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Monday 14 March 2011

William Blake has entered the building; or, stories of Blakean masterliness in British art galleries, 1876-1959

Next Monday, 21st March 2011, Colin Trodd will be giving a Centre for Museology seminar titled
'William Blake has entered the building; or, stories of Blakean masterliness in British art galleries, 1876-1959'

All are welcome - the seminar will take place in Mansfield Cooper 4.10 between 17:00 and 18:30.


William Blake has entered the building; or, stories of Blakean masterliness in British art galleries, 1876-1959

The story of how cultural institutions deal with the afterlife or reconstruction of artistic identity has for a long time been overshadowed by the symbolic value of canon formation: a tale of how styles, periods or forms of innovation or experimentation cohere into stable patterns or structures of meaning. In fact, most studies of the processes by which artistic value is institutionalised reveal a different picture: of complex critical fields coloured by a number of factors including interaction of cultural forces, social relations and modes of subjectivity. This semi-hidden world of engagement and judgement is the main focus of a paper that examines the reformative apparatus that enabled curators, critics and collectors to imagine Blake as a masterly artist. In essence, this paper sets out to answer one of the central questions in Blake studies: how can we explain his transformation from an unrepeatable or toxic subject into a complete angelus of modern culture?

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