Round-table
Thérèse Bonney, Chana Orloff in her studio, 66-68 rue d’Assas, 1924. Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, © The Regents of the University of California, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
As part of the Chana Orloff. Sculpter l’époque exhibition at the Musée Zadkine in Paris, a round-table discussion will bring together art historian Paula Birbaum (specialist of C. Orloff’s work and author of her biography), Juliette Singer (curator of the Le Paris de la modernité – 1905-1925 exhibition at the Petit Palais) and Abigail Solomon-Godeau (art historian whose research focuses on gender theory and photography). Starting with the portrait of C. Orloff taken in her studio by photographer Thérèse Bonney, this discussion will raise the question of self-representation, both as an artist and as a modern woman, through photography and sculpture. It will also explore the sculptor’s position and career in the Parisian art scene in the first half of the 20th century.
The event will be held in French.
Practical information
Thursday 14 March 2024, 6:30pm
Villa Vassilieff
21, avenue du Maine, 75015 Paris
Free entry.
Paula J Birnbaum is the inaugural Ann Getty Chair, professor of art history and museum studies, and director of the Museum Studies masters program at the University of San Francisco. A specialist in modern and contemporary art, she holds a PhD in art history from Bryn Mawr College. She is a former Fulbright in France fellow and researcher at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University. Her research is focused on modern and contemporary art in relation to gender and sexuality, as well as on social and institutional politics in museum exhibitions. She has published three books: Sculpting a Life: Chana Orloff Between Paris and Tel Aviv (Brandeis University Press, 2023); Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities (Ashgate/Routledge, 2011, reprinted in 2016); and an anthology (coedited with Anna Novakov), Essays on Women’s Artistic and Cultural Contributions 1919-1939 (Edwin Mellen, 2009).
Juliette Singer is head conservator at the Petit Palais, the museum of Fine Arts of Paris, and future director of the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille and of the Hospice Comtesse Museum (April 2024). Curator of the exhibition “Modern Paris, 1905-1925,” she was also interim director of the Petit Palais from October 2021 to February 2022. As the head of contemporary art projects at the museum, she invited artists Jean-Michel Othoniel in 2021 and Ugo Rondinone in 2022, as well as Loris Gréaud in 2023 for the exhibition “The Cortical Nights.” Laureate of the National Heritage Institute’s recruitement competition, and holding degrees in art history and philosophy, she was chief curator in charge of modern and contemporary art at the Louvre Abu Dhabi for four years (2016-2020). Earlier in her career, she was the director of collections at Paris Musées (2013-2016) and conservator of the museums of Boulogne-Billancourt (2010-2013).
Abigail Solomon-Godeau is an art historian, critic, and curator whose work centers primarily on gender theory, feminist studies, 19th century visual culture in France, and the histories of photography and contemporary art. Professor emeritus at UCSB, she is notably the author of Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices (1991) and Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation in (1997). Her numerous essays on the subject of art and photography of the 19th and 20th centuries have appeared in October, Afterimage, Screen, Art in America et Art Forum, among others, as well as in French in Le Magazine du Jeu de Paume (2013 and 2015). An anthology published in 2016, Chair à canons : Photographie, discours, féminisme (Éditions Textuel) brings together a selection of her writings about the history of photography, documentary practices, and the representation of the feminine.
Accessibility
The Villa Vassilieff is accessible to visitors with reduced mobility, thanks to special facilities (access ramp, adapted toilets and elevators).
Several reserved parking spaces are available in the vicinity of the Villa Vassilieff:
- in front of 4 rue d’Alençon
- in front of 7 rue Antoine Bourdelle
- in front of 23 rue de l’Arrivée
