“Art in a Disrupted World, Poland 1939-49” Book discussion

Nov 9-12, 2022. 54th ASEEES (The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies) Annual Convention, Chicago.

A roundtable discussion about Agata Pietrasik’s “Art in a Disrupted World” (Warsaw Museum of Modern Art 2021), an important and unprecedented book offering a new look at artistic life in Poland in the ten years following the outbreak of World War II.

The Global Rise of Traveling Exhibitions at Mid-Century

March 3-5, 2022. 110th College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago. Panel co-chaired with Dr. Agata Pietrasik, Freie Universitaet, Berlin.

Traveling art exhibitions gained momentum in the mid-20th century as an efficient mode of engaging global audience. The importance of traveling shows was confirmed by the 1953 UNESCO’s Manual of Traveling Exhibitions, a document that solidified traveling exhibitions as a new means of mass communication. Importantly, traveling exhibitions traversed not only geographical borders. They crossed boundaries between aesthetics and politics, engaging different discourses and ideological frameworks, ranging from issues of national self-representations to art’s role in diffusing socialism.

Socialist Exhibition Cultures—International Workshop

November 18, 2021. Online. Project website.

“Socialist Exhibition Cultures” examines global art exhibitions organized, between 1950 and 1990, in or by (formerly) socialist or  Communist countries. These include the Soviet Union and other Communist/socialist states in Eastern Europe; China; North Korea; South Korea; Cuba, and Africa, including Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Angola. We consider Cold War socialist exhibitions instances of a curatorial culture that developed as an alternative to the Western art market and its international outlets, and according to its own set of demands and prerogatives.

Afterlives of Socialist Realist Monuments in Postcommunist Poland

Nov 16, 2021. Bruges Triennial 2021: TraumA

Talk delivered as a part of the series “On the Afterlife of Monuments” organized by the Bruges Triennial of Contemporary Art and Architecture. The event was inspired by the project “Who is Afraid of Natasha?” by Joanna Malinowska and C.T. Jasper presented at the triennial.  (Event on the organizer’s website here.)

[DE]MAPPING THE FUTURE: LISTENING TO THE HISTORIC ORIGIN BODY

May 1, 2021. Wellesley College Art Department (online).

The panel brings focus to decolonial discourse through the power of art and practices at the intersection of three often separately considered regions: Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. At the crossroads of diverging languages, current decolonial efforts point towards exciting trajectories, on the path from delinking structural national narratives to speculative fiction.

SITUATING AGORA: MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ IN CHICAGO

Feb 4-5, 2021. Conference “What They Brought / What They Changed: Material Culture and Polish Chicago.” University of Chicago (online).

Paper delivered at the conference panel “Chicago’s Slavic Communities of Things.” The conference is co-organized by the Department of Slavic Languages & Literature, University of Chicago and Instytut Kultury Polskiej , Uniwersytet Warszawski.