Translations and Dialogues: The Reception of Russian Art Abroad
Venice Conference

The reception of Russian art in Europe and the United States is the subject of a three-day international conference, hosted by the Centro Studi sulle Arti della Russia (CSAR) at the University Ca' Foscari in Venice, and co-organized by the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA) and the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre (CCRAC).

This conference brings together scholars from Europe, the US, and Russia on the centenary of the October Revolution to present their work on a broader historical spectrum than the events of only 1917. By focusing on the reception of Russian art abroad, it hopes to engage with ideas of continuity and connection more than rupture and separation. In doing so, it promises to bring out new perspectives on the study of the history of Russian art as a vibrant and growing field. The conference organizers are part of an international network of scholarly societies and research institutes that came together with the revival of SHERA in 2013. This is their first collaborative conference.

All events will take place in the Auditorium Santa Margherita at the University Ca' Foscari. Please register if you are planning to attend.

For more information or to register, please visit the conference website at http://veniceconference.com/.


PROGRAM

25 October 2017 - Grand Opening and Day One of the Program: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Art

Grand Opening
9:00-10:30
Welcome and Address by Rector of the University Ca' Foscari, Prof. Michele Bugliese
Director of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of the University Ca' Foscari, Prof. Giuseppe Barbieri
Director of Centro Studi sulle Arti della Russia (CSAR), Prof. Silvia Burini
Head of the Conference Organizing Committee of the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture, Inc. (SHERA), Dr. Natasha Kurchanova
General Partner Inna Bazhenova of In Artibus Foundation/ The Art Newspaper Russia
Partners Amir Gross Kabiri of M.T. Abraham Foundation and Daniel Kroll of Kroll Family Trust


Session 1: Dialogues with Western Europe
10:45-12:45
Chair – Wendy Salmond
Discussant – Molly Brunson

Natalia Sipovskaia
The Great Hall on the Yauza River: The Lefortovsky Palace as a Political Demarche

Margaret Samu
The French Reception of Karl Briullov's The Last Day of Pompeii

Ilya Doronchenkov
A Russian at a Rendez-Vous. The Parisian Experience of Russian Artists in the 1860s-1880s. Between Alienation and Self-Pride.

Katia Dianina
Returned from the West: Restoring Imperial Heritage in Post-Soviet Russia

Lunch Break


Session 2: Vereshchagin and Makovsky Abroad
14:30-16:00
Chair – Natalia Sipovskaia
Discussant – Rosalind P. Blakesley

Elena Nesterova
The European Campaign of Vasily Vereshchagin (1870s-1880s)

Molly Brunson
Vereshchagin in America

Wendy Salmond
Konstantin Makovsky in America


Session 3: Toward the Fin de Siècle
16:15 – 17:45
Chair – Margaret Samu
Discussant – Ilya Doronchenkov

Alison Hilton
How to Formulate the New Art: National Singularity and Tentative Modernism at International Exhibitions

Rosalind P. Blakesley
The First Female Peredvizhnik: The Case of Emily Shanks in Russia and Britain

Ekaterina Vyazova
"Russian Seasons": From Westernization to the Myth of Russia

18:00 -- Cocktail Reception
(by invitation only)


26 October 2017 - Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde and Pre-War Art

Session 1: Russian and Soviet Art in Germany in the 1920s
9:00-11:00
Chair -- Nicoletta Misler
Discussant – Christina Kiaer

Christina Lodder
Exporting a Revolutionary Aesthetic: The Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus

Andrei Sarabianov
The Erste Russische Kunstausstellung [First Russian Art Exhibition]: Refining the Composition of Works

Maria Mileeva
The reception of Russian Revolutionary art in Weimar Germany

Isabel Wünsche
Revolutionary Alliances: The Russian Avant-garde and the Berlin Art Scene of the 1920s


Session 2: Russian and Soviet art in America and Europe
11:15-13:15
Chair -- Zelfira Tregulova
Discussant – Christina Lodder

John E. Bowlt
Russian Art in America: The Case of Vyacheslav Zavalishin

Christina Kiaer
Soviet Art's American Adventure, 1934-1936

Faina Balakhovskaia
Understanding in Order to Ask

Ildar Galeyev
Max Penson (1893-1959), Photographer of the Soviet Avant-Garde: Exhibitions and Publications in the West

Lunch Break


Session 3: Malevich, Tatlin, Lissitzky
15:00-17:00
Chair – Isabel Wünsche
Discussant – John Bowlt

Eva Forgacs
Reception of the Russian Avant-Garde Abroad in the Interwar Years and the 1960s: The Case of Malevich and the Role of the New Left

Nicoletta Misler
Kazimir Malevich Goes to Rome

Natasha Kurchanova
The Art of Objecthood: Tatlin through the Eyes of Flavin

Matthew Drutt
The Avant-Garde's Ambassador to the West: El Lissitzky's Reception in Western Europe


27 October 2017 - Post-War and Twenty-First Century Art

Session 1: Soviet Nonconformist Art and its Reception Abroad
9:00-11:00
Chair – Natasha Kurchanova
Discussant – Silvia Burini

Jane Sharp
Cultural Translation in Transition: Episodes in Art Critical Press of the Cold War Era

Nataliya Mazur
"The Hamburg Reckoning" as a Factor in the Development of Art in the USSR during the Stagnation Period

Sabine Hänsgen
Translating Moscow Conceptualism: The German Experience

Tomáš Glanc
Dvizhenie/ Movement: Singular Status and Specific Reception


Session 2: Exhibiting Russian Art Abroad: Curatorial Ventures
11:15-13:15
Chair – Nataliya Mazur
Discussant – Jane Sharp

Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri
Exhibiting Russian Art at the Ca' Foscari

Anna Frants
Exhibiting Contemporary Russian Art Internationally

Julia Tulovsky
The Challenges of Exhibiting Russian Contemporary Art in America

Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov
Displaying a Collection of Russian Art: The Challenges of Singularity

Lunch Break


Session 3: Private and Public: Collecting and International Exhibition Practices

Roundtable I: Collecting Russian Art
(In memory of Norton Dodge)
15:00-16:45
Moderator – Alla Rosenfeld

Inna Bazhenova
Alexander Borovsky
Leonid Frants
Natalia Kolodzei
Daniel Kroll
Igor Tsukanov

Roundtable II: International Exhibition Practices
17:00-19:00
Moderator -- Nicolas Iljine

Irina Bakanova, Director of the Museum Center of the State Russian Humanitarian University (RGGU), Moscow
Ekaterina Kibovskaja, Director for Special Projects, ROSIZO
Marina Loshak, Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Semyon Mikhailovsky, The Commissar of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial
Olga Sviblova, Director of Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
Zelfira Tregulova, Director of State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow
Vasili Tsereteli, Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art


For more information or to register, please visit the conference website at http://veniceconference.com/.