Research Symposium | 5th part
Anke Kempkes: Maria Bartuszová - Pioneer of Form
The exhibition is accompanied by a symposium planned for Saturday, September 27th, between 11am and 4pm. The symposium will seek to animate the research on Maria Bartuszová’s art in a broader international context of the history of art.
The history (of art) knows lots of examples of narratives that have been omitted, forgotten or pushed out of the mainstream for various reasons. The one-day symposium devoted to the work of Maria Bartuszová, organized as part of the exhibition “Maria Bartuszová. Provisional Forms” is an attempt to bring one of such narratives to light again. At the same time, its aim is to look at the history (with a capital H) from the point of view of its own margin.
On the one hand, the invited guests will be returning to the past and explaining it, while on the other hand, they will be trying to revive the history: to situate it in a broader (often merely potential) perspective and to imagine possible (albeit non-existent) dialogues. By disturbing linearity they will be trying to look for contemporary meanings.
Anke Kempkes worked as an independent scholar, critic and curator since 1992 in London and Berlin. In 2004 she held the position of Curator at Kunsthalle Basel where she realized the exhibition Flesh at War with Enigma centered on the work of Polish sculptor Alina Szapocznikow. In 2005 she founded BROADWAY 1602 in New York. The gallery’s curatorial and research based program is focused on the re-introduction of women artists from the 1960s and 70s. Anke Kempkes has in this context exhibited and represented the work of Babette Mangolte, Alina Szapocznikow, Evelyne Axell, Nicola L, Zofia Rydet, Penny Slinger, Sylvia Palacios Whitman, Rosemarie Castoro, Lenora De Barros, Gina Pane, among others. In 2014 Anke Kempkes curated the two-part exhibition ULTRAPASSADO exploring gender related questions in the milieu of geometric, minimal and systematic abstraction in the work of women artists from three generations and five countries: Lenora de Barros, Lygia Pape, Lydia Okumura, Martha Araújo, Paloma Bosquê /Brazil and Unite States; Rosemarie Castoro and Samia Halaby (former Palastine) / United States; Gina Pane /France; Barbro Östlihn /Sweden; Dora Maurer /Hungary.)
