Shared Practices: The Intertwinement of the Arts in the Culture of Socialist Eastern Europe

Conference programme:

Thursday, 22 October

18.00–20.00

  • Opening words:  Anu Liivak, Director of the Kumu Art Museum and Sirje Helme, Director-General of the Art Museum of Estonia
  • Introduction: Anu Allas, Kumu Art Museum
  • KEYNOTE LECTURE:  Romy Golan (City University of New York): Synthesis Undone (Chair Epp Lankots)

Friday, 23 October

10.00–12.00 Ideologies for the Synthesis of the Arts / Chair Linda Kaljundi

  • Nikolas Drosos (Columbia University, New York): Applied and Useful Art: The Discourse on the Synthesis of the Arts in the USSR and Poland during the 1950s
  • Virve Sarapik (Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts): Visualising World War III
  • Stella Pelše (Latvian Academy of Art): The Best of the Past on a New Level: Synthesis of the Arts in the Latvian Art Criticism of the 1970s

12.30–14.00 Experimentation as Critique / Chair Lolita Jablonskiene

  • Maja Fowkes and Reuben Fowkes (Translocal Institute Budapest): Putting the Social back into the Socialist City: The Critical Urban Practice of the Group TOK
  • Māra Traumane (Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Zurich): “Doubts on Art” as a Constructive Project: the Case of the “Unfelt Feelings Restoration Workshop”

15.00–17.00 Dynamics of Collaborative Work / Chair Klara Kemp-Welch

  • Eleonora Farina (Free University of Berlin): Ex Oriente Lux: Ion Grigorescu and the Sigma Group in Socialist Romania
  • Tomasz Załuski (University of Łódz): From Praxeology to the Artists of Other Arts Association: The Integration of Arts and Transmediality in KwieKulik’s “Activities”
  • Matteo Bertelé (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice): From Narcissus to Collective Performances: The Work of Valera and Natasha Cherkashin

17.30–18.30 EVENING LECTURE: László Beke (Budapest): How to Construct a New Theory of East European Art? (Chair Liisa Kaljula)

Saturday, 24 October

10.00–12.00 Monumental, Ritual and Communal Spaces / Chair Ingrid Ruudi

  • Marija Martinovic and Mladen Pesic (Belgrad University): Synthesis of Arts and Architecture: Community Centres in Socialist Belgrade
  • Raino Isto (University of Maryland): Dynamisms of Time and Space: The Synthesis of Architecture and Monumental Sculpture in Socialist Albania’s Martyrs’ Cemeteries
  • Marija Dremaite (Vilnius University): Architecture of the Soviet Ritual – Wedding and Funeral Palaces in Soviet Lithuania

12.30–14.00 Debating All-Encompassing Art / Chair Anu Allas

  • Fabiola Bierhoff (Free University of Berlin): Multimedia Art in the German Democratic Republic: the Art Festival Intermedia (1985)
  • Elnara Taidre (Art Museum of Estonia; Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts): Synthesis of Visual Art Forms as the Total Work of Art: The Case of Tõnis Vint’s Art Practices in Soviet Estonia

15.00–17.00 Translations and Adaptations / Chair Romy Golan

  • Klara Kemp-Welch (Courtauld Institute of Art, London): Poetry Beyond Borders
  • Ksenya Gurshtein (National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Washington, DC): Conceptual Artists, Cognitive Film: Artists as Film-makers at the Balázs Béla Studio
  • Amy Bryzgel (University of Aberdeen): The Adoption and Adaptation of Institutional Critique in Eastern Europe

17.30–19.00 FINAL DISCUSSION

  • Romy Golan,
  • Klara Kemp-Welch,
  • Anu Allas,
  • Epp Lankots