Basel, 02. - 03.10.2015

Das Schweizer Nachwuchsforum Bildforschung östliches Europa ist eine schweizweite akademische Plattform für die Begegnung, den Austausch und die Vernetzung von Schweizer Nachwuchsforscher/innen, die sich in ihren aktuellen Forschungsprojekten mit Aspekten der Kunst- und Bildgeschichte sowie mit visuellen Medien und Kulturen im östlichen Europa beschäftigen.

In letzter Zeit erreichte der „visual turn“, die ikonische Wende, verstärkt auch die Area Studies wie die Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung. Das zunehmende fachübergreifende Interesse für die visuelle Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europas und der angrenzenden Regionen des Nahen Ostens, des Kaukasus und Zentralasiens spiegelt sich in der wachsenden Zahl an Forschungsarbeiten mit einem Schwerpunkt auf der Analyse von visuellen Medien des östlichen Europas, die derzeit vor allem von einer jungen Generation Schweizer Wissenschaftler/innen durchgeführt werden. Diese in den verschiedenen geisteswissenschaftlichen Disziplinen zu beobachtende Hinwendung zu den vielfältigen Phänomenen von Visualität im östlichen Europa bietet eine grosse Chance für die Formierung einer schweizweiten interdisziplinären Bildforschung zum östlichen Europa und den angrenzenden Regionen. Das Spektrum der sich gegenwärtig stellenden wissenschaftlichen Fragen und untersuchten visuellen Medien ist äusserst vielfältig: Sie erstrecken sich von der Geschichte der Fotografie im russischen Zarenreich über die Kunstgeschichte der 1970er und 80er Jahre im ehemaligen Ostblock bis hin zur visuellen Kriegsberichterstattung der Jugoslawienkriege – um nur einige Facetten zu nennen, welche eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem östlichen Europa aus einer dezidiert bildwissenschaftlichen Perspektive dringlich machen. Umso mehr lohnt es sich, durch die Schaffung eines Forums die derzeit vorhandenen Potenziale der Nachwuchsforschung zu bündeln und mit ihnen die Theorie und Geschichte der Bilder im östlichen Europa in den Mittelpunkt der akademischen, aber auch der öffentlichen Aufmerksamkeit zu rücken.

Das im Herbst 2015 veranstaltete Schweizer Nachwuchsforum Bildforschung östliches Europa bildet den Auftakt für eine Forumsreihe, die einmal jährlich am Kompetenzzentrum Kulturelle Topographien der Universität Basel ausgerichtet werden soll. Die Forumsreihe richtet sich an junge Wissenschaftler/innen aller geisteswissenschaftlichen Disziplinen aus der ganzen Schweiz, die an Fragen einer interdisziplinären Bildforschung des östlichen Europas interessiert sind und diese fachübergreifend diskutieren wollen. Begleitet wird das Forum durch einen öffentlichen Abendvortrag von ausgewiesenen Experten/innen auf dem Gebiet der Kunst- und Bildgeschichte des östlichen Europas. Am Abend des 2. Oktober 2015 hält Prof. Dr. Michaela Marek, Professorin für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte Osteuropas an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, einen öffentlichen Gastvortrag. Das diesjährige Forum setzt sich zusammen aus eingeladenen Doktorand/innen und PostDocs der Kunst-, Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, der Islamwissenschaften, der Volkskunde sowie der Germanistik.

Als Ausrichtungsort des Forums bietet sich die Universität Basel besonders an – sowohl durch die exponierte Rolle der Bildwissenschaften, die der Universität durch eikones NFS Bildkritik zukommen, als auch durch die wachsende Zahl an Forschungsarbeiten in Basel mit Schwerpunkt auf der Bildgeschichte des östlichen Europas.

Programm

Ort: Slavisches Seminar Basel, Nadelberg 8, Seminarraum 13 /Alte Universität Rheinsprung 9, Hörsaal U101

Freitag, 2. Oktober 2015

9:30–9:45
Barbara Schellewald
Begrüssung durch die Dekanin der Philosophisch-Historischen Fakultät

9:45–10:00
Martina Baleva & Frithjof Benjamin Schenk: Einführung

Moderation: Markus Klammer
10:00–10:45

Sandra Bradvi?: Die Gruppe Zvono [Die Glocke]: Mechanismen medialer Selbstinszenierung

10:45–11:30
Uta Karrer: Aus politisch wurde naiv: Bildtransfers zwischen politischen Systemen (Polen und BRD)

11:30–11:45
Kaffeepause

Moderation: Frithjof Benjamin Schenk
11:45–12:30
Kathrin Chlench-Priber: Materiale und visuelle Aspekte in der Überlieferung der Gebete Johanns von Neumarkt

12:30–14:00
gemeinsames Mittagessen

Moderation: Nataša Miškovi?
14:00–14:45
Laura Elias: Bilder des Fremden. Visuelle Repräsentationen von Mulitethnizität im späten Zarenreich

14:45–15:30
Olga Osadtschy: Going Down Memory Lane – Fotografie und die Konstruktion jüdischer Identität um 1900

15:30–16:00
Kaffeepause

Moderation: Eva Ehninger
16:00–16:45
Lenka Fehrenbach: Menschen und Maschinen. Personenaufnahmen in der russischen Industriefotografie vor 1917

16:45–17:30
Natalia Ganahl: Linearperspektive in der Sowjetzeit, zur Archäologie des Dispositivs

18:15–19:45
Öffentlicher Abendvortrag
Ort: Alte Universität, Rheinsprung 9, Hörsaal U101
Begrüssung & Einführung: Martina Baleva

Vortrag
Michaela Marek
Gestalten der Vergangenheit. Was Kunstgeschichte über Kunst wissen will (und was nicht)

ab 20:00
gemeinsames Abendessen

Samstag, 3. Oktober 2015

09:30–09:45
Begrüssung: Martina Baleva & Frithjof Benjamin Schenk

Moderation: Kata Krasznahorkai
09:45–10:30
Milanka Mati?: Die Frau – Aushängeschild der Illustrierten. Das gestalterische Konzept von Žena i Svet (Belgrad) und Resimli Ay (Istanbul)

10:30–11:15
Nadine Freiermuth-Samardzi?: Ästhetische Kennung einer belagerten Stadt: Fotografien aus Sarajevo

11:15–11:30
Kaffeepause

Moderation: Martina Baleva
11:30–12:15
Henning Lautenschläger: „Wieglein und Stühlchen“ des Zaren. Die Farbaufnahmen Sergej Prokudin-Gorskijs in Publikationen zum 300-jährigen Thronjubiläum der Romanov-Dynastie 1913

12:15–13:00
Joël László: Die Gesichter des Wahlvolks. Wahlen und ihre fotografische Inszenierung in der frühen Republik Türkei

Conference of the Institute of Slavic Studies at University of Zurich

Mapping Early Soviet Union by “Participant Observation” in Literature, Film, and Photography (1920-1930s)

Programme
Friday, 9th Oct. 2015
Main building, Ramistr. 71, room KOL-H-317
9.00 Sylvia Sasse, Tatjana Hofmann: introduction

Mapping by Photography

9.30 Anja Burghardt (Munich): The presentation of non-Russian ethnicities in the journals Sovetskoe foto and SSSR na stroike
10.15 Martin Hinze (Freiburg): Soviet Union’s topography – horizontal or vertical? Novyi Lef and the discussion on photography in 1928
11.30 Devin Fore (Princeton): Observation and agnosia: Tret’iakov’s photography
12.15 > Lunch <

Production and Cartography
14.00 Igor Chubarov (Moscow): Эстетика производства как прием картографии новой Советской страны – воспитание коллективной чувственности

Mapping by Film
14.45 Barbara Wurm (Berlin): On tracks and facts. Aleksandr Litvinov’s Lesnye ljudi (1928) and Po debrjam Ussurijskogo kraja (1928)
15.30 > Coffee break <
16.00 Franziska Thun (Berlin): Tret’iakov’s texts on Georgia and the movie Sol’ Svanetii
16.45 Discussion

Saturday, 10th Oct. 2015
Institute of Slavic Studies, Plattenstr. 43, room 111

Appropriating the Other: Focus China
9.00 Lars Kleberg (Stockholm): The double view in Tret’iakov’s Deṅ Sǐ -chua (aka A Chinese Testament )
9.45 Mark Gamsa (Tel Aviv), Tatjana Hofmann (Zurich): Sergei Tret’iakov’s Čžungo: Reportage from China in the 1920s.

Observation and Theatre
10.45 > Coffee break <
11.15 Pavel Arseniev (Lausanne/Petersburg): Китайское путешествие С. Третьякова: поэтический захват действительности по пути к “литературе факта”
13.30 Denis Ioffe (Gent): Mapping Sergei Tretyakov’s play Roar China! as a documentary simulacrum. The decorations of truth and the radical theatricality between Tretyakov and Meyerhold
14.15 Edward Tyerman (Barnard College): “I sing on behalf of the Chinese”: Sergei Tret’iakov’s poem Roar China between documentary and myth
15.00 > Coffee break <

In Search of the Soviet Gaze
15.30 Evgeny Pavlov (Canterbury): Mapping the Caucasus (with Goethe and Kant): Andrei Bely’s attempts at Soviet travel writing
16.15 Susanne Stratling (Berlin/Konstanz): The author as researcher. Boris Pil’niak’s writing expeditions
17.00 Concluding discussion

Deadline: Sep 30, 2015

Global Art Challenges: Towards an “Ecology of Knowledges”

The International Conference Global Art Challenges: Towards an “Ecology of Knowledges” aims to reformulate established approaches to the study of global art in the face of ongoing challenges in that field. Building on sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santo’s concept of an “ecology of knowledges” (2007), the conference seeks to go beyond “abyssal thinking in modern Western-based conceptions” of art and to trace lines of inquiry into new epistemological approaches to global art studies. As theorized by de Sousa Santos, ecological thinking, understood as a counter-epistemology, recognizes the plurality of heterogeneous knowledge(s) and highlights the dynamic interconnections that exist between them. Hence, faced with a longstanding monocultural conception of knowledge and art an “ecology of knowledges” conceives of knowledge-as-intervention-in-reality rather than a hierarchical preference of Western knowledge(s) over other forms of knowing.

This approach proposes an emancipatory attempt to supersede predominant epistemological frameworks that continue to reproduce the power structures that have dominated Western thinking since the Renaissance. Despite the spatial turn of global studies, longstanding monocultural (Western) conceptions of knowledge and art continue to impact and shape the study of global art, as well as its theorization and the validation of artistic practices around the world. An “ecology of knowledges”, as suggested by de Sousa Santos, is a useful concept to counteract this perspective. It recognises the plurality of artistic knowledge(s) and its socio-political agency in modern and contemporary global art. This concept grapples with the current debates surrounding the need to reassess global art study’s methodological tools, calling for the importance of a transcultural and horizontal art history that puts the accent on transnational transfers, cultural encounters, circulatory and transformation processes.

This conference seeks to discuss, from a methodological, epistemological and practical perspective, the possibilities of developing an “ecology of knowledges” in art history, regarding also artistic and institutional practices. It looks for ways to overcome Western hierarchies and enter into a proactive dialogue between practices, methods and discourses. Such perspectives, we hope, will contribute to questioning taxonomies, values, temporalities, and dichotomies that have not just been a part of the art historic discipline since its foundation, but that have been imposed as universal and taken-for-granted. Finally, the conference seeks to become a platform for debating the possibilities of breaking that (Western-dominated) view within art history, seeking a starting point for a change of paradigm in the understanding of global art.

FOR COMPLETE CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION AND ABSTRACT SUBMISSION PROCEDURE, SEE FULL POST

https://mlasymposia.commons.mla.org/call-for-papers/

Other Europes: Migrations, Translations, Transformations
MLA International Symposia: Translating the Humanities
Düsseldorf, Germany, 23–25 June 2016

The Modern Language Association of America, the world’s largest professional organization for scholars of literature and language, announces its first conference outside the United States and Canada, organized in collaboration with the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

Europe remains a conspicuous part of the global public imagination and a haunting presence in literary and cultural studies across the globe, even as claims for its centrality continue to be challenged from a variety of political and theoretical perspectives. This conference brings together an international group of scholars and engages the paradigms in and through which they work. It seeks to develop ways of thinking that emerge from and address Europe’s evolving political, economic, historical, and philosophical role in a world of ever-shifting migrations, translations, and transformations.

We invite proposals across a broad range of historical periods and disciplines that engage with literary and cultural texts and practices as they interact with or resist political, economic, scientific, or philosophical models of thought.

Papers might be grouped under the following rubrics:

• Marking time: dynasties, empires, revolutions, republics, regimes; pasts, presents, futures, aftermaths; trauma and memory, ghosts and hauntings; generations; “senses” of history; literary times and periods
• European maps: East, West, North, South; city, country, banlieue; center, margin, periphery; borders, boundaries, contact zones; the “other” within and the “other” without
• European economies and the economies of European cultures
• European subjects and identities: religions, genders, sexualities, ages, affects, bodies
• Community, nation, migration, mobility, roots
• Precarious lives: citizens, migrants, refugees
• Postcoloniality, decoloniality, subalternity, hegemony, sovereignty
• Languages of Europe; multilingualism; Latin, French, English as lingua francas
• European cultural politics and institutions: the economies of European cultures, book fairs, film festivals, prizes, universities, publication, national cultural organizations such as the Goethe-Institut, the Alliance Française, and the Instituto Cervantes
• Translation, resistance, transmission
• Theory transfers
• Media and genres, old and new
• Transatlantic Europe

The conference will feature several keynote talks and roundtables, as well as traditional sessions with three or four fifteen-minute papers, workshops with precirculated papers, and roundtable conversations based on five-minute presentations. We invite proposals for any of the above formats. Sessions will be ninety minutes long and include thirty minutes of discussion at the end.

The conference languages will be English, German, French, and Spanish, but papers can be delivered in any language if speakers arrange for written or oral translation within the time frame of the session.

Paper proposals should include the paper title, a 300-word abstract, the speaker’s institutional affiliation (if any), and a 1-page biography or CV.

Proposals for panels, workshops, and roundtables should contain the above items for each speaker, a brief description of the format (including an estimate of how many speakers will participate), and a rationale for the session’s topic(s) and format.

Please send submissions to othereuropes2016@hhu.de. All submissions must be received by 15 September 2015, and participants will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by 15 October 2015.

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, January 21 - 22, 2016
Deadline: Sep 27, 2015

Museum global? Multiple Perspectives on Art, 1904–1950

Currently, profound societal upheavals require a repositioning of the concept of “Modern Art.” As a museum, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is responding to the effects of globalization and digitalization by devoting itself to the pressing theme of “globalism” and the challenges associated with it.

With the project “museum global?” (2015–2017), the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen interrogates the grand narratives of Western modernism and its underlying canon. Through a research project conferences followed by exhibitions, and with a point of departure in our own collection, strongly grounded in the epoch of classical modernism, and hence in the art of Europe and North America, “museum global?” focuses on the period between 1904 and 1950. The oldest works in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen date from the early 20th century. A historical prelude is supplied by Henri Matisse’s small format painting Le goûter (Le golfe de Saint-Tropez) (1904). The collection’s core is formed by an ensemble of works by Paul Klee, an artist who was defamed as “degenerate” by the National Socialists and dismissed in 1933 from his teaching position at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1961, the acquisition of the Klee collection by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a move intended as a kind of political atonement, led to the museum’s foundation as a public institution.

The aim of the research project “museum global?” is from a contemporary perspective a critical interrogation of our own collection and the re-illumination of its history with reference to the period from 1904 to 1950. In search of diverse voices and for other narratives of modernity exemplary artworks from non-European regions become evident and will be analyzed, along with their contexts of production, with the intention of contributing to a revision of earlier perspectives. Special attention is devoted to the continuous transformation and development of the use of language and of terms such as “international,” “global,” “universal,” “cosmopolitan,” and “worldwide,” and of “classical modernism,” “rural modernism,” “local modernism,” or “Tropical modernism” and their changing meanings. The project will culminate in autumn of 2017 in a concluding exhibition that will simultaneously present the collection from a newly-won perspective while showcasing exemplary positions and phenomena from the focus period of 1904–1950.

A preparatory, academic conference will be held on January 21–22, 2016 at the Kunstsammlung (in German and English with simultaneous translation). This event is designed to bring together scholars who concentrate on regional phenomena and artistic and intellectual tendencies that are situated beyond, parallel, or in opposition to the so-called “modern” art scene in central Europe and North America. The introductory panel will be devoted to a revision of the modernist canon and its historiography. The main emphasis of the conference will be selected case studies that exemplify international exchanges via artists and artworks during the above-named time period.

We are hereby issuing an invitation to potential participants to give 30 minute talks based on research related to the following aspects:

• Questioning the narrative of modernist art history, in particular of Paris as a center of artistic activity during the first half of the 20th century;
• attempts to open up perspectives onto contemporanean artistic phenomena worldwide;
• examinations of hitherto little-discussed artistic practices and local art historiography worldwide;
• considerations of local artists and artist’s groups situated beyond the art scenes of Europe and North America;
• transcontinental artistic networks and collaborations;
• influential intellectual tendencies, ideas, discoveries, concepts, and fashions that interconnect different regions;
• art world protagonists and intermediators that have shaped dialogue and networks worldwide, thereby mediating between cultures and regions;
• current theoretical positions that, aware of the results of postcolonial studies, reflect critically on concepts such as “exoticism,” “primitivism,” or “Orientalism”;
• considerations of the relevant political, societal, and historical conditions, including specific historical examples, i.e. concerning mobility and travel of artists during the period as well as of trade routes and the circumstances of exile;
• interdisciplinary examinations of intersections between the visual and applied arts, literature/poetry, music, theater, dance, photography, and film.

Please submit abstracts of your contribution (300–500 words, in German or English) and a brief biography by September 27, 2015 to museumglobal@kunstsammlung.de. Travel costs for lecturers will be covered by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. Honoraria will be offered as well.

Given the large number of thematic foci for the period, for which research efforts have barely begun in the global context, this conference attempts explicitly to stimulate exchanges between scholars. For this purpose, and on our initiative, the research interest “global modern art museum” has been set up at http://www.academia.edu, and will hopefully serve as a common platform.

Please signal your interest in conference participation at http://goo.gl/forms/k2OmojfIpg. Starting in October of 2015, you will receive information concerning the conference program.

This research project of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen – in whose framework the conference is being organized – is sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes/German Federal Cultural Foundation.

Application deadline: Nov 30, 2015

ARP-Fellowships

Hans Arp (1886-1966) and Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) are among the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century. They galvanized the movements of Dada and Surrealism, and influenced the development of concrete art and organic abstraction. Since 1977 the Stiftung Arp e.V. has overseen the greater part of both artists’ estates. It holds one of the most comprehensive collections of their work and manages most of their written and photographic archives. The Foundation also has an extensive research library, which holds primary literature and catalogues of the work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Hans Arp as well as many publications of their broader artistic and cultural context.

In Fall 2015, the Stiftung Arp e.V. is awarding up to four research- and archive-fellowships to both junior scholars as well as to established researchers and curators whose work addresses the work of Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber Arp.

a) The archive and library fellowships are intended for junior scholars as well as established researchers and curators whose research project or exhibition addresses the work of Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber and who wish to research the collection, the archive and the library in person. Depending on the scope of the research project, fellowships will be awarded for the duration of 1 to 6 months. The monthly stipend ranges from 900 to 1,200 Euros and the amount is determined by the researcher’s qualifications. Residency is required.

b) The research fellowships are intended for junior scholars (pre- and postdoctoral), whose research engages with the work of Hans Arp and/or Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The period of support is one year, with a monthly stipend between 900 and 1,200 Euros, depending on the applicant’s qualifications. Residency is not required. However, the fellow is expected to consult the foundation’s collection and archive during the fellowship period. As a prerequisite to the application, the research project in question must be tied to a university or a research institution.

For the application for a research or archive fellowship please submit the following materials:

• CV
• Publication List
• Research Description and Plan: (3-5 pages)
• Summary of the project (max. 500 words)

Fellows will be selected by a committee of experts.

Please submit applications electronically to: steinkamp@stiftungarp.de

For further information and questions, please contact Dr. Maike Steinkamp, Stiftung Arp e.V.
Tel.: +49 (0) 3060967426

LECTURE SERIES:
Slade Lectures in Fine Art, 2015
University of Cambridge, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms
Tuesday 13th October - Tuesday, 1 December, 2015, at 5 p.m.

Professor John E. Bowlt

“Suddenly I forgot which comes first, 7 or 8”. Making Sense of the Russian Avant-Garde

The dramatic experiments in Russian art of the early 20th century constitute a primary contribution to the history of Modernism. The twilight aura of Symbolism, the disruption of Cubo-Futurism and the extreme heat of Revolutionary culture generated ideas, movements and styles which undermined traditional values, crossed disciplines and established radical visual codes. The object of this cycle of lectures is to revisit these innovations and to place them in a comparative context — taking due account of concurrent philosophical doctrines, material culture, the literary and performing arts and socio-political change.

13 October

1. In vino veritas? My Sentimental Journey into Russian Art.

20 October

1. Sergei Diaghilev: “Goodness me! What do I do with 2285 portraits?”

27 October

1. Sweet Confections, Enchanted Nights: Léon Bakst in Wonderland.

3 November

1. Trance, Transgression, Transmutation: Vasilii Kandinsky and the Other.

10 November

1. Distorting Mirrors: Reflections on Marc Chagall, Natal’ia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich….

17 November

1. Pavel Filonov and Atomic Energy.

24 November

1. “Write nothing! Read nothing! Say nothing! Print nothing!”. Zero and Revolution.

1 December

1. Isis and Ra: Stalin as Pharaoh.

For more information, visit: http://ccrac.hoart.cam.ac.uk/upcoming-events/

Russian Art: Building Bridges Between East and West. In Memoriam Dmitry Sarabyanov

Russian Art and Culture Group
Third Graduate Workshop

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Research IV, Campus Ring 1, Jacobs University Bremen, November 26–27, 2015

Language: English
Submission Deadline: October 1, 2015

Dmitry Sarabyanov (1923–2013), long-time head of the Department of Russian Art History at Moscow State University, was among the first scholars in the USSR to reconsider the so-called “formalist” artists, who had been denounced for ideological reasons, thus marking a turn in postwar Soviet thinking about Russian art. The third graduate workshop of the Russian Art and Culture Group focuses on a key aspect of Sarabyanov’s scholarship, the artistic dialogues between Russia and its neighbors to the west and to the east. We wish to not only explore Russian modernism and the avant-garde movements but encourage papers on Russian art of prior and subsequent developments up to the present day.

Paper topics might include:

• Russian artists in the West and in the East
• world art: Russia’s recognized and forgotten contributions
• “otherness” as inspiration and source of innovation
• Russian orientalism(s) and the formation of identity
• artistic exchange: competitions, collaborations, interactions
• the role of art magazines, exhibitions, and collections
• national vs. transnational art histories

We invite doctoral students, postgraduate researchers, and established academics to submit proposals for 30-minute presentations. Interdisciplinary approaches are very welcome. Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words, along with a short biographical note to Sebastian Borkhardt and Tanja Malycheva.

Notifications will be sent in mid-October. Please note that travel and accommodation expenses will not be reimbursed.

European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM), University of Rennes, France, June 1-3, 2016

Chair: Isabel Wünsche, Professor of Art and Art History, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany

Expressionism in literature, the visual arts, theatre, and film has fundamentally shaped European cultural identity throughout the first half of the 20th century and been identified with German artistic and intellectual culture in other European regions. However, within avant-garde studies Expressionism has often received less attention than Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism because of its stylistically less unified artistic idioms and its more subjective-individual and supposedly less radical stance.

This panel on Expressionist prints at EAM 2016 seeks to investigate the cultural energies released by Expressionist forces throughout greater Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Discussion will center on the revival and adaptation of graphic printing techniques such as, for example, woodcut and lithography by Expressionist artists and their exploration as a means for revealing heightened psychophysiological states of human being, which was often discussed in relation to new scientific discoveries in the emerging field of psychophysiological studies. Two aspects are of particular concern:

1) Expressionist explorations of graphic techniques and their expressive qualities as well as of related psychophysiological investigations into the creative process

2) the reception of Expressionist prints and the artistic discourses evolving around it in the various European regions

The panel invites papers on the exploration and reception of Expressionist printing techniques in the German-speaking world as well as in regions such as Scandinavia, the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Southern Europe.

Please send your abstracts by August 21, 2015 to i.wunsche@jacobs-university.de

http://www.imma.ie/en/page_237015.htm

On the approach of the centenary of Ireland’s Easter Rising and the subsequent establishment of the new Republic, IMMA is pleased to announce the exhibition, El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State. This exhibition reflects on the artistic and cultural community who gave voice to a new image for the emerging state and a visual language for its politics. It places this local reflection within a broader global consideration of the role of artists in the imagination of emergent states of the early 20th century, and acts as a contemporary exploration of the task of the artist in relation to civil society.

The exhibition brings together a significant body of works from the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, by El Lizzitsky (1890 - 1941), one of the most influential artists of the 20th century who is shown here for the first time in Ireland. El Lizzitsky was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution. For him the construction of the Soviet Union meant the opportunity to break away from traditional constraints. He used it to develop visions of a collective aesthetic of the new world, which he then embodied in his artworks.

These works, including an important body of his noted ‘Proun’ series, are shown in the context of archive material referencing the work of Irish nationalist poet and writer Alice Milligan (1865-1953), and her collaborator Maud Gonne (1866 - 1953). The exhibition explores their parallel visions of the activated artist central to the imagining of a new state. El Lissitzky and Milligan both envisaged their creative practices as tools for social and political change, although realising this through very different aesthetic languages and strategies. What becomes clear is the conviction and active participation in the task at hand: the artist as active in the formation of the new world order.

A contemporary counterpoint to the historical narrative is provided by the work of four artists - Rossella Biscotti, Núria Güell, Sarah Pierce and Hito Steyerl - whose work, in different ways, reflects on the position of the artist within our society now. Núria Güell and Rosella Biscotti directly address our position as individuals within the mechanics of the state. Sarah Pierce questions the task of the artist (both past and present) in addressing any kind of cohesive experience in civil society. Hito Steyerl will exhibit two works which both reflect on the important history of the Russian Avant Garde while pointing towards more contemporary concerns within today’s digitised and militarised global context.

El Lissitzky: The Artist and the State brings to Ireland for the first time an extraordinary body of El Lissitzky works generously lent to IMMA by the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, shown alongside archival material related to Alice Milligan and Maud Gonne’s theatrical tableaux, and newly commissioned and recent works by Rossella Biscotti, Núria Güell, Sarah Pierce and Hito Steyerl.

The exhibition is curated by Annie Fletcher, Chief Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Sarah Glennie, Director, IMMA, with Dr Catherine Morris as curatorial advisor.