21 June 2019
The academic workshop explores the imperial context that created the conditions within which the artists worked, which has remained understudied. An interdisciplinary group of art historians, anthropologists and economic historians will read their works thinking through the expansive, exploitative and racializing aspects of the colonial project. We ask questions such as: what yield might be gained by a rereading of the still lifes of Valkenburg and Eckhout within a framework of bioprospecting, or questions surrounding race, or a history of knowledge and power? What might Eckhout’s portraits tell us about the quotidian lives of colonised and enslaved peoples?
As a prelude to the workshop, we organize the public event Rethinking the (Art) Histories of Slavery and Colonialism – Dirk Valkenburg and His Worlds. Rebecca Parker Brienen will deliver the keynote address.
The program is a collaboration between the Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC), Society of Arts of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and the Members Association of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). This program was initiated by artist Willem de Rooij, member of the Society of Arts of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, who currently works towards the first publication on the life and work of Dirk Valkenburg.
