This virtual talk is free and open to the public.The talk will be recorded.
Registration is required.

March 12, 2021
1pm

This talk explores representation, evocation, and paradoxical reproduction of anesthesia in three American artworks: Thomas Eakins’ Agnew Clinic of 1889 (painting), Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Adams Memorial of 1886-91 (sculpture), and John Cage’s 4’33” of 1952 (composition).  Interweaving these case studies, this talk aims at discerning possibilities and difficulties of (as well as ambitions for) artistic expressions of anesthesia, behind an abundance of synesthesia in art.

Dr. Mitsutoshi Oba is Assistant Professor of Art History at the School of Art and Design.  He received his Ph.D. in art history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York with his dissertation entitled “Eclectic Symbolism: The Interplay of Japonisme and Classicism in the Folding Screens by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, 1896-1900.”

He has written a journal article on Japanese artists in New York between the World Wars, an exhibition catalog essay “Remembrance of Sylvan Sounds: Woodcuts and Monotypes by Keiji Shinohara,” among other publications, and currently working on the publication of his essay “Folding Theater: A Cultural Reading of Double Dimensionality and Double Folding-System of the Symbolist Screens by Thomas Wilmer Dewing.”  His recent conference papers include “Victorian Japonisme into ‘Goth-Loli’ Vocaloid: A Cross-Cultural Transformation of ‘Gothic’ in Post-Enlightenment Visual Culture,” which was derived from a public talk in conjunction with previous faculty biennial.

He has developed and taught variety of art history courses at NMU, including special topic courses, "History and Culture of Animation" and "Art, Gender, Psyche".



Image: Thomas Eakins - derivative from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agnew_Philadelphia.JPG , Miguel Hermoso