Central and Eastern European Artists in Interwar Metropolises

In the visual arts, the dissemination of current trends, ideas, and institutional models has always been made possible by actors who have permanently or temporarily crossed geographical and cultural borders. The conference explores the motivations behind the relocation of Central and Eastern European visual artists to urban centres specifically in the interwar period. These often followed patterns: artists with formal art training included travel as part of their curriculum, financed by various funds or grants; changes in political regimes forced others to leave their home countries for shorter or longer periods; and most enjoyed the help of personal, professional or political networks while abroad.

In addition to analysing individual cases and oeuvres of forced or voluntary, and temporary or permanent artistic emigration, keynote speakers Éva Forgács, (Art Center College of Design, Pasadena; Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest) and Angela Lampe (Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris), as well as participants from six countries will consider how these networks may have centred on traditional institutions of artist education, political movements, intellectual circles or actors generated by private (family, friends) social capital.

Program

Thursday, 10 October

09:15–09:30 Registration

09:30–09:40 Welcome by Zsolt Petrányi, Deputy Director for Research, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

09:40–09:50 Welcome by Dávid Fehér, Head of KEMKI

09:50–10:00 Welcome by Magdolna Gucsa and Eszter Őze

Session 1: Women, Class and Labour Movement

10.00–10.20 Diana Plachendovskaya, EHESS, Paris: Adornment as a Matter of Class: Émigré Women Fashion Jewellery Designers in Paris (1920–1930)

10.20–10.40 Őze Eszter, KEMKI, Budapest: Female Body Culture and the Concept of Labour in the History of the 20th Century Hungarian Avant-garde

10.40–11.00 Ágnes Sz. Horváth, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest: Kati Horna on the Horizon of the European Left-Wing Movements

11.00–11:20 Ana Avelar, University of Brasília: Sensitive Female Universes: Considerations on the Work of the Hungarian–Brazilian artist Yolanda Mohalyi

11.20 – 11.40 Sára Bagdi – Gábor Dobó, Kassák Museum, Budapest: Mapping multiple modernisms: The question of emigration in the Lajos Kassák–Jolán Simon research project

11.40–12.10 Discussion

12.10–13.15 Lunch

13.15–13.40 Coffee break

Session 2: Nation/State, Subversivity 

13.40–14.00 Sára Bárdi, KEMKI, Budapest: State Representation of Hungary in Interwar Metropolises: Exhibition Design and the Foreign Trade Office

14.00–14.20 Bálint Juhász, Hansági Museum, Hungary: Visual Language as a Socio-Political Tool. The Irreprehensible and Anti-Cosmopolitan Crusade of Štefan Prohászka (1928–1938)

14.20–14.40 Bennett Tucker, Israel Institute of Technology: Reuven Rubin and the Interrelations of Artist Sponsorships and Institutional Networks in New York City, 1920–1921

14.40–15.00 Cristina Moraru, National University of Arts in Iași: City, Light, De-coloniality and Artistic Subversivity

15.00–15.30: Discussion

15.30–16.00: Coffee break

Session 3: Metropolis: Representing the Metropolis – Contemporary and Posterior Takes

16.00–16.20 Schuyler Black-Seitz, Ohio State University, The Politics of Precision: Louis Lozowick’s Precisionist Cityscapes, 1923–1938

16.20–16.40 Tobias Ertl, Freiburg University: László Péri, Alfréd Kemény and the Debate on Revolutionary Realism, Berlin, ca. 1928

16.40–17.00 András Zwickl, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design – Berlinische Galerie: Exhibiting Emigration: The Case of the Modern Magyar Exhibition I.

17.00–17.30  Discussion

Coffee break 17.30–18.00

18.00–19.00 Keynote lecture

Éva Forgács, Adjunct Professor, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Professor emerita, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest: Challenging National Art Histories

Friday, 11 October

Keynote

10:00–11:00 Angela Lampe, Senior curator, Modern Art Collections, MNAM–Centre Pompidou: A review of the exhibition “Germany/1920s/New Objectivity/August Sander”, Centre Pompidou, summer 2022: Sociological aspects of the interwar years

Session 1: Art and Revolution

11.00–10.20 Harriet Atkinson, University of Brighton: “A beehive of creativity”? Interwar Collaborations Through the Artists International Association 

10.20–10.40 Magdolna Gucsa, KEMKI, Budapest: From Anti-Modernist Concepts to Marxist Theory: Conceptualising the Art of the Emigré in Interwar Art Criticism

10.40–12.00 Salvatore Annadea, Fondazione Ambron, Florence: “I Like the English so Much, as if They Were My Relatives”: Kokoschka’s Exile in London in 1938

12.00–12.20 Juliette Milbach, EHESS, Paris: Louis Lozowick’s Stay in Berlin (1920)

12.20–12.40 Discussion

12.40–14.00 Lunch at the Museum of Fine Arts

14.00 -14.20 Coffee break at KEMKI

Session 2: From Sociabilities to Integration – Institutions and Informal Contacts 

14.20–14.40 Márton Tóth, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest: “The Secret of Caresses”: Visualising Queerness by Marcell Vértes in Interwar Paris

14.40–15.00 Ádám Korcsmáros – Andrea Vrtelová, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava: In Search of an Identity: Interwar Slovak Architecture at the Crossroads of Modernisms

15.00–15.20 Kácsor Adrienn, Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar: Critical Collaborations in Central Asia

15.20–15.40 Discussion

15.40–16.00 Coffee break

Session 3: Transfers to the Sending Country

16.00–16.20 Olga Stefan, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași: Migration, Return, and Exile: The Jewish Artists of the Romanian Avant-garde

16.20–16.40 Judit Galácz, KEMKI, Budapest: Theatre Exhibitions as a Mirror of International Impregnation of Hungarian Emigré Artists: The International Theatre Exposition, New York, 1926

16.40–17.00 Csizmadia Krisztina, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest: Gyula Zilzer in Paris (1924–1932)

17.00–17.30 Discussion + Closing Discussion