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, Central European Research Institute for Art History, Budapest: Female Body Culture and the Concept of Labour in the History of the 20th Century Hungarian Avant–garde
10.40–11.00 Ágnes Horváth, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest: Kati Horna on the Horizon of the European Left–Wing Movements
11.00–11:20 Ana Avelar, University of São Paulo: 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: State Representation of Hungary in Interwar Metropolises. Exhibition Design and the Foreign Trade Office
14.00–14.20 Bálint Juhász, Hansági Museum, Hungary: The 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: Péri Abstract, Péri Concrete: Laszlo Péri, Alfred Kémény 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: 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, Firenze: “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: 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 Adám 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, Iasi: 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