Luckily on the second day of the History of Art symposiums, set aside separately for the Masters students, I was able to set a few hours aside to attend a few presentations. I caught the first section of the papers, based on the unexpected theme of superheroes in the everyday, art and politics.
Linda Mary Jones started off by discussing some local Liverpool creatives, in particular Adrian Henri and Edward Lucie-Smith. She presented their involvement in magazines and books at that time about the Liverpool scene and sound. She used these experimental creations of theirs and the success of creatives in the 1960s (including The Beatles) to suggest and support that it made Liverpool more complete than London, through being collegiate and not elitist. Through her research she discovered that it was because of the creations of superheroes such as Batman and Superman that people were licensed to be creative; they provided a “celebration of unease” that creatives passed and were able to pursue through uneasiness and create bold characters, such as The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper.
Lesley White followed up this theme of the superhuman in her paper ‘Superman in Contemporary Film: A Modern Hero for Immigrant America’, an idea I had never acknowledged before now. Her idea stemmed from Superman being the first of his kind, entering American society and being met with protest and disgust, as shown in the 2013 film ‘Man of Steel’, in which the Xenophobic signs truly exploit the reality of immigrants in America, particularly at the moment. Her support for this area of research came from the original creators of Superman, Joe Shushter and Jerry Siegal, in 1938. Both men were Jewish immigrants in America who use their own experiences and many references to those of the biblical Moses when introducing Superman as this new type of person in America. They show how assimilation is expected of immigrants through his alternate identity, Clark Kent; a man in suits, with a mainstream job, who causes no issues. I really enjoyed Lesley’s connections that she made through her research, and her references to current affairs politically made her information very valid, even compared to the original creation in 1938.
I was unfortunately unable to stay for any of the other presentations, despite being intrigued by a few of the paper titles in the handbook provided, but hope to contact those speakers and perhaps ask for a copy of their paper.
HXLLISON ART HISTORY 