Picturing the Present: Gegenwart im Bild und Bild in der Gegenwart, University of Leipzig, June 14–15, 2018
When an image is made to depict the present moment, how do people engage with it? And, once that present moment is past, can that image ever again regain its claim to depicting the present or reclaim the immediacy it once held? Or will it then forever become merely a gateway to the past, only accessible through analogy, the imagination, or historical inquiry? This conference investigates how images originally made to depict the present function as they transition from contemporary depictions to historical ones, asking how the present remains ‘present’ over time.