Call for Papers
Second volume of KU Linz

Global Art History Studies: Central and Eastern European Art and Art History with a focus on Austria. Imperial Pasts/ Neoliberal Presences/ Decolonial Futures
by transcript

Editors: Karolina Majewska-Güde (KU Linz) and Julia Allerstorfer-Hertel (KU Linz)

The book is the second volume in the KU Global Art History series, which is the result of a research project and of guest lectures held at the KU Linz since 2015 focusing on the concepts, theoretical foundations, perspectives, and methods of a global art history.

With the current volume, we want to rethink the concept of global art history by introducing two main actors who are traditionally positioned in a center-periphery narrative: Austria and Central and Eastern Europe.

The genealogy of the current volume relates to last year's guest lecture series Global or Alter-Globalist? Contemporary Central and Eastern European Art Histories. This series focused on the latest regional art histories and their position vis-à-vis and within the global art history discourse. Unlike the lecture series we would like to expand the timeframe of the publication beyond the post-war period to juxtapose different narrative strategies, perspectives and theoretical tools related to the critical overcoming of the dynamics of the center-periphery, and provide a fruitful basis for further discussions about methods and goals of regional art history, critical art geography, and their relationship to post-colonial and decolonial studies.

Part 1 revisits the subject of Central and Eastern European art history by rethinking concepts of colonialism, modernity, and transmodernity, and focuses on artistic practices and art historiographies during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918) with particular attention to imperialist politics, discourses of "othering," and transculturality. Part 2 problematizes regional art history within a spectrum of problems related to concepts of neo-colonialism / self-colonization, globalization, and alter-globalism, and focuses on regional art histories written after 1989 in the context of the global art history debate.

The book does not attempt to draw a direct parallel between the imperial legacy of the Habsburg Empire in Central and Eastern Europe and the recent post-1989 period marked by neo-colonial imbalances of power. Without conflating historical circumstances, the publication seeks to question how these historical conditions influenced local historiographies. The two parts of the book are linked by the following questions:

- How have the cultural politics of the Austrian Empire and contemporary Austria influenced the modes of writing the art histories of Central and Eastern Europe and how do they continue to do so?
- How do Central and Eastern European art histories address the former colonizer/ imperial power (Austrian Empire) within a postcolonial project to reclaim regional and national art histories?
- In what ways do Austria-based institutions such as museums, collections, exhibitions, art fairs, and academic institutions shape regional Central and Eastern European art histories?
- How were/are Austrian art and the Austrian art scene positioned within regional art histories in connection with an artist's biography on a micro level and in terms of trans-national art histories (i.e. Czech-Austrian, Polish-Austrian etc.) on a macro level?
- What are possible critical art geographies that reconsider power relations between Austria and Central and Eastern Europe?
- How did ideas of the artistic center and periphery develop in regional art histories with the changing political and historical context (1867–1918 and post-1989)?

We invite scholars and independent researchers who engage with these themes to submit proposals focusing on one or more of the following questions:

Part 1: Transmodernity in Art and Art History within the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the Anschluss (1938)
- How have artistic practices and art history been determined by the k.u.k. politics of internal colonization/continental imperialism on the one hand and by the imagined cosmopolitanism within the Habsburg Empire on the other hand?
- In what ways do the discourses on multiethnicity, supranationalism, and cosmopolitanism shape regional art histories, and how do they relate to internal colonialism? To what extent did the question of nationality affect artistic and academic careers as well as art historiography?
- What impact did discourses of superiority, discrimination and racism (forms of othering, Orientalism and Balkanism) have on art histories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

Part 2: Situating Post-Socialist Histories of Central and Eastern European Art. Narratives from and on the Region.
- How have recent histories of CEE art produced during socialism been determined by Austria-based art infrastructures (institutions, collections, grants)?
- What is the role of Austria-based institutions in the process of instituting modern, neo-avant-garde, and contemporary art from Central and Eastern Europe?
- What are the dominant critical moments in the narratives that consider the relationships between Austrian and Central and Eastern European post-war art histories?

Abstracts of 500 words, plus a brief speaker bio of c. 100 words, should be submitted to Julia Allerstorfer-Hertel (j.allerstorferku-linz.at) and Karolina Majewska-Güde (k.majewska-guedeku-linz.at), by 20.02 2021.

Accepted contributions will be subject to peer review.
Deadline for Abstracts: 20.02 2021;
Acceptance of Abstracts: 01.03.2021; Submission Deadline: 20.06.2021