Dr. Ivo Blom

Ivo Blom is lecturer at the Department of Comparative Arts & Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. There he runs the international Master’s specialization Intermedialities in Media and Art of the Master Comparative Arts and Media Studies. Ivo Blom studied art history in Utrecht and Leiden (1979-1986). From 1989 to 1994, he worked as archivist and restorer at the Netherlands Filmmuseum (now EYE Film Institute). From 1991 on, Blom regularly published in Dutch and foreign journals, volumes and encyclopedias on early cinema, in particular on Italian, Dutch, German and French cinema; on such genres as the diva film, epic cinema, early comedy and early non-fiction; and on distribution and exhibition. From 1994 to 2000, he wrote his dissertation at the University of Amsterdam (2000), which was published in 2003 as Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade. Currently, Blom’s main research focuses on intervisual relationships between cinema and other arts. While finishing a major study on Luchino Visconti’s appropriation of visual arts, his subsequent research will focus on early Italian cinema amidst arts, publicity and popular culture.

Ivo Blom is member of the editorial board of the Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis for which he co-edited the special issues Games & History (2004) and Cinema in Context (2007). Until 2007, he also was on the editorial board of Jong Holland, journal on Art & Visual Culture, publishing on Jean-Léon Gérôme and silent epic Quo Vadis? (2001) and on Visconti, Hayez and intermediality (2006). Blom is member of the Dutch research school Huizinga Instituut; the seminar Visuele Cultuur; the International Association for Word & Image (IAWIS); the Vereniging Geschiedenis Beeld & Geluid (Association for Image & Sound); the Network for European Cinema Studies (NECS); and Domitor, Association for the Study of Early Cinema. Blom has given lectures at numerous universities, and contributed to workshops and conferences in Western-Europe and the United States.

Ivo Blom has been guest lecturer at the University of Siena (2006-2008) and guest researcher at the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (2007), the latter after being awarded with the Dr. Blok Stipendium. He co-organised the conferences The Artist’s Biography on Film (2004), Diva Dolorosa: la gestualità sofferta (2004) and Visconti & Visual Arts (2006). In 2009, Ivo Blom co-organised the exploratory workshop Intermedialities: Theory and Practice of the European Science Foundation. He has been member of PhD jury’s at the Sorbonne, Paris3 (2009) and the University of Gent (2006, 2009), and advisor for NWO (the Dutch National Research Council), the VU Faculty of Arts and the Mediafonds. In 2004-2005, he was initiator of the exhibition Blikvangers on 60 years of Dutch film poster design.