The Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Art (FALVA), University of Western Australia has established a new major in Art History within the Bachelor of Arts degree as part of New Courses 2012 throughout the university. The discipline of art history there bids farewell to former Deputy Dean and Winthrop Professor Ian McLean who is leaving FALVA to take up a position at the University of Wollongong in October. During current sabbatical he has presented papers on Aboriginal art at various institutions in the US. A replacement in art history will be appointed later this year after closure of applications in May. While retaining a 0.6 position in art history at FALVA, Professor Clarissa Ball has been appointed Director of UWA’s Institute of Advanced Studies, having previously served as Dean of FALVA from 2005-2009. Associate Dean and Winthrop Professor Bill Taylor co-authored the book Prospects for an Ethics of Architecture (Routledge, 2011) with Michael P. Levine, Winthrop Professor of Philosophy at UWA, which was published in February. Professor Richard Read, Discipline Chair of Visual Arts at FALVA, will be pursuing study for his research network (co-investigated with Professor Maurizio Marinelli, Director, Centre for Social and Cultural Change in China Investment, University of Technology, Sydney) on ‘Settler Societies and Cultural Modernization’ at the Department of World Art, Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia in September and October and submitted a successful grant application for research and publication on ‘The Reversed Cross in Pseudo Giotto’s Crib at Greccio as an Emotional “Booster” of Liturgical Drama’ to the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, whose inaugural international conference ‘Emotions in the Medieval and Early Modern World’ at UWA in June attracted several papers in art history from the period c500-1800. Laetitia Wilson, who has been an Assistant Professor in Art History at FALVA, has successfully completed her PhD on ‘Interactive Art, Video Games: Military Simulation Technologies: Towards a Critique of Digital Play’, while Dr Sally Quin, who offered units on Renaissance art history this semester, has had her article on ‘Describing the Female Sculptor in Early Modern Italy: an Analysis of the “vita” of Properzia de’ Rossi in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives’ accepted for publication in the A+ ranked journal Gender & History. Dr Stefano Carboni, Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), is warmly welcomed as Adjunct Professor in art history at UWA, where he regularly lectures and is available to supervise postgraduate students on Islamic art at FALVA.
After the successful exhibition ‘Great Collections of the World – Peggy Guggenheim: A Collection in Venice’ in October 2010 to January 2011, the Art Gallery of Western Australia is currently mounting ‘REMIX’, an exhibition that showcases the creativity of twenty contemporary Western Australian artists working in a broad mix of media. The celebrated Indigenous Art Awards will take place again from August to December and the exhibition ‘Princely Treasures: European Masterpieces 1600-1800 from the Victoria and Albert Museum’ will open in September with a lecture programme. Three out of four chronological displays from the State Art Collection entitled ‘Your Collection 1800 – today’ featuring the years 1800-1920, 1920-1960 and 1960-1980 are now open at AGWA, while the fourth covering 1980 – today will open in October.
Dr Christopher Crouch, School of Communication and Arts, Edith Cowan University, and Professor of Visual Arts, Southwest University, Chongging, PRC, has edited a collection of essay on Contemporary Chinese Visual Cultural Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation (Cambria: New York, 2011) and published ‘Architecture, Design and Modern Living’ in Brooker, P., Gasiorek, Longworth, D., and Thicker, A. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms (Oxford: OUP, 2011).
We bid fairwell to Associate Professor Donal Fitzpatrick who, after serving as Head of Curtin Art School, Curtin University, is leaving to take up a position at Griffith University, Brisbane.
Richard Read