Images of Shame. Infamy, Defamation and the Ethics of 'oeconomia'Images of Shame.

Judicial orders are not exclusively determined by texts, but they include images, signs and objects. The legal discourse refers to them in order to substantiate judgments and make them mandatory. Effigies of shame have particular importance here. In the late Middle Ages a pedagogy of shame based on images has targeted the punishment of debtors to provide the law of obligation and the law of contract. Historically, "Schandbilder" or "pitture infamante" thus represent a forensic tool, but they also possess an explosive contemporary dimension as in today's media society they might become means of moral condemnation and defamatory depiction of corrupt persons.

In two parts the workshop focuses on the topic of infamy and defamation on the margins between image, law and economics. It will discuss whether "Schandbilder" today may be considered and analyzed as "public signatures of legal protection" (Brückner). In the first part it will both discuss the link between magic and "Schandbild" or "Bildzauber" in general as well as the importance of penalties of public humiliation in legal practice and its representation in early modern visual media. The studies on the "pittura infamante" and use of images in legal contexts in general, will be discussed in relation to their role for the logic of economy in general. The second part of the workshop focuses on the specific features and characteristics of "Schandbilder", discussing especially the text and image relations but also questions of evidence.

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut
Workshop II
November 16-17, 2012

Program

Friday, November 16

15:00
Welcome and Introduction
Alessandro Nova, Carolin Behrmann
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

Chair: Gherardo Ortalli

15:30 – 16:15
Giuliano Milani
Università La Sapienza, Roma
Early defamatory painting in Italian city-states I: legal sentences between politics and economics

Coffee break

16:45 – 17:30

Matteo Ferrari
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
Early defamatory painting in Italian city-states II: images as documents and images as facts

18:00
David Freedberg
Columbia University, New York
From Defamation to Mutilation: Gender Politics and Reason of State in Africa


Saturday, November 17

10:00 – 10:30
Shaming, dissemblance and the Ethics of 'oeconomia'
Roundtable discussion

Coffee break

Chair: Alessandro Nova

10:45 – 11:30
Charlotte Klonk Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Image Terror

11:45 – 12:30
Andreas Beyer
Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris
Können Gesichter diffamieren? Zu einem Aspekt der Porträtkultur

Lunch break

Chair: Carolin Behrmann

14:00 – 14:45
Hana Gründler
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
"Ein Kampf mit der Sicht." Antlitz, Kunst und Erhabenes bei Levinas

14:45 – 15:30
Piyel Haldar
School of Law, Birkbeck College, London
Projections: X-ray Images, Identity and Evidence

Coffee break

Chair: Costanza Caraffa

16:00 – 16:45
Christian Joschke
Université de Lyon
Fahndungsbilder und Schandbilder zur Zeit der Polizeifotografie

16:45 – 17:30
Peter Geimer
Freie Universität Berlin
Bilder, die man nicht zeigt

17:30
Final Discussion


Sunday, November 18

10:00 – 12:30
Florentiner Rechtsräume / Florentine Spaces of Law
(for participants only)


LOCATION
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut
Palazzo Grifoni - Seminarraum
Via dei Servi 51
I-50122 Firenze

CONTACT
Dr. des. Carolin Behrmann
E-mail: carolin.behrmann(at)khi.fi.it

FURTHER INFORMATION
http://www.khi.fi.it/en/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungen/veranstaltung399/index.html

Quelle: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz