Call for Papers

SKIN DEEP? SURFACES AND BEYOND 
April 30, 2005 

The Bard Graduate Center invites proposals by graduate students for its fourth
annual Graduate Student Symposium. This symposium seeks to explore the
interpretation of surfaces of objects, structures, and settings within larger
art historical, cultural, and social contexts.  Surfaces are often interpreted
as representative of the whole.  Is this approach valid or is the surface
merely one of many layers of form, substance, space, and meaning?  We hope to
address how surfaces are defined and how they function in decorative arts,
design, painting, sculpture, architecture, and landscape. 

Papers could address the following inquiries: 

What is the significance of surface as texture, veneer, ornamentation,
embellishment, trompe l'oeil, et cetera? 

How does the definition of a surface as a starting point or tabula rasa
influence the process of design and creation? 

How do surfaces redefine or replace other strata – and vice versa?  What is the
relationship between surface and what lies beneath, behind, or on top?

How does a surface function as a membrane between interior and exterior? How
are surfaces ruptured or made impermeable? 

How do surfaces mediate social forces or impact national or cultural identity? 

As surfaces change over time, what is the effect of their degradation,
reconstruction, and/or historic preservation? 

Please send a one- to two-page abstract for a 20-minute presentation together
with a CV
to: 
The BGC Graduate Student Symposium Committee 
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and
Culture 
18 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 

and/or submit proposals and CV to [log in to unmask] 

Deadline: Friday, February 18, 2005

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