Solomon visiting scholars to address 'future of art history'

The two eminent art historians visiting Skidmore this week for the inaugural Alfred Z. Solomon Residency, The Future of Art History, will accomplish even more than the two public lectures and intensive dialogues with Skidmore students and faculty set forth on their schedules. Their presence on campus Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 20?22, will also mark the emergence of the College?s program in art history as an independent academic department.

Although future Solomon events will likely feature artists and critics as well as art historians, the first residency will spotlight scholars Robert S. Nelson of Yale University, speaking Thursday, Nov. 20, on ?New Canons and Protocols of Art and Art History,? and James Elkins of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who will discuss ?The Future of Art History? on Friday, Nov. 21. Both lectures will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Payne Room at the Tang Museum; a reception will follow the Friday lecture. (For more information, call 518-580-8080.)

The speakers will explore the history of art-historical inquiry, the major issues shaping current practice, and the relevance of visual

literacy. According to Mimi Hellman, assistant professor of art history and one of the residency?s coordinators, Nelson and Elkins will also meet with art history students and faculty to talk about the future of their field, whose traditional focus on the design, symbolic imagery, and socio-cultural context of works of art might soon be shared with a radically interdisciplinary new approach known as visual studies, which explores a wide range of images including art, advertising, graphics, Web sites, and even scientific images such as MRIs. Students in Hellman?s ?Practices of Art History,? a new foundation course for the major, will introduce the speakers and moderate the discussions.

With last spring?s faculty vote of approval, art history took on administrative autonomy and its own budget, and relinquished participation in the tenure decisions formerly shared with studio art faculty?tenure decisions that were especially challenging due to core differences in the two departments? missions and methods. ?Some see art history as closer to history or to American studies than to studio art,? Katherine Hauser, art history chair, explained. ?Without a shared methodology, it was difficult for us as art historians to evaluate the quality of a studio artist?s works, the number and caliber of exhibitions the work has received, and other important concerns.? The departmental parting of the ways was so amicable, said Hauser, that ?our students would never notice the change in their day-to-day classes.?

The Solomon Residency is expected to benefit all three of Skidmore?s art partners: the departments of studio art and art history and the Tang Museum. Established by a 2005 bequest of $500,000, the Alfred Z. Solomon Residency Fund will support short- and long-term residencies designed to bring notable visiting artists, scholars, and critics to the museum, classrooms, and studios.

Alfred Zins Solomon, an astute businessman with a keen eye for promising investments, was the founder of Madcaps, a Manhattan hat business that brought affordable versions of Paris designer hats to department store floors. Fond of Saratoga Springs, Solomon and his wife in the late 1930s acquired a 286-acre farm located not far from the Saratoga Race Course, where 62 years later, he became the track?s legendary oldest-living box-holder and one of the best-known. In 2005, the Associated Press described Solomon as ?a Damon Runyan throwback,? and his obituary in The New York Times reported that his 105th birthday party, complete ?with the orchestra, balloons, and magicians that Mr. Solomon personally arranged,? was to go on as planned, three weeks after his death at age 104.

The Solomon Residency, together with Skidmore?s prestigious Malloy and Raab annual visiting artist lectures and the Tang?s ongoing series of Dunkerley Dialogues, will ?allow us to be incredibly flexible, to support whatever residencies, conferences, lectures, and events we can imagine,? said John Weber, Dayton Director of the Tang Museum. ?The generosity of the gift will give us access to the kind of nationally recognized artists and scholars who change their fields, making us more competitive in the intellectual arena.?