International Symposium - Celebrating James Ensor’s Modernity. New Perspectives 

6.00 – 8.00 pm
Opening Reception
Location: Antwerp City Hall, Grote Markt, Antwerp

Welcome: Alderwoman Nabilla Aid Daoud, City of Antwerp & Carmen Willems, General Director, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

8.30 – 9.00 am

Registration

 

9.00 – 9.15 am

Welcome: Prof. Em. Herman Van Goethem, Honory Rector, University of Antwerp, ARIA and Chair Kunst op de Campus (Art on Campus) & Carmen Willems, General Director, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

 

9.15 – 9.45 am

Herwig Todts, PhD, Curator of In Your Wildest Dreams. Ensor Beyond Impressionism, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

‘J’ai étudié attentivement les manières les plus opposées’. The Reception in Europe of James Ensor

 

9.45 – 10.15 am

MaryAnne Stevens, Art Historian and Curator of After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, National Gallery, London, 2023

Positioning James Ensor within the Invention of Modern Art

 

10.15 – 10.45 am

Coffee Break 

 

10.45 – 11.15 am

Jean-Philippe Huys, Art Historian, Centre international pour l’Etude du XIXe siècle @ Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels

Mariette Rousseau-Hannon, the Key Meeting in James Ensor’s Young Life

 

11.15 – 11.45 am

Noémie Goldman, PhD, Director of Agnews, Brussels

James Ensor and his Audience at Les Vingt. A Visual Culture Study

 

11.45 – 12.15 pm

Ina Dinter, PhD, Director, Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders, Bergisch Gladbach

James Ensor, Misogynist or Feminist? On Women in Ensor's Life and Writings

 

12.15 – 12.45 pm

Sabine Taevernier, Art Expert, Curator and Advisor to Public and Private Collections

What happened to James Ensor’s Legacy? 

 

12.45 – 2.00 pm 

Lunch

 

2.00 – 2.30 pm

Prof. Em. Anthea Callen FRSA, PhD, The Australian National University, Canberra & The University of Nottingham

French pleinairisme and James Ensor in the 1880s

 

2.30 – 3.00 pm

Annelies Rios-Casier, PhD Candidate, University of Antwerp (AXIS & ARCHES) & Ensor Research Project, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

Ensor Research Project: Recent Material-Technical Discoveries on James Ensor’s Paintings

 

3.00 – 3.30 pm

Thierry Ford, PhD, Acting Head of Research & Development (Senior Paintings Conservator NMF), The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo

Revisiting the Surface, Edvard Munch and Varnishes

 

3.30 – 4.00 pm 

Break

 

4.00 – 4.30 pm

Willemijn Stammis, Curator of Prints and Drawings, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp

States of Imagination: An Introduction to James Ensor’s Graphic Experiments

 

4.30 – 5.00 pm

Jay A. Clarke, PhD, Rothman Family Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Art Institute of Chicago 

Colored Pencil: Symbolist Drawings by James Ensor, Jean Delville, and Félicien Rops

 

5.00 – 5.30 pm

Prof. Em. Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, PhD, Seton Hall University, South Orange

James Ensor and Modernist Chinoiserie

 

Evening

7.00 – 9.30 pm

Private View of the Exhibition (including a light dinner)

In Your Wildest Dreams. Ensor Beyond Impressionism, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

9.00 – 9.30 am

Cathérine Verleysen, PhD, Curator of 18th & 19th Century Art, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

The Genesis of James Ensor’s Visions: The Aureoles of Christ or the Sensibilities of Light 

 

9.30 – 10.00 am

Scott Allan, PhD, Curator of Paintings, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 

James Ensor’s Entry into Los Angeles

 

10.00 – 10.30 am

Alison Hokanson, PhD, Curator of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

New Research on James Ensor’s Comical Repast (Banquet of the Starved)

 

10.30 – 11.00 am

Break

 

11.00 – 11.30 am

Astrid Becker, PhD, Deputy Director, Stiftung Ada und Emil Nolde / Nolde Museum Seebüll

‘The greatest living Belgian’. James Ensor and Emil Nolde

 

11.30 – 12.00 am

Lieven Van den Abeele, Independent Scholar and Curator of Erich Heckel in Flanders, Ghent, Museum of Fine Arts, 2024

James Ensor’s Friendship with Erich Heckel during the First World War

 

12.00 – 12.30 pm

Patricia Berman, PhD, Theodora L. and Stanley H. Feldberg Professor of Art, Wellesley College, Boston

Edvard Munch and James Ensor In and Out of Sight

 

12.30 – 1.00 pm

Agnieszka Lajus, PhD, Acting Director, National Museum of Warsaw & Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw

The Circus of Madmen. Expression and Irony in the work of Witold Wojtkiewicz

 

1.00 – 2.00 pm

Lunch

 

2.00 – 2.30 pm

Aminudin TH Siregar, PhD Candidate, Leiden University

James Ensor in Indonesia

 

2.30 – 3.00 pm

Stefano Agresti, PhD, Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sapienza Università di Roma

Vive la sociale? James Ensor as Political « Cultural Hieroglyph » in Jannis Kounellis’s Art of the 1970s

 

3.00 – 3.45 pm

Roundtable

Curating James Ensor’s Legacy

Chair: Johan Pas, PhD, Dean of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp

Panel: Prof. Em. Susan M. Canning, PhD, Independent Scholar; Elisa De Wyngaert & Romy Cockx, CuratorsMasquerade, Make-up & Ensor, MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp; Eric Rinckhout, Freelance Writer and Curator; Jens Dawn, Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Curator

 

3.45 – 4.15 pm

Break

 

4.15 – 4.45 pm

Bart G. Moens, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Antwerp &  Nele Wynants, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, University of Antwerp (ARIA)

Funfair Art: The Circulation of the Arts and Media at 19th-Century European Fairs

 

4.45 – 5.15 pm

Evelien Jonckheere, PhD, Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Antwerp

Ensor’s Clowns, Freaks, Marionettes, and Skeletons: Grotesque Fantasies as a Cure for Boredom

 

5.15 – 5.45 pm

Hannah Rose Blakeley, PhD Candidate, Princeton University & Faculty Fellow in the Princeton Writing Program

Delirious Aesthetics in the Work of James Ensor

 

Evening

7.00 – 10.00 pm

Private View of the Exhibitions (including a light dinner)

Ensor’s States of Imagination, Museum Plantin-Moretus

Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor, MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

10.00 – 10.30 am

Davy Depelchin, PhD, Curator of 19th Century Paintings, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels 

An Artist who Owed Nothing to the Masters of the Past? James Ensor and the Academy

 

10.30 – 11.00 am

Laura Fanti, Art historian, Brussels

In Search of Beauty: James Ensor and Idealism

 

11.00 – 11.30 am

Denis Laoureux, PhD, Research Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Artistic Rivalries and Complex Dynamics in Fin-de-Siècle Belgium: James Ensor and Henri De Groux 

 

11.30 – 12.00 am

Break

 

12.00 – 12.30 am

Prof. Em. Susan M. Canning, PhD, Independent Scholar

James Ensor’s Vision: Light as Social Allegory

 

12.30 – 1.00 pm

Lotte Kremer, Master’s programme Art History, Utrecht University

Positioning the Artist: James Ensor’s Use of Humor in Self-Portraiture

 

1.00 – 2.00 pm

Lunch

 

2.00 – 2.45 pm

Roundtable 

The Scope and the Meaning of Commemorating James Ensor’s Legacy in Flanders in 2024
Chair: Annick Schramme, PhD, Full Professor, University of Antwerp & Antwerp Management School
Panel: Peter De Wilde, Administrator General, Flanders Heritage Agency; Bart Temmerman, Secretary General, Flemish Department of Culture, Youth and Media; Liesbeth De Maeyer, Visit Antwerp; Wim Vanseveren, Intendant Ensor2024; Kaat Debo, Director, MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

 

2.45 pm – 3.15 pm

Prof. Em. Bart Verschaffel, PhD, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University

Nature morte? Silent Living Things in the Light

 

3.15 – 3.45 pm

Juliet Simpson, PhD, Full Professor of Art History, Chair of Cultural Memory and Research Director in the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, Coventry University

Ensor’s Veiled Modernity. Re-imagining a Liminal Gothic Urban

 

3.45 – 4.15 pm

Break 

 

4.15 – 4.30 pm

Jan Dirk Baetens, PhD, Assistant Professor, Radboud University Nijmegen

Celebrating James Ensor’s Modernity. The Meaning of the Current and New Perspectives

 

4.30 – 4.45 pm

Manou De Sutter, Digital Archive and Digital Projects, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

Multiple Collections in the Digital Age at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

 

4.45 – 5.00 pm

Nico Van Hout, PhD, Head of Collections, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

Researching and Collecting James Ensor at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. Future Directions