On the Origins of Exhibition Practice in Early Modern Europe (Panel Session at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference)

Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the Pantheon in Rome was the site of an extraordinary event: an art exhibition organized by the Congregazione dei Virtuosi, a Renaissance confraternity composed largely of artists. Taking place annually on March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph, this exhibition brought together a selection of works of art both historic and contemporary in a veritable “temple to art,” eventually becoming a testing ground within which artists could prove their mettle in the most storied artistic center on the European continent. By the time it ended in the mid-eighteenth century, this exhibition was the most famous and well-attended anywhere in Europe, generating critical discourse, attracting international talent, and securing fame for its most successful participants.

This panel addresses the invention of the exhibition as an art-historical practice in the early modern period in Europe, especially in light of the ongoing role that exhibition plays in the presentation, study, and interpretation of early modern European art today. It asks what role exhibitions have played in the careers of individual artists, in the consolidation of artistic movements, and in art-historical argumentation in and around early modern European art. Who organized exhibitions, where, and for what purposes? How have the contours and parameters of exhibition practices changed between the early modern period and the present day? How can we understand exhibitions in relation to the early modern discourses of art history, art theory, and art criticism?

Scientific Organization: Julia María Vázquez, Bibliotheca Hertziana MPI

Program:

Organizer: Julia María Vázquez, Bibliotheca Hertziana MPI

Chair:Adriana Turpin, IESA Paris

Presentations:

Pamela Bianchi, Université Paris 8
Displaying Art in the Early Seventeenth-Century Roman Feasts

Maialen Suzanne Maugars, University of Warwick
Exhibiting Italian Renaissance Decorative Art in Late Nineteenth-Century Birmingham: Significance, Display, and Reception