Call for Papers: Beyond Friendships. Regional Cultural Transfer in the Art of the ‘70s

Following the pathway of horizontal art history set by Piotr Piotrowski, our conference will suggest a definition of Central-East European art based on actual contacts, dialogues, and reciprocal affects between the art practitioners of the region. In 20th-century Eastern Europe, cultural relationships were the result of historical events, waves of emigration, and the migration or relocation of minority communities, and they occurred in multilingual, poly-ethnic urban centers. By the 1970s, the relations between local art scenes were not only defined by the centralized, top-down cultural diplomacy of the so-called “friendly” countries of the Eastern Bloc, but also by the occasional collaboration of actors involved in these countries’ parallel cultures. On the occasion of state-organized research trips, additional contacts with underground artists could be established, and neo-avant-garde artists who were marginalized in their own countries could exhibit in the state-run art institutions of another, culturally more open country.

It follows from this that the activities of artists and critics including Lajos Kassák, Tomáš Štrauss, Jindřich Chalupecký, Petr Štembera, László Beke, Dóra Maurer, or János Brendel, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, Bálint Szombathy, MAMŰ; and of periodicals including Új Symposion can be explored neither purely with reference to the concept of national art, nor by the rigid separation of so-called official from non-official art. The conference will also reflect on Hungary’s special situation in the region, complicated by its minority cultures and the effects of migration.

Please send an abstract of your proposed contribution, in English (max. 500 words), together with a short CV, to: zsofia.kokai@szepmuveszeti.hu by January 20, 2022.