Postwar. Art and Architecture
Conference date:
9–12 October 2024
Venue:
Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw / Muzeum Architektury we Wrocławiu, Bernardyńska 7
Every war was supposed to be the last one. None of them actually was. All of them brought not only suffering and destruction, but also changes unimaginable ahead. Efforts have been made to tame them through new narratives and interpretations, such as historiographical accounts, and to articulate them through various forms of art, including architecture, urban planning, painting, drawing, and graphics.
The following 31st conference of the Polish-German Working Group for Art History and Monument Preservation builds on last year’s discussion on ‘Art and War’. The conference addresses the role of art and architecture in post-war realities, a topic that remains relevant in face of depopulation, loss of heritage, economic crises, changes in social relations, and individual and collective traumas resulting from armed conflicts throughout history. The situation of art is undoubtedly challenging under such circumstances. However, history proves that artistic activity does not come to a complete standstill during or immediately after wars. On the contrary, it often flourishes as a result of wars.
The conference will discuss artistic phenomena that arise in the aftermath of war conflicts in different historical periods, political situations, and geographical contexts. The aim is to consider both the uniqueness and the shared features of these phenomena.
The conference language: English.
The complete programme of the conference you will find HERE
Conference programme:
DAY 1 – 9 October 2024 (Wednesday)
- 15:00 opening of the conference, welcoming guests, introductory remarks
- 17:00-18:30 keynote lecture: Andrew Demshuk, “Wrocław, Leipzig, and Frankfurt/Main: Redemptive Reconstruction” across Cold War Borders”
- Moderation: Paul Zalewski
DAY 2 – 10 October 2024 (Thursday)
- 11:00-12:40 PANEL 1: Institutional strategies towards new reality
Moderation: Beate Störtkuhl
Magdalena Białonowska (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University of Warsaw, Royal Castle in Warsaw): “New museums in new territories. On some early Polish ideas concerning the issue of museums in the so-called Recovered Territories”
Joanna Jakutowicz (Freie Universität, Berlin): “Unmittelbar nach dem Krieg. Definition und Sicherung von beweglichen Kunstwerken auf dem Gebiet des einstigen Ostpreußens in den Jahren 1945-1946 / Tuż po wojnie. Definicja oraz zabezpieczenia ruchomych dzieł sztuki na terenie dawnych Prus Wschodnich w latach 1945-1946”
Mariana Levytska (Ukrainian Academy of Printing, Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in Lviv): “Art history in the postwar L’viv (1946-1950s): Reconfiguration of the Dismantling of the institutional structure and its consequences for Ukrainian and Polish Scholarship”
Susanne Müller-Bechtel (Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig; Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg): “Rebuilding Museums and Cultural Identity in Postwar Era”
12:40-13:20 discussion
13:20-14:30 break
- 14:30-15:20 PANEL 2a: “New territories and the taming of the foreign space”
- Moderation: Hanna Grzeszczuk-Brendel
Adrianna Brechelke (Poznań University of Technology) - “Ideological and political conditions of post-war urban planning in Kołobrzeg”
Barbara Szczepańska (Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, University of Wrocław) - “The origin of the city. Ostrówek in Opole and its political and identity significance post 1945”
15:20-15:40 discussion
15:40-15:55 short break
- 15:55-17:10 PANEL 2b: “Architecture as a tool of creating and transmitting new narratives”
- Moderation: Hanna Grzeszczuk-Brendel
Sebastian Bietenhader, Matthias Moroder / Büro Bietenhaden Moroder (Vienna University) - “Emancipatory Architecture of Viennese Public Housing. The Built Re-Evaluation of Red Vienna in the first Decade after World War II”
Fanni Magyaróvári (Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Center, Budapest) - “Processing trauma and preparing for the new war. Modernism in Hungary through the lifework of architect Zoltán Révész”
Michał Chadera (Museum of Architecure in Wrocław) - “To the queen of Arts a museum in Wrocław” - the origins, vision and the formative years of the Museum of Architecture and Reconstruction’.
17:10-17:40 discussion
DAY 3 – 11 October 2024 (Friday)
- 9:00-10:00 EXCHANGE PLATFORM
Moderation: Barbara Szczepańska
Gloria Köpnick (Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Düsseldorf): “Continuity and new beginnings at the Oldenburg State Museum 1945 to 1950”
Jan Andrzejewski (Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw): “Lost material context of historical objects: an attempt at digital reconstruction and arrangement in museum space on the example of wooden sculptures of the four Evangelists from the pulpit of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Nawaria near Lviv”
Anna Pilawska-Sita: “Imagination towards a monument – the Cu Chi tunnels”
Romana Kálnai-Petráková (German Historical Institute in Warsaw): “Regionsbildung und Repräsentationsstrategien in den schlesischen Herzogtümern des oberen Odergebiets im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert / Regional formation and representation strategies in the Silesian duchies of the upper Oder region in the 15th and 16th centuries]”
Agnieszka Gąsior (Silesian Muzeum of Görlitz): “Radical change. Silesian Artists between Memory and New Beginnings – Presentation of an exhibition project”
10:00-10:30 coffee break
- 10:30-11:45 PANEL 3a: “Between reappraisal and repression – artists in the face of the past war”
Moderation: Aleksandra Lipińska
Eckart Gillen (Filmuniversität Konrad Wolf, Potsdam-Babelsberg): „Mein Thema war der Krieg”. Der Maler Bernard Heisig und sein künstlerische Sprache für den traumatischen Erfahrungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg / „My subject was the war”. Painter Bernard Heisig and his artistic language for the traumatic experiences of the Second World War]”
Magdalena Kędzierska (Silesian Museum in Katowice): “Actions will set you free. Conceptualization of freedom, responsibility and reconciliation in Józef Szajna’s unpublished personal writings and programmatic texts”
Irena Kossowska (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń; Polish Institute of World Art Studies in Warsaw): “Zygmunt Turkiewicz and Józef Czapski: Different Idioms of Coping with War Trauma”
11:45-12:15 discussion
12:15-13:15 break
- 13:15-14:05 PANEL 3b: “Between reappraisal and repression – artists in the face of the past war”
Moderation: Aleksandra Lipińska
Adam Pacholak (National Museum in Wrocław, University of Wrocław): “Continuity or a new world - the first postwar years of Warsaw and Wrocław in photography”
Emese Pal (Babeș–Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca): “Mural Works in Romania Depicting “Liberation” (1950–1993)”
14:05-14:25 discussion
- 14:25-15:15 PANEL 4: “Female artists in the face of war experiences”
Moderation: Dietmar Popp
Magdalena Kunińska (Jagiellonian University): “The sculpture even very nice, close to 2 meters (…) It is as sad and full of melancholy as I am.” Alina Szapocznikow and the reconstruction of Gdańsk”
Varvara Keidan Shavrova (Royal College of Art, London): “Feminism and Flight: how do women artists working today respond to global wars and conflicts by reimagining flight technologies?”
15:15-15:45 discussion
- 16:45-16:30 coffee break
DAY 4 – 12 October 2024 (Saturday)
- 9:00-10:40 PANEL 5: “Sites of memory”
Moderation: Piotr Korduba
Małgorzata Popiołek-Roßkamp (Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung, Erkner): “After the (Cold) War. Strategies of civilian re-use of post-military areas and practices of remembrance of Soviet troops in Poland and Germany”
Giusi Ciotoli (Sapienza, Rome): “Hiroshima post 1945. Tange, Noguchi and the A-bomb”
Urszula Prokop (Warsaw University of Technology): “Everyday memory. The works of Samuel Bickels and Naomi Judkowski in the Lohamei HaGeta’ot kibbutz”
Tomasz Torbus (University of Gdańsk): “Czy tylko gloryfikacja poległych bohaterów? – galicyjskie cmentarze wojenne po 1915 roku / Just a glorification of fallen heroes? War cemeteries in Galicia after 1915]”
10:40-11:20 discussion
- 11:20-11:50 coffee break
- 11:50-12:20 closing of the conference, final remarks
Scientific Committee:
- Michał Duda (Wroclaw)
- Agata Gabiś (Wroclaw)
- Aleksandra Lipińska (Cologne)
- Agnieszka Patała (Wroclaw)
- Agnieszka Seidel-Grzesińska (Wroclaw)
- Beate Störtkuhl (Oldenburg)
- Agnieszka Tomaszewicz (Wroclaw)
- Jadwiga Urbanik (Wroclaw)
- Marcin Wisłocki (Wroclaw)
Organiser: Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw
Partners: University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Universität zu Köln
The conference is cofunded by Foundation of Polish-German Cooperation.