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| Metropolitan Museum of Art 23.160.18 |
Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 11am: Nassos Papalexandrou, “Monsters and Vision in the Preclassical Mediterranean: The Case of the Orientalizing Cauldrons,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
++ Free but all Mia talks are now ticketed +++
call 612-870-6323 or visit http://new.artsmia.org/discover/talks/
The visual apparatus of orientalizing cauldrons introduced
radically new technologies of visual engagement in the preclassical
Mediterranean of the seventh century BCE. Hitherto the orientalizing
innovation has been understood in terms of the wholesale importation or
adaptation of objects, techniques, iconographies from the Near East. My
study proposes instead that change was ushered in by a radical shift in ways of
seeing and interacting with what today we call “art.” The new
technologies of visual engagement (new ways of seeing and being seen) I explore
in this study reshaped the cognitive and aesthetic apparatus of viewing
subjects. I argue that the griffin cauldrons were devised to establish an
aesthetic of rare and extraordinary experiences within the experiential realm
of early Greek sanctuaries or in sympotic events of princely elites of
orientalizing Italy. This aesthetic was premised on active visual engagement as
performance motivated and sustained by the materiality of these objects.
About the speaker: Nassos
Papalexandrou is with the University of Texas at Austin, and holds his degrees
from the University of Athens and Princeton University (Ph.D.). His areas
of specialization are the ritual dimensions of Early Greek figurative art and
archaeology, Orientalizing phenomena, and the archaeology of Cyprus; he has
done field work in Athens, Crete, Naxos, and multiple sites on Cyprus. His
first book, The Visual Poetics of Power:
Warriors, Youths, and Tripods in Early Greece, was published in
2005. He is currently working on a second book that explores the role of
monsters in the arts and rituals of Early Greece. A second project focuses on
an exhibit that will showcase antiquities exchanged as diplomatic gifts between
Greece and the USA after WWII. He is currently involved in two projects that
have to do with the archaeology of ancient Italy. One focuses on the translation/reception
of the Greek tripod cauldron in Magna Graecia and Sicily in the Geometric,
Archaic, and Classical periods. The other has to do with the importation and
emulation of griffin cauldrons from the Aegean to Italy, especially Etruria, in
the Archaic period. Professor Papalexandrou has received numerous honors and
awards and is the author of several scholarly articles. Along with Amy
Papalexandrou (Stockton College), Dr. Papalexandrou held a Gertrude Smith
professorship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in the
Summer of 2014, and this fall (2015) he is a Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow at the National Gallery of Art to work
on his current book Monsters, Fear, and
the Uncanny in the Preclassical Mediterranean.
AIA members are welcome to join the speaker for a no-host lunch following the lecture at Christos Greek Restaurant, 2632
Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis
++ Please note: this event is free and open to the public, but all Mia talks are now ticketed ++
call 612-870-6323 or visit http://new.artsmia.org/discover/talks/
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