Parsons Paris

Professor Stephanie Nadalo is one of Parsons Paris’ professors known for teaching several classes around curation, art history and design, amongst many others.  When not lecturing in a classroom to our students, Professor Nadalo takes her lectures to associations and panel discussions around the art communities of the world.

In February 2019 from the 13th to 16th, Professor Nadalo presented new research at the College Art Association’s annual meeting that took place in New York City in which Program Director Emmanuel Guy was also in attendance.

Founded in 1911, the College Art Association:

• Promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching in the history and criticism of the visual arts and in creativity and technical skill in the teaching and practices of art
• Facilitates the exchange of ideas and information among those interested in art and history of art
• Advocates comprehensive and inclusive education in the visual arts
• Speaks for the membership on issues affecting the visual arts and humanities
• Provides publication of scholarship, criticism, and artists’ writings
• Fosters career development and professional advancement. Identifies and develops sources of funding for the practice of art and for scholarship in the arts and humanities
• Honors accomplishments of artists, art historians, and critics
• Articulates and affirms the highest ethical standards in the conduct of the profession

At the 107th annual conference, Professor Nadalo presented on a panel titled Religious Objects and Modern / Contemporary Audiences co-chaired alongside Professor Kathryn Barush (who teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California). Professor Nadalo focused specifically on Judaica Past and Present: Mediating Art and Ethnology. Her research and presentation offered a comparative analysis of the role that modern and contemporary art plays within the curatorial approaches recently implemented in the Jewish Museum of NYC and the Museum of Jewish Art & History in Paris.

Taken directly from Professor Nadalo’s paper abstract is a summary of the overall session’s topics of discussion.

“From painted altarpieces to prayer rugs and reliquaries, museums are filled with objects originally created for use within a devotional or ritual practice. However, once removed from an overtly religious context and reframed within a public museum or art space, the function, audience, and perceived agency of these artifacts can change, as do the expected rules of viewer engagement. By exploring the intersection of art history, anthropology, and religious studies, this panel adopts a comparative and diachronic perspective to understand the historical and conceptual dynamics governing such acts of mediation for modern and contemporary audiences. Whereas museum professionals of the 19th century tended to separate the beliefs and practices of religious devotion from the aesthetic and pedagogical aims of the museum, scholars today increasingly recognize that the distinction between ritual devotion and a more objective aesthetic appreciation can be blurry. In the mid-1990s, Carol Duncan acknowledged the secular museum’s role within the staging of civic rituals. More recently, Crispin Paine and others have addressed the spiritual dimensions of contemporary art and the curatorial challenges of displaying sacred artefacts for heterogeneous publics. Once religious material culture is displayed to audiences within museums of fine and decorative art, ethnography, and history, how does the process of musealization transform an object’s narrative potential? Although the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment museum paradigm privileges visual faculties above tactile or auditory, how can curators, artists, and museum educators today help audiences understand the performativity, interactive, and multisensory dimensions of devotional practices past and present?”

Addressing specifically Professor Nadalo’s section is another abstract, where she consulted several primary case studies including the Jewish Museum’s (NYC) permanent collection galleries “Scenes from the Collection“. Professor Nadalo’s abstract is as follows;

“Although most historical Judaica were created for ritual use within a synagogue or domestic setting, in the late 19th century Jewish artifacts such as Torah Arks and Hanukkah Lamps were increasingly removed from their original contexts and exhibited within secular exhibitions and art museums. The first major Judaica exhibition took place in Paris amidst the 1878 World’s Fair, followed soon thereafter by the foundation of Jewish museums in cities across Europe (a trajectory explored in the recent work of Dominique Jarrassé and Natalia Berger). However, both then and now, the musealization of Jewish material culture poses interpretive challenges for curators, viewers, and communities alike. How should the artifacts of a
historically persecuted religious minority be mediated for a heterogeneous museum public? Should they be exhibited as historic relics, incorporated into the canon of decorative art, or analyzed as ethnographic objects of a global Diaspora? Although the discursive practices surrounding museology have changed since the 19th century, these same questions are essential to museum practice today. Drawing on case studies from museums in Paris, London, and New York, this paper examines recent curatorial efforts to mediate the history and symbolism of Judaica for contemporary audiences. By recognizing the multivalent nature of these objects and their ability to oscillate between art and ethnography, social history and spirituality, museum curators and gallery educators can better communicate with audiences on multiple levels to promote a thoughtful and impactful connection with the collection.”

Overall, aside from bringing her expertise to our students, Professor Nadalo continues to explore her interests, aiding in new research findings and encouraging our students to do the same.