Art Exhibitions as intersections in Post War Europe

This international conference seeks to address the art exhibition as a site of international relations and a mirror of society across East and West Europe during the post war period.

Scholars of art history and exhibition studies are increasingly investigating the role of art institutions in the circulation of art, in post war Europe. The movement of art between East and West Europe, and the heterogenic nature of contemporary art and exhibitions during the cold war period, have come into focus.

This international conference seeks to address the art exhibition as a site of international relations and a mirror of society across East and West Europe during the post war period. We seek researchers interested in the myriad of exhibitions revealed from institutional archives, avoiding stereotypical focus on landmark exhibitions. The aim is to present a heterogenic history of art, movement of artists, and collaborations facilitating exhibitions during the post war period.

To sign up for the conference, go to: https://axacoair.se/go?6UITw6iv
For enquires, contact: exhibitionsconference@sh.se

Programme

Wednesday May 11th (9.00 – 17.00)

Location: The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Fredsgatan 12

9.00-9.30 coffee + registration

9.30-10.00 welcome and introduction by organizers

10.00 - 11.00 – Session 1

• Fedora Parkmann (CEFRES/Charles University, Prague): International Exhibitions of Art Photography and the Politics of Peace. A case study from Czechoslovakia
• Michał Wenderski (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań): Exhibiting Art across the Iron Curtain: Case Study of Poland and the Netherlands at the Outset of the Cold War

11.00 - 11.15 – Break

11.15 - 12.15 – Session 2

• Chiara Faggella (Politecnico di Milano): Nutida Italiensk konst/Italiana (Stockholm,1953). Popularizing Italian fashion through art
• Julia Błaszczyńska (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań): The 1st International Furniture Triennial in Poznań - a tool of communist power or a designers' playground?

12.15-13.15 Lunch & visits to nearby art galleries

13.15 - 14.15 – Session 3

• Marco Musillo: Exhibiting the Vietnam War in Italy: Art Displays, Politics, and Infotainment at Communist Festivals (1965-1975)
• Line Ellegaard (University of Copenhagen): Exhibiting (in) Solidarity: ‘Art contre/against Apartheid’ touring Sweden, Finland and Denmark in 1983-84

14.15 - 14:30 Break

14.30 - 15.30 – Session 4

• Ljiljana Kolešnik & Tihana Puc (Institute of Art History, Zagreb): Yugoslav Cold War practices of international cultural exchange in visual arts. Negotiating political constraints of authorial approach to curating
• Harriet Atkinson (University of Brighton): ‘A clash of individualities’? Artists International Association’s The Mirror and the Square exhibition, 1952

15:30 -16:00 – Coffee break

16.00 - 17.00 – Keynote Dr. phil. Mária Orišková, Trnava University:

From Hanoi and Havana to Paris and New York: Czecho-Slovak Cultural-Diplomatic Exhibitions during the Cold War

Thursday May 12th (10.00 – 17.00)

Location: Moderna Museet, Skeppsholmen

10.10-10.20 Intro by Anna Tellgren, Curator and Head of Research, Moderna Museet

10.20-11.50 – Session 5

• Magdalena Holdar (Stockholm University): Exploring Art and Expanding Networks. The Many Functions of Atelier Mary Bauermeister (Cologne 1960-61)
• Wiktor Komorowski (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Cold War Exhibitions of Graphic Art: Tallinn Print Triennial (1968) and the reversed power of printed image
• Annabel Ruckdeschel (University of Giessen): The GDR’s INTERGRAFIK exhibition „for peace, friendship, and anti- imperialist solidarity“ in 1973

11.50-13.30 lunch and look around in collections

13.30- 14.30 – Session 6

• Maija Koskinen (University of Turku): “Free” art from the free world: American art exhibitions in Finland in the 1960s and 1970s
• Kristian Handberg (University of Copenhagen): Exhibiting Cobra across the Iron Curtain–exhibition diplomacy and modernism as Ostpolitik in Cold War Europe 1960-1989

14.30-14.50 – Coffee break

14.50-15.50 – Session 7

• Marcela Hanáčková (Academy of Arts Architecture and Design, Prague): A travelling exhibition of socialist realism. Soviet architecture propaganda at the outbreak of the Cold War
• Mehmet Sülek (University of Amsterdam): The Biennial Effect: From Comparative Art History to Art History of Cultural Transfers

15.50-16.00 – Break

16.00-17.00 – Keynote: Anthony Gardner (University of Oxford) Reimagining the World: Curatorial Dialogues from Yugoslavia

Please note that the programme is subject to change

This conference is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and organised within the research project: Exhibiting Art in a European Periphery? International Art in Sweden during the Cold War, funded by the Swedish Research Council