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That share of the other
Friday, November 22, 2024, 9am – 5pm
Paris, Musée Rodin, Léonce Bénédite auditorium
This event will be webcast live
In partnership with the Musée Bourdelle
We know that – contrary to popular belief, in part nourished in the present day by the Modernist myth of the artist at work alone without any intermediary – the studio is a space of parallel activities and chance encounters that contribute in varying degrees to creation. Models, students, collaborators, assistants, critics, dealers, friends, every type of go-between and ferrier for the artist’s oeuvre, as well as occasionally family members, they all enter that space dedicated to the artist’s work and their presence punctuates the studio’s everyday life. And yet, it is evident that their roles in the elaboration of an artist’s work have most often been underestimated, if not wholly overshadowed. What forms are born of this sociability? How do an artist’s collaborators ensure the perennity of the artist’s particular approach and technique, and their translation into another material? Can one document what is unexpectedly engendered or influenced by these various studio presences? Can one explore those metamorphoses born of the haphazard and the collective, that which ‘varies the infinite’ as poetically expressed by François Pompon, Rodin’s praticien and assistant, or that which migrates from one medium to another?
Hosted on the occasion of the ‘Rodin-Bourdelle’ exhibition presented at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris (2 October 2024 to 2 February 2025), the Musée Ingres-Bourdelle in Montauban (May to September 2025), and La Piscine, André Diligent Museum of Art and Industry in Roubaix (December 2024 to April 2025), this symposium seeks to explore that extrinsic share of an artwork’s creation, from its genesis to its reception, that is due to hands or actions other than those of the artist.
Not limited to any artistic medium, nor any specific field of research, the proposed presentations may focus on the following themes:
- The role of intermediaries, go-betweens in an artwork’s creation, exhibition, dissemination, reception and even its posthumous recognition or understanding.
- Emulation and rivalry at the studio.
- Migrating forms from one medium to another, artists passing from one discipline to another.
- Firsthand accounts by others: spouses, models, assistants, founders, students, etc.
- Figures associated with incompleteness or failure, with unfulfillment or ‘breakdowns’.
- Studio geographies: artist conglomerations and their vicinities.
Proposals for papers should include a title, a summary of the presentation (between 1,500 and 2,000 characters) and a short biographical note (1,000 characters), and should be sent to colloques@musee-rodin.fr before June 10, 2024. Each presentation will last 20 minutes and will be audio recorded. The recording will be available on the Musée Rodin website.
Comité scientifique et organisation
- Amélie Simier, Director, Musée Rodin
- Ophélie Ferlier-Bouat, Director, Musée Bourdelle
- Véronique Mattiussi, Head of Research, Musée Rodin
- Lili Davenas, Curator of Drawings, Musée Bourdelle
- Jérôme Godeau, Exhibition Curator, Musée Bourdelle
- Colin Lemoine, Curator of Photographs, and 20th and 21st Century Collections, Musée Bourdelle
- Franck Joubin, Researcher and Conference Organizer, Musée Rodin
