State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918-2018

State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918-2018
Author: Agnieszka Chmielewska
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2022-09-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000655687

This volume offers a comprehensive perspective on the relationship between the art scene and agencies of the state in countries of the region, throughout four consecutive yet highly diverse historical periods: from the period of state integration after World War I, through the communist era post 1945 and the time of political transformation after 1989, to the present-day globalisation (including counter-reactions to westernisation and cultural homogenisation). With twenty-three theoretically and/or empirically oriented articles by authors from sixteen countries (East Central Europe and beyond, including the United States and Australia), the book discusses interconnections between state policies and artistic institutions, trends and the art market from diverse research perspectives. The contributors explore subjects such as the impact of war on the formation of national identities, the role of artists in image-building for the new national states emerging after 1918, the impact of political systems on artists’ attitudes, the discourses of art history, museum studies, monument conservation and exhibition practices. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural politics, cultural history, and East Central European studies and history.

State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918-2018

State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918-2018
Author: Agnieszka Chmielewska
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2022-09-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 100065561X

This volume offers a comprehensive perspective on the relationship between the art scene and agencies of the state in countries of the region, throughout four consecutive yet highly diverse historical periods: from the period of state integration after World War I, through the communist era post 1945 and the time of political transformation after 1989, to the present-day globalisation (including counter-reactions to westernisation and cultural homogenisation). With twenty-three theoretically and/or empirically oriented articles by authors from sixteen countries (East Central Europe and beyond, including the United States and Australia), the book discusses interconnections between state policies and artistic institutions, trends and the art market from diverse research perspectives. The contributors explore subjects such as the impact of war on the formation of national identities, the role of artists in image-building for the new national states emerging after 1918, the impact of political systems on artists’ attitudes, the discourses of art history, museum studies, monument conservation and exhibition practices. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural politics, cultural history, and East Central European studies and history.

East Central European Art Histories and Austria

East Central European Art Histories and Austria
Author: Julia Allerstorfer
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2024-05-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3839473632

The specific role of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the later nation of Austria within the formation of regional art histories in East Central Europe has received little attention in art historical research so far. Taking into account the era of the Dual Monarchy as well as the period after 1989, the contributions analyze and critically scrutinize the imperial legacies, transnational transfer processes and cultural hierarchies in art historiographies, artistic practices and institutional histories. Consisting of 17 texts, with new commissions and one reprint, case studies, monographic essays and interviews grouped thematically into two sections, the anthology proposes a pluriversal narrative on regional, cultural and political contexts.

Between Point Zero and the Iron Curtain

Between Point Zero and the Iron Curtain
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9004711287

This volume, edited by Éva Forgács, with contributions from art historians from across Europe and the Americas, analyzes the artistic initiatives of the short time span between the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. In this moment, a new internationalism was anticipated by retrieving pre-war modernism, as well as creating the new era's new artistic lingua franca. The chapters include in-depth case studies that analyze the complex, often interconnected, projects throughout the world—South America and Eastern and Western Europe—that were soon ended by the Cold War.

The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe

The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe
Author: Zuzanna Sarnecka
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000903990

Through meticulously researched case studies, this book explores the materiality of terracotta sculpture in early modern Europe. Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general. This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, and material culture.

Contagion, Hygiene, and the European Avant-Garde

Contagion, Hygiene, and the European Avant-Garde
Author: David Hopkins
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 100090508X

This interdisciplinary collection of essays brings together scholars in the fields of art history, theatre, visual culture, and literature to explore intersections between the European avant-garde (c. 1880–1945) and themes of health and hygiene, such as illness, contagion, cleanliness, and contamination. Examining the artistic oeuvres of some of the canonical names of modern art – including Edgar Degas, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, George Orwell, Marcel Duchamp, and Antonin Artaud – this book investigates instances where the heightened political, social, and cultural currencies embedded within issues of hygiene and contagion have been mobilised, and subversively exploited, to fuel the critical strategy at play. This edited volume promotes an interdisciplinary and socio-historically contextualised understanding of the criticality of the avant-garde gesture and cultivates scholarship that moves beyond the limits of traditional academic subjects to produce innovative and thought-provoking connections and interrelations across various fields. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, literature, theatre, cultural studies, modern history, medical humanities, and visual culture.

The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies

The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Author: Katharine D. Scherff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2023-03-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000841863

Examining the history of altar decorations, this study of the visual liturgy grapples with many of the previous theoretical frameworks to reveal the evolution and function of these ritual objects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book uses traditional art-historical methodologies and media technology theory to reexamine ritual objects. Previous analysis has not considered the in-between nature of these objects as deliberate and virtual conduits to the divine. The liturgy, the altarpiece, the altar environment, relics, and their reliquaries are media. In a series of case studies, several objects tell a different story about culture and society in medieval Europe. In essence, they reveal that media and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and collective structure of feelings of sacredness among assemblages of humans and nonhumans. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, early modern studies, and architectural history.

Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà and its Afterlives

Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà and its Afterlives
Author: Lisa M. Rafanelli
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 100083378X

This book offers a fresh perspective on Michelangelo’s well-known masterpiece, the Vatican Pietà, by tracing the shifting meaning of the work of art over time. Lisa M. Rafanelli chronicles the object history of the Vatican Pietà and the active role played by its many reproductions. The sculpture has been on continuous view for over 500 years, during which time its cultural, theological, and artistic significance has shifted. Equally important is the fact that over its long life it has been relocated numerous times and has also been reproduced in images and objects produced both during Michelangelo’s lifetime and long after, described here as artistic progeny: large-scale, unique sculpted variants, smaller-scale statuettes, plaster and bronze casts, and engraved prints. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, early modern studies, religion, Christianity, and theology.

Historical Narratives of Global Modern Art

Historical Narratives of Global Modern Art
Author: Irina D. Costache
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000898032

Diversifying the current art historical scholarship, this edited volume presents the untold story of modern art by exposing global voices and perspectives excluded from the privileged and uncontested narrative of “isms.” This volume tells a worldwide story of art with expanded historical narratives of modernism. The chapters reflect on a wide range of issues, topics, and themes that have been marginalized or outright excluded from the canon of modern art. The goal of this book is to be a starting point for understanding modern art as a broad and inclusive field of study. The topics examine diverse formal expressions, innovative conceptual approaches, and various media used by artists around the world and forcefully acknowledge the connections between art, historical circumstances, political environments, and social issues such as gender, race, and social justice. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, imperial and colonial history, modernism, and globalization.

American Artists Engage the Built Environment, 1960-1979

American Artists Engage the Built Environment, 1960-1979
Author: Susanneh Bieber
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000894800

This volume reframes the development of US-American avant-garde art of the long 1960s—from minimal and pop art to land art, conceptual art, site-specific practices, and feminist art—in the context of contemporary architectural discourses. Susanneh Bieber analyzes the work of seven major artists, Donald Judd, Robert Grosvenor, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Smithson, Lawrence Weiner, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Mary Miss, who were closely associated with the formal-aesthetic innovations of the period. While these individual artists came to represent diverse movements, Bieber argues that all of them were attracted to the field of architecture—the work of architects, engineers, preservationists, landscape designers, and urban planners—because they believed these practices more directly shaped the social and material spaces of everyday life. This book’s contribution to the field of art history is thus twofold. First, it shows that the avant-garde of the long 1960s did not simply develop according to an internal logic of art but also as part of broader sociocultural discourses about buildings and cities. Second, it exemplifies a methodological synthesis between social art history and poststructural formalism that is foundational to understanding the role of art in the construction of a more just and egalitarian society. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, architecture, urbanism, and environmental humanism.