More than 40 scholars will come to the Getty Center to work on a range of topics on the theme “Iconoclasm and Vandalism”. Research projects will include the visual culture of Paris in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the desecration of sacred sites and objects in colonial Mexico, spectacles of iconoclasm in Putin’s Russia, and many more. At the Getty Villa, scholars will work on projects under the theme “Classical World in Context: Persia,” and will research such topics as multilingual centers in the Persian empire, lost Hellenistic sculptures in Mesopotamia and Iran, and the impact of global connections and the formation of the Roman Empire, to name a few.
“The topic of study this year is very timely. Although our visiting scholars will be working on different periods in many cultures, their collaboration here at the Getty will no doubt be very productive and revealing,” says Thomas W. Gaehtgens, director of the GRI. “Monuments can be irreplaceable cultural and historical documents, and historians can give them a voice in the present. I look forward to the many lively discussions and new ideas from our new scholars who are a vital part of the GRI’s intellectual community.”
The theme “Iconoclasm and Vandalism” raises contentious questions. It can be understood as destruction or as a means of repression, all of which fundamentally put culture at risk. However, iconoclasm can also be a form of protest or a vehicle for creative expression. Applicants were encouraged to adopt a broad approach to the theme by addressing topics such as religious and political iconoclasm, protection of cultural heritage, street art, graffiti, performance art, or activism.
“As in past years, the Scholars Program was very competitive. Once again, we had a greater number of applicants than ever before with more than 400 scholars applying for fewer than 40 spots,” said Alexa Sekyra, head of the Scholars Program. “The result is an outstanding group of scholars with intriguing research topics that will no doubt intersect with the work that their fellow visiting scholars and Getty colleagues are doing.”
The Getty Research Institute is currently accepting applications for the 2018/2019 scholar year. The 2018/2019 research theme at the Getty Center is Monumentality, and the Villa Scholars will once again be addressing Persia in their work. Find more information about future themes.
The 2017/2018 Getty Scholars
Getty Center Scholars
Alka Patel (Consortium Scholar) is Associate Professor of History of Art at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on South Asian architecture and Islamic architecture. India, Iran and Empire: Shansabānīs of Ghūr, c. 1150–1215 (September—June)
Zoë Strother is Professor of African Art at Columbia University, New York. She specializes in African Art History. Iconoclasms in Africa (January—June)
Michael Diers is Professor of Art History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. His research centers on modern and contemporary art, photography, visual arts, and film. Symbolic Threats: Art, Dissent and the Aesthetic of Provocation (September—March)
Dario Gamboni is Professor of History of Art at Université de Genève, Switzerland. His research concerns modern and contemporary art. Modernism, Aniconism, and Religion (April—June)
Richard Wrigley is Professor of History of Art at University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. His research focuses on the history of French visual culture. Iconoclasm’s Aftermath: Traces and Vestiges of the French Revolution in the Architectural Fabric, Monuments and Visual Culture of Early Nineteenth-Century Paris (September—December)
Lisa Sousa is Professor of History and Chair in Latin American Studies at Occidental College, Los Angeles, California. Her research focuses on Pre-Columbian and Colonial Mexican History. “So That the Indians Would Forget Their Superstitions”: The Desecration of Sacred Sites and Objects in Colonial Mexico (January—June)
Tatiana Flores is Associate Professor of History of Art at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Her research centers on Latin American and contemporary art. Art and Visual Culture under Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution (January—June)
Patrick Michel is Professor of History of Art at Université Lille 3—Charles de Gaulle, France. His research focuses on investigating iconoclasm in modern art. The (Fatal) Effects of Prudery on Art in France in the XVII and XVIII Centuries: An Episode of the Difficult Relations Between Art and Iconoclasm (April—June)
Faya Causey is the former Head of Academic Programs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Her research focuses on the destruction and afterlife of certain magical, talismanic, or apotropaic Greek and early Roman sculptures. The Afterlife of Antiquity into the Contemporary Period (September—December)
Predoctoral Fellows
Patricia Yu is a PhD candidate in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Translating the Yuanming Yuan from Past to Present (September—June)
Niels Henriksen is a PhD candidate in the History of Art and Archaeology Department at Princeton University, New Jersey. Asger Jorn and the Scandinavian Institute for Comparative Vandalism (September—June)
Postdoctoral Fellows
Francesca Borgo is a PhD candidate in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Battle and Representation in the Cinquecento (September—June)
Michelle Maydanchik is Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From the Cobblestones to the Blogosphere: Spectacles of Iconoclasm in Putin’s Russia (September—June)
Jaya Remond is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany. New Flowerings: Nature and the Business of Early Modern Picture-Making in Post-Iconoclasm Northern Europe (September—June)
Guest Scholars
Josip Belamarić is Head of Cvito Fisković Centre at the Institute of Art History, Split, Croatia. The Metamorphosis of the Diocletian’s Palace into Medieval Town (September—March)
James Coleman (Artist-in-Residence) is an independent visual artist based in Dublin and Paris. Since the early 1970s, Coleman has been internationally renowned for his installations incorporating film, video, theater, and slide-projected images with recorded narration. Art Project. Archives. Conservation. (January—June)
Deborah Dorotinsky is Professor of Historiography of Art at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Coyoacán, Mexico. Craft, Folk Art, Handcrafts or Artesanías? Directions of the Concept of Popular Arts in the 1960s (April—June)
Hubertus Gassner is former Director of Hamburg Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany. Edward James and Mexican Surrealism/Vandalism in the Russian Revolution, 1917–1930 (January—March)
Tim Murray is Professor of Archaeology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on building archaeological theory. The Poverty of Archaeological Theory (September—December)
Karl Schlögel is Professor Emeritus of Eastern European History at the Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. He specializes in Russian and Soviet history. Vandalism and Iconoclasm: The Case of 20th-Century Russia (January—June)
Iván Szántó is Associate Professor at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Ottoman Art and Its Baroque Afterlife in Central Europe (January—March)
Tian Wei (Artist-in-Residence) is a Chinese-born independent artist based in Beijing and Los Angeles. Influenced by Chinese calligraphy, his work grapples with finding common ground between an inherited sense of a rigorously defined line and the abstract idiom of the contemporary West. It constructs a bridge between things that appear to be polar opposites or complementary pairs (e.g., yin and yang), a concept deeply embedded in Chinese thinking. Interpretation of “Iconoclasm and Vandalism” (September—March)
Angela Vanhaelen is Professor of Art History and Communication Studies Department at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She specializes in 17th-century Dutch visual culture. Reanimating the Graven Image in Early Modern Amsterdam (April—June)
Henri Zerner is Professor Emeritus of Art History and Architecture at Harvard University. His research focuses on the French Renaissance and modern art. Ingres’s Virgil Reading the Aeneid, A Life Long Obsession (September—December)
President’s International Council Scholar
Peter Frankopan is Director of Classical and Byzantine Studies at the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. He specializes in the history of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th century and the relations between Christianity and Islam. Host Department: Office of the President (October)
Getty Rothschild Fellow
Thomas Campbell is the ninth director of the Museum of Metropolitan Art (2009–2017). He is the second recipient of the Getty Rothschild Fellowship. His research focuses on the changing environment in which museums are operating and the ways art and cultural heritage can be used to promote mutual understanding. (November—February)
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows
Nadja Millner-Larsen is Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London, United Kingdom. Up Against the Real: Black Mask from Art to Action (September—April)
Sara Ryu is Honorary Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The Art of Making Again in Early Modern Mexico and Europe (September—April)
Museum Guest Scholars
Joan Aruz is Curator in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Host Department: Antiquities (January—March)
Linda Borean is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Udine, Italy. Host Department: Paintings (September—December)
John Falconer is Lead Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the British Library, United Kingdom. Host Department: Photographs (September—December)
Helen Jacobsen is Senior Curator of French Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection, London. Host Department: Sculpture and Decorative Arts (January—March)
Richard Leson is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Host Department: Manuscripts (April—June)
Anne Maheux is Head Conservator of Prints, Drawings, Maps, and Manuscripts at the Library and Archives Canada, Ontario. Host Department: Paper Conservation (April—June)
Marc-André Paulin is Head of the Conservation Department at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France. Host Department: Decorative Arts Conservation (January—March)
Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò is Professor at Università di Roma “Tor Vergata,” Italy. Host Department: Drawings (April—June)
Norman Yoffee is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the anthropology and history of ancient Mesopotamia. Host Department: Director’s Office (September—December)
Getty Villa Scholars
Maria Brosius (Villa) is Associate Professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her key field of research is the Achaemenid Empire and the cultural contacts between the ancient Near East and the classical world. The Persian Empires—Multilingual and Multiscriptual Centres for the Transmission of Knowledge (September—March)
Albert de Jong (Villa) is Professor of Comparative Religion and Religions of Antiquity at Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands. His research focuses on Sasanian history, Iranian religions, and the study of religion. East of the Euphrates: The Contribution of Sasanian History to Theorizing Late Antiquity (April—June)
Vito Messina (Villa) is Assistant Professor of Iranian Archaeology at Università di Torino, Italy. His research focuses on archaeology of Mesopotamia and Iran. Lost Hellenistic Sculptures ‘Rediscovered’ in Mesopotamia and Iran (April—June)
Margaret Miller (Villa) is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is a scholar of archaeology, art history, and classics. Selective Persianization of Greek Myth (April—June)
Kathryn Morgan (Villa) is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on Ancient Greek culture. Persia and Historical Process in Aeschylus’ Persians (September—December)
Alessandro Poggio (Villa) is Research Fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy. His research focuses on the history of art, and ancient Near Eastern and Greek archaeology. Beyond ’Greco-Persian’: Glyptic as an Index of Artistic Processes in the Eastern Mediterranean (January—March)
Rolf Strootman (Villa) is Associate Professor of Ancient History at the Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is a scholar of history and culture of the ancient world. Iranians in the Hellenistic East: Imperial Culture and Local Identity from the Persians to the Parthians (4th to 2nd Century BCE) (September—March)
Miguel John Versluys (Villa) is Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology at Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands. He specializes in Hellenistic and Roman Eurasian archaeology. Innovating Objects: The Impact of Global Connections and the Formation of the Roman Empire (ca. 200–30 BCE) (April—June)
Postdoctoral Fellows
Jake Nabel (Villa) received his PhD in the Department of Classics at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Made on the Margins: Ancient Persia, the Classical Mediterranean, and their Intermediaries (September—June)