Art Historian Darius Spieth Lectures in France Prior to 2024 Olympics
Darius Spieth, professor of art history, gave a series of talks on his research at European art history events in summer 2024.
On May 22, 2024, Spieth gave the lecture, “Flea Markets from a Historical Perspective and Their Contemporary Challenges: The Example of St. Ouen” at the Brussels Art Market Workshop. Organized by the ULB – Université libre de Bruxelles at the Academie royale de Belgique (Belgian Royal Academy.)
“This talk is about the historical beginnings of flea markets in the late nineteenth century, especially that of St. Ouen, near Paris, which gave flea markets their name, “marchés aux puces” (from the fleas sold together with recycled – today vintage – clothing),” Spieth said.
The research retraces the evolution from a place for recycling in the late 19th century (old clothing, iron) to its rise as a design hotspot and tourist destination in the late 20th century, and, finally, the current threat of gentrification to the area. Regarding the challenges of gentrification at St. Ouen, I discuss the fate of the “Espace Steinitz” as a case study.
“My research contextualizes the evolution of the St. Ouen flea market within the urban evolution of Paris and its surrounding territory, the banlieue, from the period of Haussmannization (1850s onward) to the construction of the ‘boulevard periphérique’ (the large, always congested highway surrounding Paris) in the 1950s and 1960s and beyond. I also discuss how the ‘bric-à-brac’ culture of antiques, porcelain, furniture, old clothing, etc. at St. Ouen inspired major modern artists of the 19th to the 21st centuries, including Edouard Manet, Picasso, Henri Matisse, André Breton, Colette, Suzanne Valadon, Claude Verlinde, Jean-Pierre Alaux, Vincent Darré, etc., and how this function as a creative hub endures to the present day.”
Articles on the topic are forthcoming.
On June 2, 2024 Spieth spoke at the Festival of Art History (Saturnin Festival de l’histoire de l’art) in Fontainebleau at Château de Fontainebleau, France. The three-day is the most important gathering of art historians in the francophone world. The prestigious event takes place annually in the sixteenth-century Renaissance castle of Fontainebleau, near Paris. This year’s festival was themed around “Sports,” in reference to the summer 2024 Olympics in Paris.
His talk “Les plaisirs du sport et ses détracteurs dans l’art de l’entre-deux-guerres” (The Pleasures of Sports and Its Opponents in the Art between the Two World Wars) touched upon these themes.
“The pleasures of sports and the praise of body culture – trends that were fostered in part by the opening of the Olympics to art competitions in the early 20th century, the availability of photographic motion studies of the body in action, and the extensive advertisement campaigns and commercialization of the Paris Games of 1924 – became essential themes for modern art and literature between the two World Wars,” he said.
But the aestheticization of sports did not please everyone. The talk at the Festival of Art History at Fontainebleau retraces these artistic and literary debates between the two World Wars and shows how they were finally rendered mute by the appropriation of the sports iconography by Fascist regimes and their propaganda machineries.
On June 12 & 13, 2024 he gave the talk “Les Templitudes” at House of the Learned Societies (Maison des sociétés savantes), in Bordeaux, France, hosted by the Archeological Society of Bordeaux. “Gustave Debrie et la genèse artistique des chevaux marins du Monument aux Girondins (Gustave Debrie and the Artistic Genesis of the Sea Horses of the Monuments to the Girondins in Bordeaux)” explores the Monument of the Girondins on the Square of the Quinconces in Bordeaux is a monumental sculpture that defines in many ways the appearance of the city.
This talk focuses particularly on the bronze sea horses of the monument, which were the contribution of the Parisian sculptor Gustave Debrie (1842-1932).
“My research is also concerned with the illustrious precedents of these sea horses: the fountain with Apollo’s chariot at the Château de Versailles, crated between 1668 and 1670 by Jean-Baptiste Tuby, after drawings by Charles le Brun, builder of Versailles; the horses of Marly by Guillaume Coustou (1743-1745); the paintings and drawings by Théodore Géricault from the early nineteenth century; and the Fountain of the Four Parts of the World, known as the “Fontaine de l’Observatoire,” realized in Paris in 1874 by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.
During the NAZI occupation of Bordeaux, during WWII, the Monument of the Girondins was disassembled for scrap metal, but its components were miraculously saved. After lengthy discussions, the monument was restored and reassembled in its original location in the early 1980s.”
His article on the topic will appear in the annual Revue archéologique de Bordeaux.