Arrival Cities: Migrating Artists and New Metropolitan Topographies

1st International Conference of the ERC Research Project
Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (METROMOD)

Focusing on the intersections of exile, artistic practice and urban space, this international conference brings together researchers committed to revising the historiography of ‘modern’ art. Part of the ERC research project Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (METROMOD), it addresses metropolitan areas that were settled by migrant artists in the first half of the 20th century. These so-called “arrival cities” (Doug Saunders, 2011), were hubs of artistic activities and transcultural contact zones where ideas circulated, collaborations emerged and concepts developed. Taking cities as a starting point, this conference explores how urban topographies and artistic landscapes were modified by exiled artists re-establishing their practices in metropolises across the world. It addresses questions such as: How did the migration of artists to different urban spaces impact their work and the historiography of art? How did the urban environments in which the artists moved and worked affect professional negotiations as well as cultural and linguistic exchange?

Convened by METROMOD Team/Institut für Kunstgeschichte, LMU Munich: Burcu Dogramaci, Mareike Hetschold, Laura Karp Lugo, Rachel Lee, Helene Roth.
Administration and Assistance: Christina Lagao, Maya-Sophie Lutz.

Friday, 30 November
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZI)

09:00 Arrival, Registration & Coffee

09:30 Welcome Address
Ulrich Pfisterer (ZI, Munich)
METROMOD Team (LMU, Munich)

10:00 Partha Mitter (University of Sussex, Brighton)
Migrating ideas. Opening reflections

10:30 Coffee break

Session 1: Mobility, Transfer and Circulation
10:45 Partha Mitter (University of Sussex, Brighton)
Introduction and moderation

11:00 Joseph L. Underwood (Kent State University, Ohio)
Parisian Shadows: Iba N'Diaye and the Ripple of African Modernisms

11:45 Katarzyna Cytlak (Centro de Estudios de los Mundos Eslavos y Chinos-Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires)
The City of Plovdiv as a New Latin American Metropolis. The Impact of Chilean Exiles in Communist Bulgaria

12:30 Eduard Kögel (Independent scholar, Berlin)
Austrian-Hungarian Architects in Shanghai (1918–1959)

13:15 Lunch break

Session 2: Groups and Networks
14:30 Elvan Zabunyan (Université Rennes 2)
Introduction and moderation

14:45 Laura Bohnenblust (Universität Bern)
Hans Aebi and the Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina

15:30 Daniela Kern (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre) & Cristiana Tejo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon)
Art and Exile in Rio de Janeiro: Artistic Networking during the II World War

16:15 Kathryn Milligan (University College Dublin)
Temporary Exile: The White Stag Group in Dublin, 1939–1946

17:00 Coffee break

Kunstverein
18:00 Film, Flight, Gender
Short film screening and discussion with M-Power (Berlin)

20:00 Reception

Saturday, 1 December
Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ)

09:45 Coffee

Session 3: Constitutive practices: Interventions in artistic landscapes
10:15 Matthias Krüger (LMU, Munich)
Introduction and moderation

10:30 Rafael Cardoso (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)
Exile and the Reinvention of Modernism in Brazil, 1937–1964

11:15 Brian Bockelman (Ripon College, Wisconsin)
Bohemians, Anarchists, and Arrabales: How Spanish Graphic Artists Reinvented the Visual Landscape of Buenos Aires, 1880–1920

12:00 Ya'ara Gil-Glazer (המכללה האקדמית תל-חי -Tel-Hai Academic College, Tel Hai)
“Why ... it was the Jews who took it into their heads to go to Harlem and photograph the blacks there?": Second-Generation Jewish Migrants Document Black Urbanism and Protest

12:45 Lunch break

Session 4: Sites, Spaces and Urban Representations
14:15 Elana Shapira (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Vienna)
Introduction and moderation

14:30 Margarida Brito Alves & Giulia Lamoni (IHA-FCSH / Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon)
The Margin as a Space of Connection: Mira Schendel, Amélia Toledo and Salette Tavares in Lisbon

15:15 Margit Franz (Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz)
From Dinner Parties to Galleries: The Langhammer-Leyden-Schlesinger Circle in Bombay

16:00 Frauke V. Josenhans (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven)
“A Gigantic Carousel in Continuous Motion”: Hedda Sterne and the Lure of New York

16:45 Coffee break

17:30 Displacements, Modern Art and Metropolises
Roundtable with Rafael Cardoso, Partha Mitter, Elana Shapira and Elvan Zabunyan

Venues
Friday, 30 November
09:00 Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZI)
Katharina-von-Bora-Straße 10 | 80333 München
Room 242

18:00 Kunstverein e. V.
Galeriestraße 4 | 80539 München

Saturday, 1 December
09:45 Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ) München
Amalienstr. 38 | 80799 München

Participation is free. Registration required by 20 November: laura.karp.lugokunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de