Crossing French Metropolises: Exiled Artists and Intellectuals during the 20th Century

Building on common interests of the German Center for Art History (DFK Paris) and the ERC research project Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (METROMOD) – such as movements of artists, ideas and productions – this workshop will focus on the temporary exile of artists and intellectuals in French cities throughout the twentieth century, which was marked by (e)migration waves. Located at the crossroads of disciplines such as Art History, Exile Studies, History of Sociology, Architecture and Urban Studies, this topic calls for a transdisciplinary approach.
While METROMOD focuses on six cities – Bombay (now Mumbai), Buenos Aires, Istanbul, London, New York and Shanghai – this workshop seeks to explore French cities of arrival, passage, and entanglement. Hubs such as Marseille, Nantes, and Paris, among other transcultural contact zones, have been privileged destinations for thousands of peoples fleeing misery, dictatorial regimes and xenophobia. Exile is understood here on the one hand as an intellectual displacement, and on the other hand as a forced movement, which, in some way, will always be regretted, even if the integration in the adopted country succeeds. While some exiled artists intended to pass through these cities to reach a further destination, others settled for a longer time, trying to make a place for themselves in the local artistic milieus.
Many open questions need to be answered, among them: How did the artists deal with the changing conditions in exile? How did they manage to infiltrate the economic system and to continue making a living from their art? Did they need to adapt their production to the local taste and aesthetics? What kind of work were they asked to produce? Who were the multipliers of their work and ideas – perhaps journals, collectors, critics or galleries? Did they need to build networks or could they integrate into local ones? Or did they use both circuits? How did the networks help them live and work in these cities?

Program

Wednesday, 3 July

17h15 Welcome Address
Thomas Kirchner (DFK Paris)
METROMOD Team (LMU, Munich)

17h30 Diasporic subjects, transnational cities
Ming Tiampo (Carleton University, Ottawa)

18h15 Les Sud-Américains de Paris. Visual Art and migration during the 1960’s
Isabel Plante (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas/Universidad de San Martín – CONICET/IDAES-UNSAM, Buenos Aires)

19h00 Reception

Thursday, 4 July

9h15 Coffee

Session moderated by Ming Tiampo (Carleton University, Ottawa)

9h45 The Exile of Chinese Artists in Paris from the 1950’s to the 2000’s
Aurore Blanc (Université Paris Nanterre)

10h30 “Russian Paris”: Emigrant artists from the Russian Empire and their Parisian networks
Mira Kozhanova (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main)

11h15 Exiled soul? Search of Identity by Japanese artists in 20th century France
Kuniko Abe (Akita International University, Akita)

12h00 Lunch break

Session moderated by Alexis Nuselovici (Collège d’études mondiales/Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-CEM/FMSH, Paris; Aix-Marseille Université)

13h30 Teresa Żarnower’s Temporary Exile in Paris as an Impulse to Photomontage: An Attempt of Crossroads’ Reconstruction, 1938-1948
Maria Rogucka (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

14h15 Entangled memories and images of domesticity. On some modalities of living and remembering exile in Marseille’s contemporary art practices (1990s-2000s)
Marine Schütz (Université Rennes 2/ECHOES, European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities, H2020 project)

15h00 La salle d’attente. Le roman exilique allemand et la ville
Alexis Nuselovici (Collège d’études mondiales/Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-CEM/FMSH, Paris; Aix-Marseille Université)

Convened by METROMOD Team/Institut für Kunstgeschichte,
LMU Munich: Burcu Dogramaci, Mareike Hetschold, Laura Karp Lugo, Rachel Lee, Helene Roth, and Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte Paris (DFK Paris): Thomas Kirchner.

Administration and Assistance: Christina Lagao (LMU),
Karin Seltmann-Dupuy (DFK Paris).

Contact: laura.karp.lugokunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de

https://dfk-paris.org/de www.metromod.net

Participation is free

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 724649)

Venue

Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte
Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art (DFK Paris)
Hôtel Lully
45, rue des Petits Champs
75001 Paris