‘Paths to Europe. Iconoclasm’

Art is moving but can also cause commotion, is venerated and destroyed. These two phenomena are timeless and the international controversy about the Mohammed cartoons a few years ago are a potent demonstration of the power that images can wield and the controversies they can cause. We all vividly remember the shockwave that IS caused by destroying antique sculptures. But what provokes this emotional response in people? Semiotics have shown that art only exists by the grace of the individual who “uses”, “reads”, “praises” it or “treats it with contempt”. The more violent the emotions that images provoke, the more interesting the work often is or becomes. Welcome to this symposium on the complexity of imagery and the impact of its use.

Speakers:
Ralph Dekoninck (Professor UCLouvain, Department of Arts and Philosophy) 
Cosmoclasme. Les images de la destruction du système des objets du culte aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Cosmoclasm. The images of the destruction of the system of religious objects in the 16th and 17th centuries)

Koenraad Jonckheere (Professor Ghent University, Department Arts and Philosophy) 
A sheep in the uncanny valley. The manipulated image

Barbara Baert (Professor Catholic University of Leuven, Department History of Art) 
The statue of the woman with the bloodflow

Till-Holger Borchert (Director Musea Brugge) 
The innovative power of destruction

Joris Van de Moortel (Artist)
The sound of, an iconoclasm to scale

David Freedberg (Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University)
What is there left to say about iconoclasm? Image destruction and image removal in the age of digitalization

Chair:
Sabine van Sprang, Curator Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium, curator of the exhibition Theodoor van Loon. A Caravaggist Painter between Rome and Brussels.