Summary: October 18th Panel on the Nude Portrait and the Nude Self-Portrait

The Robert Giard Foundation thanks the artists and the enthusiastic audience who spent Saturday afternoon, October 18th at the School of Visual Arts to discuss various topics relating to “The Nude Portrait and the Nude Self Portrait.”

The program began with moderator Julia Van Haaften (author and founding curator of the New York Public Library’s Photography Department) providing an introductory history of the nude in photography.  It was followed by presentations and dialogues with critic Vince Aletti (The New Yorker, Photograph, Aperture), Steven Haas (photographer and director of the George Platt Lynes Foundation), photographer Hrvoje Slovenc (http://www.hrvojeslovenc.com) and photographer Jessica Yatrofsky (http://www.jessicayatrofsky.com).

The program continued with moderator James Saslow (professor of art history at CUNY and trustee of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art) history of the nude self-portrait in the visual arts followed by presentations and conversations with photographer Jen Davis (http://www.jendavisphoto.com), curator and writer, Wayne Northcross, (The New York Observer, Un-Titled Project, Artkapsule.com), photographer Yijun “Pixy” Liao (http://www.yijunliao.com), and photographer Shen Wei (http://www.shenphoto.com).

This panel discussion was inspired by the Spring 2014 issue of Studies in Gender and Sexuality (Volume 15: No. 2, Spring 2014), edited by Board member Muriel Dimen, features “The Giard Portfolio,” with essays by Allen Ellenzweig, Dolores Klaich, Michael Jay McClure, and Jonathan Silin. It also presents an edited transcript of a roundtable, “Through the lens of psychoanalysis: The photographic portraiture of Robert Giard,” held at the opening of the 2012 exhibit, “Just as you are,” at the University of Toronto Arts Centre. To order your copy, visit www.tandfonline.com

Our special thanks to Robert Barton, Bernard Gibson, Kelly Sullivan, and Charles Traub of the School of Visual Arts.