Authors:Maija Koskinen Abstract: The cultural Cold War was a global phenomenon, but how was it fought in Finland, on the periphery of Northern Europe' The essay brings a previously insufficiently known Finnish perspective into the study of cultural Cold War by introducing a research project, Mission Finland – Cold War cultural diplomacy at the cross roads of East and West, 1945–1991. The essay discusses study methods of international art exhibitions as soft power and introduces – with concrete Finnish examples – the concept of “state- run exhibition” as a means to comprehend the role of circulating art exhibitions as Cold War cultural diplomacy. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:22:00 PDT
Authors:Kristian Handberg et al. Abstract: The article presents the research project “Exhibiting across the Iron Curtain: The forgot-ten trail of Danish artists exhibiting in the context of state socialism, ca. 1955–1985” (The University of Copenhagen, 2021–24). Project researchers Kristian Handberg and Yulia Karpova introduce the project and its most important ambitions, especially those related to the theme of cross- border connectivity in the Nordic region through a few examples taken from their most recent work. These case studies illustrate how they approach this particular material and will tackle the questions and challenges that may rise. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:21:54 PDT
Authors:Katarina Wadstein MacLeod et al. Abstract: The project Exhibiting Art in a European Periphery' International Art in Sweden during the Cold War aimed to investigate international exhibitions in Sweden during the postwar period from circa 1945 to the end of the 1980s. The main objective was to find information beyond preconceived ideas of what is important, interesting, or simply good art. In this article, we present our method for searching through the archives and some of the findings and insights generated. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:21:48 PDT
Authors:Annika Öhrner Abstract: This article investigates exhibitions of Baltic contemporary art in the Early 1990s, that were directed towards an international audience. Notions of an art life finally freed from the heavy institutional power of the Soviet occupation has served to obscure the arrival of other inter-national and political presences, the ones from Norden. While new Baltic art practices were widely made public in the three Baltic capitals after 1991, the fact that the highest political level of Nordic foreign policy provided an infrastructure for this, was not. “The Nordic–Baltic realm,” is here suggested as a notion of interactions between the contemporary art and foreign diplomacy, and the ability to act upon the potential of the other’s experienced “window of opportunity.” PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:17:15 PDT
Authors:Katarina Wadstein MacLeod Abstract: This article concerns the international touring exhibition Art contre/against Apartheid originating in France and which reached Lunds konsthall, Sweden in 1984 and was to tour the world for ten years. The aim with this exhibition was to raise awareness of the apartheid regime, cause international protest and ultimately remove the repressive political system. Using histoire croisée as a method this article investigates the different interests and stake-holders in the exhibition at Lunds konsthall, including the critique of the exhibition as resting on white supremacy. The purpose of the article is to locate the different intersections regarding international art, international politics and local history manifested through this exhibition. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:17:10 PDT
Authors:Yulia Karpova Abstract: The exhibition Contemporary Danish Design arrived in Moscow in December 1969, when Danish design was undergoing a crisis. The popularity of “Danish Modern,” the notion centered on excellent artisanship, natural materials, and a balance between tradition and modernity, was diminishing due to shifting tastes in home furnishing and consumer society critiques. This article considers the Moscow exhibition as a twin effort to include design in Danish- Soviet cultural diplomacy and to revive the cultural importance of Danish Modern in the era of waning techno-optimism and student protests. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:17:04 PDT
Authors:Kristian Handberg Abstract: The article examines how the Danish artists of the group Cobra appeared in front of exhibitions organized by the Danish state touring the state socialist countries during the Cold War from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. This unknown aspect of the international circulation of the artists were part of the official cultural diplomacy of the Danish state and can contribute to a new understanding of art exhibitions in the Cold War as “Ostpolitik” and the commitment of the artists in these efforts. The article observes the importance of cultural diplomacy in relation to border- crossing exhibitions and the development of Danish “exhibition diplomacy” through the Cold War. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:16:58 PDT
Authors:Marta Edling Abstract: The article will by emphasizing a transnational and geopolitical approach, investigate eight exhibitions of modern art from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden presented in Nordic cities 1946–1959. The text highlights the importance of this regional context and argues that the artworks can be seen as socially interconnected signs mediated through the communicative agency of the exhibitions. By focusing on subject matter and artwork titles presented, the article suggests that the exhibitions can be viewed as part of interacting artistic, civic, and political agendas aiming to democratize culture in the postwar Nordic welfare states. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:16:54 PDT
Authors:Andrea Kollnitz Abstract: This article examines two exhibitions introducing international surrealism in the North: Paris 1932 in Stockholm 1932 and Kubisme = Surrealisme in Copenhagen in 1935. Focusing on contents, networks and agents, the analysis shows competitive negotiations of national and local identities in interaction with the promotion of surrealism as a universal international phenomenon. Using a decentralising approach, the article reflects on the role of Paris and other cities as stations as well as elucidates national, transnational and transcultural processes and interactions in the international dissemination of surrealism. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:07:08 PDT
Authors:Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe Abstract: This article presents the results of an empirical study of Swedish artistic mobility during the first decades of the twentieth century, a period associated with the emergence of modernism in Swedish art and with Paris as an unquestionable point of reference. Without questioning Paris as an artistic node, it highlights the discrepancy between art history’s narrativisation of transnational mobility and the diverse artistic itineraries that empirical material evidences. Focusing on Swedish artists’ travels in France, Germany, Denmark, and Italy, it offers a geohistorical trajectory that differentiates established narratives. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:07:02 PDT
Authors:Stefan Nygård Abstract: The article centres on the practice of cultural mediation and core-periphery dynamics in Scandinavian cultural life at the turn of the twentieth century. In this period, Copenhagen functioned as a gateway in the circulation of ideas and cultural goods to and from the region, as did individual actors and cultural institutions in Denmark. Similarly, Scandinavia as a whole occupied a transitional position in global intellectual space. With extensive intellectual networks and a strategic role in the literary traffic to and from Scandinavia, the critic and intellectual Georg Brandes provides a starting point for exploring core- periphery relations. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:06:57 PDT
Authors:Marta Edling et al. Abstract: At the center of attention of this issue is trans-local, transnational, regional, and worldwide contacts inside and outside the Nordic-Baltic region from the late 1800s to the late 1900s. As an introduction, this text attempts to give an overview of some of its major themes and findings. It highlights how the interactive function of cross-border contacts is demonstrated by cases of art and design transfers, artistic travels, Scandinavian intellectual contacts, and cross-border connections over 100 years. Together, the texts published in this issue reflect the interdependent nature of international relations and the vital function of intermediate positions. PubDate: Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:06:52 PDT
Authors:Paula Barreiro López et al. Abstract: In memoriam of Laura Ramírez Palacio, who passed away in April 2022. PubDate: Mon, 23 May 2022 07:32:22 PDT
Authors:Paula Barreiro López Abstract: This special issue has been conceived in the framework of the project Ré.Part. - Résistance(s) Partisane(s): Culture visuelle, imaginaires collectifs et mémoire révolutionnaire (Université Grenoble Alpes, ANR-15-IDEX-02) and the research project MoDe(s) – Decentralized Modernities: Art, Politics and Counterculture in the Transatlantic Axis during the Cold War (Universidad de Barcelona, HAR2017-82755-P). We are very thankful for the support of the Jean Monnet Excellence Centre IMAGO (École normale supérieure - Université Paris Sciences Lettres, co-funded by the Erasmus + Program of the European Union) and of the Laboratoire de Recherches Historiques Rhône Alpes. Many thanks to the editorial team of Artl@s Bulletin as well as Tobias Locker for the work done on the manuscripts. PubDate: Wed, 04 May 2022 08:41:52 PDT
Authors:Paula Barreiro López Abstract: Prenant pour point de départ l’œuvre Resurrección de Núria Güell (2013), cet article aborde le rôle que les artistes contemporains ont assumé, en Espagne, dans la contestation du passé fasciste. Il traite les politiques de terreur mises en œuvre pendant et après la guerre civile, ainsi que la résistance antifasciste pendant la dictature, menée par le maquis, mais aussi par des artistes associés à des organisations d’extrême gauche. Enfin, il réintègre l’œuvre de Güell dans un contexte de création militant de son époque où l’on cherchait à réactiver l’antifascisme face aux survivances structurelles du franquisme dans l’Espagne contemporaine. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:23:13 PDT
Authors:Jaime Vindel Abstract: This short essay uses the concept of “partisan ecologies” in order to analyse certain past and present chapters on the relationship between anti-fascism and nature. According to the Swedish eco- Marxist Andreas Malm, wilderness has not only represented an essentialist idea resulting from the projections of conservationist environmentalism about a supposedly untouched nature, but has also been one of the real spaces of a modern antagonism. Taking this theoretical point of departure, the text describes the Alpine Battalion of the Sierra del Guadarrama during the Spanish Civil War and its resonances in some contemporary events. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:23:08 PDT
Authors:Laura Ramírez Palacio Abstract: Tomando como punto de partida el caso de imágenes referentes a los procesos revolucionarios en Nicaragua y El Salvador durante la década de 1980, el presente artículo reflexiona sobre antecedentes en la historia de las revoluciones, donde la incorporación de los niños no solo fue una realidad, sino también un elemento simbólico asociado a la idea de liberación en pos de una transformación social duradera en el tiempo. De este modo el texto analiza y busca situar la figura del niño combatiente dentro de las narrativas visuales revolucionarias y de liberación en la historia reciente de Occidente. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:23:02 PDT
Authors:Olga Fernández López Abstract: The end of 1970s is an interesting moment to understand the epistemic shift that involves the passage from partisan artistic activism to contemporary socially engaged art. Then, a significant convergence took place in the neighborhood of Loisaida (NYC), where artists and local residents coincided in their modes of action. However, its subsequent cultural interpretations have overlooked each other. Art history cosmopolitan approaches clashed with migration identities, traversed by victimhood, but also by transnational heritages. This article examines and reunites both traditions looking for a reparative art history. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:22:56 PDT
Authors:Anita Orzes Abstract: The article analyses the section Libertà al Cile [Liberty for Chile] of 1974 Venice Biennale. Even if this cultural proposal against Pinochet’s regime had a significant role and was the most visible face of La Biennale per una cultura democratica e antifascista [The Biennial for a democratic and anti- fascist culture], a detailed study of this exhibition is still missing. The aim of this article is to contextualize Libertà al Cile within the project of the New Biennale and its new exhibition formula, as well as within the ties of brotherhood that united Italy and Chile by paying attention to the Italian political context of the seventies. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:22:51 PDT
Authors:Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez Abstract: The subject of this paper is a travelling exhibition organized by the National Front of Plastic Arts which toured various cities in the Eastern Bloc between 1955 and 1956. Its objective was to introduce the public to Mexican art, and to promote the socially committed art of the Mexican School and its enduring revolutionary spirit. Attention will be given to two of its venues: Poland and Bulgaria. It is hoped that this focused analysis will provide a deeper understanding of its artistic and political objectives, whilst highlighting the activism of the Mexican School in the context of the Cultural Cold War. PubDate: Mon, 02 May 2022 10:22:45 PDT
Open Access journal
[13 journals]
