Story's "Somewhere," composed by longtime Tanglewood fixture Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Williams alum Stephen Sondheim.
 
Salvant was one of a handful speakers who took a turn at the podium at the school's 237th Commencement Exercises.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories