CFP: Reconsidering Art and Politics: Toward New Narratives of Russian and Eastern European Art (CAA Annual Conference, New York, February 11-14, 2015)

Paper proposal submission deadline: May 9, 2014

Session sponsored by the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA)

Panel co-chairs: Galina Mardilovich, independent scholar; and Maria Taroutina, Yale-NUS College

From Ivan III’s Russo-Byzantine “Renaissance” to Stalin’s Socialist Realism and the Pussy Riot performances, much of Russian, Eastern European, and Soviet art history has been narrated in relation to various institutions of power. This relationship has often been reduced to one of binary opposition: perceived complicity on the one hand, and militant defiance on the other. We invite papers that challenge these interpretations and highlight the complexity of artistic responses produced at the nexus of aesthetics and politics. Did propagandistic or ideological art possess important subversive qualities? Conversely, did ostensibly apolitical art engage with contemporary politics, imperialist ambitions, or questions of nationalism and religion? Were the divisions between official and unofficial art more fluid than currently understood? And last, can a reevaluation of these distinct categories generate new methodologies and narratives of Russian and Eastern European art?

Please send paper title, abstract (300-500 words), curriculum vitae and letter of interest to both Galina Mardilovich (galina.mardilovich@gmail.com) and Maria Taroutina (maria.taroutina@yale-nus.edu.sg) by May 9, 2014.

Please note that potential candidates need not be members of CAA or SHERA in order to submit their abstracts; however, if accepted, they will need to join both by the time of the conference.

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