International scholarly conference
“Engaged figurations: Realism, socialist realism and soc-modernism in a global perspective”
graphics: Full Metal Jacket
Researchers from London, Paris, Warsaw, Moscow, Beijing and Hong Kong take a new look at socially engaged art. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is hosting an international scholarly conference entitled “Engaged figurations: Realism, socialist realism and soc-modernism in a global perspective,” beginning 8 April 2021.
A FRESH LOOK
The conference prepared by Magda Lipska and Piotr Słodkowski accompanies the exhibition „Henryk Streng/Marek Włodarski and Jewish–Polish Modernism”, on view through 9 May 2021 at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and online. One of the major themes of the exhibition is how modernism and soc-realism in art maintained a creative dialogue. Streng/Włodarski’s painting overcomes the superficial dichotomy between these two artistic phenomena, and curator Piotr Słodkowski describes their connections as “fluid soc-modernism.” Could we take a similar approach to art globally in the 1940s and 1950s? This will be explored in a scholarly conference bringing together for discussion outstanding researchers, including Partha Mitter, a distinguished art historian and expert on modernisms in non-Western regions of the world, the French critic and art historian Éric de Chassey, the Chinese artist and curator Zheng Shengtian, and Kate Cowcher, an American scholar of modern and contemporary African art. The conference’s four thematic panels will reflect on the truly global dimension of soc-realism and socialist art, stepping beyond fixed political, chronological and geographical frames of reference.
REJECTED SOC-REALISM
According to Magda Lipska, “By departing from existing ways of thinking about engaged art, we seek to employ the decidedly more inclusive category of socialist art. We will examine the genealogy of this category, starting from the 1930s and taking into account not just the European context, but the global context.” As Piotr Słodkowski adds, “In the age of decolonialization and the Cold War division of the world, artists across much of the globe were trained according to the doctrine of real socialism, which we tend to forget. Thus we want to examine whether, and how, the experience of engaged art is manifest in contemporary artistic experience.”
SERIOUS QUESTIONS
The conference will comprise five online meetings, held via the Zoom app, on weekdays, always in English. The public are invited to participate in every session, but due to the limited number of slots it will be necessary to sign up in advance (details on the conference website). The keynote address will be given by Prof. Partha Mitter (8 April at 3:00 pm) (the only portion of the conference offering a simultaneous Polish translation). Four panel discussions will cover the following topics: “What are our genealogies? Engaged figurations in pre-war Central Europe,” addressing the experiences of leftist artists of the 1930s (15 April at 3:00 pm); “Towards socialist art: Modernism, socialist realism and soc-modernism,” investigating how artists attempted to combine modern form and the ideological message of images (22 April at 3:00 pm); “Global socialist realisms,” discussing how the ideas of socialist realist and socialist art were adapted or localized in diverse geographical locations (29 April, 3:00 pm), and “Central and Eastern Europe: A region without a past?”—interrogating the consequences of exclusion of the tradition of engagement from official art-historical narratives after 1989 (5 May, 3:00 pm).
8 April – 5 May 2021
curators: Magda Lipska and Piotr Słodkowski
organizer: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
partners: Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), Para Site (Hong Kong), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow), National Gallery of Arts (Tirana)
details and registration information: on the conference website
Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
artmuseum.pl
Media contact:
Józefina Bartyzel
jozefina.bartyzel@artmuseum.pl
+48 695 492 970
