May 21–24, 2014
Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstrasse 1
D-80538 Munich
T +49 (0) 89 21127 113
F +49 (0) 89 21127 157
[email protected]
Haus der Kunst is pleased to announce its upcoming conference about “Postwar—Art between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945–1965,” which will take place from May 21 to 24 in Munich.
Conceived as an in-depth study of the postwar period, the four-day international conference, “Postwar—Art between the Pacific and Atlantic, 1945–1965″ shifts from a Western/European vantage point to redirect attention to a multifocal and polyphonic history of art since 1945. By following the sweeping lines of the two oceans across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Rim, Africa, the Mediterranean, North America, and South America, “Postwar” straddles continents, political structures, economic patterns, and institutional frameworks to understand the complex legacies of artistic practice and art historical discourses that emerged globally in the aftermath of World War II’s devastation.
If we are to remap the cartographies of postwar modernism, what sort of methodologies might we deploy? How, we might ask, were radical aesthetics iterated and to what extent did the political exert pressure on the aesthetic, the cultural on the artistic? In turn, how did artists, critics, and intellectuals negotiate, resist, or even subvert political ideologies? How were artistic practices and aesthetic frameworks reconstrued in dispersed political and cultural contexts, especially in response to hegemonic paradigms? Conversely, how did artistic and intellectual movements from the former colonial peripheries impact the terrains of modernism? How then did the circulation of art, objects, discourses, and ideas shape the global contours of postwar modernism? What, if any, were the connections between form and context in the postwar world?
The purpose of the “Postwar” conference is to bring together leading and emerging scholars, historians, artists, curators, theorists, and students to examine the artistic forces and cultural legacies that have shaped the production of art since 1945. By collaboratively probing differing concepts of artistic modernity such as abstraction, realism, figuration, and representation, the conference examines how receptions and formulations of modernism informed the manifestation of specific variants of modern art. Alert to the political and cultural implications of both the Atlantic and Pacific, the diachronic axis of the project’s research scope stretches from Germany to Japan as representatives of the Atlantic and Pacific hemispheres.
The conference is the first in a broad spectrum of events surrounding the “Postwar” research and exhibition project. It is organized by Haus der Kunst in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, the Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich.
Selection of keynote speakers:
Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University, Ithaca
Catherine David, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Walter Grasskamp, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, München
Boris Groys, New York University, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, and Bauhaus University, Weimar
Alexandra Munroe, Guggenheim Museum, New York
Mari Carmen Ramirez, International Center for the Arts of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Invited participants:
Serge Guilbaut, University of British Columbia
Patrick D. Flores, University of the Philippines, Diliman and Vargas Museum, Manila
Gerardo Mosquera, independent curator, Havana and Madrid
Chika Okeke-Agulu, Princeton University, New Jersey
Nada Shabout, University of North Texas, Denton
Terry Smith, University of Pittsburgh
Ming Tiampo, Carleton University, Ottawa
From the open call for papers in fall 2013, 23 international panelists were invited to participate in the conference. The conference schedule and complete list of nearly 40 participants will be announced soon.
For further informationand registration, please visit the Haus der Kunst website.
The project “Postwar—Art between the Pacific and Atlantic, 1945–1965″ is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Goethe-Institut.
