Gabriel Gee
Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Communication
Department Chair, Art History and Visual Communication
Ph.D. Université Paris X
M.A. Université Paris X
B.A. Université Paris X
Office: Lowerre Academic Center, North Campus, Office 15
Phone: +41 91 986 36 51
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Profile:
Gabriel N. Gee holds a PhD in contemporary art history from the Université Paris X Nanterre (2008). His doctoral research focused on Aesthetics and politics in the North of England from the 1980s onwards. His book Art in the North of England. 1979-2008 was published by Ashgate (now Routledge) in 2017. He joined Franklin in 2011, where he teaches contemporary art history and theory. His current research interests include 20th century British and Irish art, the changing representations and imaginaries of port cities in the second half of the 20th century, as well as interconnected global histories, with a particular interest in urban architectural representation. He recently edited with Alison Vogelaar a volume on the Changing representation of nature and the city: the 1960s-1970s and their legacies (2018). He is co-founder of the TETI group, for Textures and Experiences of Trans-Industriality (www.tetigroup.org)
2019-2020 Courses:
| AHT 230T | Art, Politics, Landscape: Ireland | FALL 2019 |
| This course focuses on the relation between the visual arts, politics and landscape in Ireland. It emphasizes the role played by culture and aesthetics in the shaping of territorial identities on the island. It also looks at the historical evolution of conflicting socio-political configurations, whose modeling of physical and imaginary landscapes will be scrutinized. Singular and interacting identities within the spatial political nexus of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, are explored from the mediating perspective of aesthetic production and consumption. The course looks at early Celtic sculpture, craftsmanship and illuminated manuscripts, the circulation of artistic ideas and artists during the medieval and early modern period, before turning to nascent modernities in art and architecture. Artistic production during the Troubles in the second half of the Twentieth century is finally discussed in relation to the complex negotiation of past and present identities and heritage in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The vibrancy of contemporary Irish art finally provides a platform from which to reflect on current aesthetic syncretisms. The travel component includes in-situ visits in Dublin and Galway. |
| AHT 280W | Contemporary Art: From the New York School to the Present | FALL 2019 |
| This course focuses on the history of contemporary art from 1945 to the present, paying particular attention to developments in European and North American art within an increasingly global culture. Topics include: reactions to modernism and its discourses, the dematerialization of art and the rise of conceptualism, activist art and institutional critique, site-specific and time-based art, postmodernist discourses and aesthetics as well as historical mindedness in contemporary art practices. The course will place a particular focus on the relation between the art object and the artist's intention/idea. The role of institutions within the art world will be analyzed in relation to the development of process based practices. Particular emphasis will be put on the theoretical writings of artists and critics. Visits to Contemporary Art museums will be included.
(This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.) |
| VCA 199 | Desire and Consumption: The Photographic Image | FALL 2019 |
| This course takes as a starting point the proliferation of photographic images in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century. The expansion of photo-imagery has come to conquer both public and private sphere. It has become an inevitable component of social and political life, not to mention an inescapable economic incentive. Photography is used to sell goods in magazines, on billboards and products themselves. It is still a major contributor to the documentation and interpretation of political events conveyed through newspapers and web fluxes of information; and with the increased accessibility of camera devices, its presence in the private sphere has become a "natural" entity, furthering the projection of singular and collective identities through ever stronger social networks. It is a medium of representation that is closely bound to an anticipation of its consumption by its public. It aims to trigger desire to modify the balance of the world. Its very immobility (compared to the moving image) is a guarantee of its iconic powers. Is it possible to counter the voracious appetite of the photographic image? It is certainly possible to decode its intentions and impact. This course aims to provide a reading of a range of contemporary photographic productions, unveiling their social and economic foundations and framework, while underlining their historical roots in the development of the medium in the 19th and 20th Century. In addition to the form, content, production, and dissemination analyses, this discussion-based class will help students refine the critical thinking, writing and research skills that facilitate college success. Like all First Year Seminars, this course will cultivate the fundamental critical and academic skills necessary for succeeding in college.
Like all First Year Seminars, this course will cultivate the fundamental critical and academic skills necessary for succeeding in college. |
| AHT 103 | Introduction to Art History and Visual Culture II: High Renaissance to Contemporary Art | SPRING 2020 |
| The course is the sequel to AHT 102 and offers an introduction to the history of art and visual culture from the High Renaissance to the present day. It studies early modern painting, sculpture, architecture, and prints within their historical, social, and cultural contexts, as well as photography and new media in the modern and contemporary world. |
| AHT 270 | Theories and Methods in Art History and Visual Culture | SPRING 2020 |
| The course introduces students to the theories and methods of art history and visual culture. It addresses both traditional and innovative models from art history and how to apply methodologies from other disciplines to the study of the visual world. Students will conduct original research projects using a variety of critical approaches to put their theoretical knowledge in practice. |
| SEM 372 | Maritime Poetics: Hybrid Marines and Eurasian Corridors | SPRING 2020 |
| The extension of maritime routes in the early modern age (1500-1800) was documented by a new genre of painting, the marine. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, radical and rapid changes in maritime technology accompanied the intensification of planetary interconnectedness. Separate docks and, later, container terminals were built in port cities; ever larger and faster ships were designed to transport people and goods across oceans. In the 1960s and 1970s, when ship containers were standardized and planes replaced ships in transporting humans, decisive shifts in contemporary artistic practices opened aesthetics beyond the frame of the canvas to explore lived space, environments, collective histories and agency.
This course focuses on the representation and history of maritime spaces in the twentieth century, examining the role of visual poetics in the construction of past and present maritime and global imaginaries. It investigates the new hybrid marines that emerged to engage critically with changing maritime seascapes, by interrogating its technology, bodies and stories. Particular emphasis is placed on the ‘maritime silk roads’ and Eurasian corridors of the late twentieth century, considering the manner through which contemporary aesthetics engage with European and Asian colonial legacies, increased commercial connectivity, as well as environmental pressures.
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Publications:
Books:
Gee G.N, Art in the North of England. 1979-2008, London, New York, Routledge: an Ashgate book, 2017.
Gee G.N & Vogelaar A. eds, Changing representations of nature and the city: the 1960s -1970s and their legacies, London, New York: Routledge, (2018).
Book chapter:
Gee G.N. “Beyond Narcissus : The metamorphosis of port cities in the 20th century”, in Gee G.N & Vogelaar A. eds, Changing representations of nature and the city: the 1960s -1970s and their legacies, Routledge, 2018
Gee G.N. “Les navires de croisière entre narcissisime et passages de civilisations – 1880 - 1970”, in Christine Peltre, ed. Genèse de la croisière moderne. Les formes d’une expérience, entre loisir et découverte (1830-1970), Mare & Martin (forthcoming 2020)
Gee G.N. “The late 20th century marine: ‘forgotten spaces’ and trans-industrial visions”, in Terms, Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art, Beijing (forthcoming 2020)
Gee G.N. “From stone to flesh: the deconstruction and reconstruction of the British monument” in Monument et modernité dans l’art et la littérature britanniques et américains, Marc Porée & Christine Savinel, eds, Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2015.
Gee G.N, “Markers, borders, crossings: on the representation of a divided space in Northern Ireland”, in Claire Dubois & Vanessa Alayrac-Fielding (eds), The foreigness of foreigners: cultural representations of the Other in the British Isles (17th- 20th centuries), Cambridge Scholar, 2015
Gee.G.N. “Learning from the post-industrial transition in Northern England: alternative developments in the visual arts (1979-2008),” in Cultural Economies in Post-Industrial cities: Creating a (different) Scene, ed. Myrna Breitbart, Farnham, Ashgate, 2013.
Gee, G.N. “Art without Commerce in the North of England”, in Art and Commerce in the United-Kingdom, Charlotte Gould & Sophie Mesplède (eds), Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.
selected Articles:
Gee G.N, “Painting within itself: the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition”, Journal of contemporary painting Issue 2, Vol.4, October 2018, pp.345-61
Gee G.N, “The metamorphosis of Cain: aesthetic in the trans-industrial city at the turn of the twenty-first century”, Visual Resources, Vol..4 October 2014
Gee G.N, “The catalogues of the Orchard Gallery: a contribution to critical and historical discourses in Northern Ireland, 1978-2003”, Journal of art historiography, n.9, 2013
Gee.G.N. “Malédiction et renaissance : lectures imagées de la ville du nord,” in Textimages, revue du dialogue texte-image, Varia 3, hiver 2013
Gee, G.N, “The representation of the northern city in the photography of John Davies (1981-2003)”, Visual Culture in Britain, Volume 11, Issue 2, December 2010.
Gee, G.N, “Valeurs instrumentales et valeurs de résistance dans l’art du Nord de l’Angleterre, 1979-2008” in Marges, “Valeurs de l’art”, Presses de l’université Paris VIII, n. 11, October 2010, pp. 76-80.
Gee G.N. “Négocier les ‘Troubles’, la Orchard Gallery à Derry, 1978-2003” in Textuels, revue Lettres, arts, cinéma, Presses de l’université Paris VII, September 2010.
