CFP: Radical Art in Transition: Counter-culture, protest, resistance and contemporary art in the Balkans since 1968
Deadline for Paper Proposals: 7 November 2016

Convenors:
Jonathan Blackwood, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, j.blackwood@rgu.ac.uk
Jasmina Tumbas, SUNY: University at Buffalo, jasminatumbas@gmail.com

‘…this transformation is now openly being challenged by the rise of new social movements and by the return of radical politics in the post-Yugoslav and wider Balkan region. A new generation enters politics via direct democratic actions and the street and not through political channels of electoral democracy and classic party politics…sometimes in unlikely places, such as the post-socialist and post-conflict Balkans, we can see a sudden explosion of original radicalism.’

Igor Štiks & Srecko Horvat, Radical Politics in the Desert of Transition, 2015 Štiks and Horvat’s analysis of recent political protests in the former Yugoslavia, and in the wider Balkan region, focus on the development of ‘parallel institutions’, ‘alternative structures’, and the struggles of a ‘new consensus’ to gain traction in a heavily contested and corrupted political landscape.

Much of this analysis could also be extended to open out intersections between counter cultures, political protest, and contemporary art in the Balkans region since the upheavals of 1968. From the actions of the New Left in the Yugoslav context, to more recent public demonstrations against governments and the effects of neoliberal politics from Slovenia to Turkey, from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Moldova, protest and the cultural and political imagination are vivid threads in late modern and contemporary art in the region.

This panel seeks papers that address the intersections between visual culture and political protest in the Western Balkan space. We are open minded about the approaches you could take; from art-historical analyses of specific moments (eg Serbian art’s response to the rise of radical nationalism at the end of the 1980s and in the Miloševi? years), to essays on the role and future of institutions in a bleak funding landscape, to specific interventions by cultural actors in the political or para-political stage.

We are interested, too, in how visual culture has responded to and developed particular layers of protest; such as LGBTIQ+, debates surrounding minority rights, and self-organised community-based actions.

In opening out debate on the complex inter-relations between visual culture, counter culture and protest, we hope that our joint work will develop new insights into, and understandings of, these difficulties, and contextualise these debates against a broader background of political, economic and cultural hierarchies within the EU.

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Please email your paper proposals straight to the session convenor(s). Provide a title and abstract for a 25 minute paper (max 250 words). Include your name, affiliation and email. Your paper title should be concise and accurately reflect what the paper is about (it should ‘say what it does on the tin’) because the title is what appears most first and foremost online, in social media and in the printed programme.

You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks. Do not send proposals to the Conference Administrator or the Conference Convenor.

Deadline for Paper Proposals: 7 November 2016

AAH2017
43rd Annual Conference and Art Book Fair
Loughborough University
6th – 8th April 2017

SHERA is pleased to announce a current exhibition curated by its member Magdalena Moskalewicz, “The Travellers: Voyage and Migration in New Art from Central and Eastern Europe”

The exhibition looks at travel in a region where freedom to travel was, until recently, a luxury available only to the very few.. The exhibition offer a reflection by contemporary artists hailing from the region—the former Eastern Bloc and the former Yugoslavia—often first- and second-generation migrants. 23 artists from 15 countries show how people, goods, and ideas flow between this part of Europe and other regions of the world. They tell the stories of holiday trips as well as distant journeys and migrations, focusing on a period from the mid-20th century until today, from the closed borders of the divided Cold War-era Europe to the capitalism-driven acceleration of the 21st century. By exploring these travellers’ multiple viewpoints, an extraordinary gift described by Edward Said, the exhibition aims to shed light on the contemporary identity of the region, and is a direct commentary to its current socio-political situation.

The exhibitions features works of: Adéla Babanová, Daniel Baker, Olga Chernysheva, Wojciech Gilewicz, Pravdoliub Ivanov, C.T. Jasper & Joanna Malinowska, Irina Korina, Taus Makhacheva, Porter McCray, Alban Muja, Ilona Németh & Jonathan Ravasz, Roman Ondak, Tímea Anita Oravecz, Adrian Paci, Vesna Pavlović, Dushko Petrovich, Janek Simon, Radek Szlaga & Honza Zamojski, Maja Vukoje, Sislej Xhafa

The show is on view at Zachęta–National Gallery of Art in Warsaw until Aug 21. Please find more information on the Zacheta National Gallery’s website.

Talk: A Curator Reveals: a Talk with Celebrated Russian Curator, Joseph Backstein
Pushkin House, 5A Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA
Wednesday, July 6, 2016, 7:30pm 8:30pm

Join us for a talk with Joseph Backstein, one of the leading curators in Russia over the last 30 years, and former Commissioner of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Joseph will talk about curating in Russia and how this role has changed since he began. He will also talk about the history, development and significance of the Biennale over the last 12 years, its important role as a reflector of the global contemporary art scene as well as its great impact within Russia and Internationally.

Joseph Backstein was artistic director of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art until May this year. He is deputy director of the State Centre for Museums and Exhibitions ROSIZO, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow and a member of the Art Historians’ Association. He is the curator of more than 30 exhibitions including the Norman Foster solo show at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Sergei Bratkov’s exhibition at 25th Sao Paolo Biennial and was the curator of the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale 1999. Backstein has a medal of the Academy of Arts of the Russian Federation and is the author of numerous publications on contemporary art. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Computer Sciences and has a PhD in Sociology of Arts and Culture.

Pushkin House curator Olga Jurgenson will chair a Q&A at the end of the talk.

Click to book tickets

Tickets: £10 Full Price/£8 Concessions

A drink is included in the ticket price.