Art, Architecture and Design Lecture Series - Alan Krell

Art, Architecture and Design Lecture Series
Semester 2 2012

Alan Krell
Associate Professor in Art History and Theory
College of Fine Arts (COFA), The University of New South Wales

Barbed wire and fire – artefact and element

This illustrated talk reflects on some inter-relations between the visual and the haptic though the mediation of barbed wire and fire – artefact and element. Alan Krell takes his fascinating examples from such contrasting sources as museums dedicated to barbed wire in the US and the Nazi death camp, Treblinka; from asylum-seekers seeking refuge in Australia and housed in wired-off detention centres; to notions of home and hearth, their representations, and the writings of Vitruvius and Alberti.

Dr Alan Krell is an Associate Professor in Art History and Theory at the College of Fine Arts (COFA), The University of New South Wales, Sydney, and co-ordinator of COFA’s Bachelor of Art Theory program which he helped design some 20 years ago. Alan has also taught in tertiary institutions overseas in Cape Town, Bristol and Staffordshire. His books include Manet and the Painters of Contemporary Life (London, 1996); the widely acclaimed The Devil’s Rope: A Cultural History of Barbed Wire (London, 2002); and, most recently, Burning Issues: Fire in Art and the Social Imagination (London, 2011).