CALL FOR PAPERS: Authentication of Paintings, The Hague, 7-9 May 2014. The conference language is English.
Authentication in Art invites submissions of proposals of 500-700 words (up to 3000 characters) for oral presentations, to be given at the conference in The Hague, The Netherlands, 7-9 May, 2014. Due to the multitude of problems that have become ever more prominent around establishing authorship of paintings and authenticity, the identification of fakes, and the contextual and legal issues associated with this process, the conference Authentication in Art has been established.
Papers addressing any of the following topics regarding issues of authentication of paintings are especially welcome:
* Issues of connoisseurship in the authentication of paintings. Standards of connoisseurship. The current state of connoisseurship. Can connoisseurship be articulated in a consistent manner? Refining the role of connoisseurship in the 21st century.
* Challenges faced by historians publishing or cataloguing the work of an artist. The need for interdisciplinary studies. Minimum requirements for specific types of authentication work. The process of attribution and authentication.
* Issues of the technological and scientific studies in the authentication of paintings. Standards for the technological and scientific studies in the authentication of paintings. What is the current state of play? What necessary standards might be established to ensure sound practice and effective work in issues of authentication?
* The training of professionals involved in the authentication of paintings; what is the current state of play? What is needed / could be improved?
* Legal issues arising from the authentication of paintings. Authentication in the legal sphere. National and international problems involving authentication.
* Terminology problems in the language used in authentication (may involve issues of terminology over various languages and translation issues, but the main presentation should be in English).
* Changing historical attitudes / approaches, both scientific and connoisseurial, to the authentication of paintings.
* Fakes and forgeries – their implications for the art market. Trends in the production and detection of fakes. The future of investigation of fakes by new or renewed scientific techniques.
* Improved IT-technology for the protection of open sources against falsification.
NOTE: the conference will concentrate on these issues related to paintings specifically to focus the scope of the discussions – themes considering sculpture, works on paper, etc. will not be considered.
Please select one of the working groups listed in the conference’s website, to submit your topic to for consideration. If you have a paper of a broader theme, you are welcome to submit it as an unallocated paper; however, space for such unallocated papers is strictly limited.
Proposals should be submitted by e-mail. Please do not include any illustrations with your proposal submission. Authors will be informed whether their work has been selected for further consideration by 30th October, 2013. If selected, you will be invited to develop the proposal into a synopsis of 1,000-1,200 words, which will be required for printed conference abstracts by the 15th of December 2013. A publication of conference papers in the form of postprints is planned.
Papers presented at and published as a result of the AiA Congress will all undergo a peer review process. To this end, the AiA Working Groups are appointing a Committee of international experts who will make selections from the proposals received and selected authors will be invited to develop the proposal into a synopsis. Authors may then be requested to refine the synopses as necessary, and the final versions will be edited for publication by the Congress Editorial Committee.
Please bear in mind that submissions of papers should not address topics that have been presented and/or published elsewhere before the date of the Congress in May 2014, or which are slated for publication at a later date. Should an author be invited to present a paper, the conference organizers will provide for travel and accommodation for speakers at the congress.
Deadline: 13 September 2013.