Call for Papers | International Conference | Modernism in Ukraine: Local Contexts, Intercultural Encounters, Transnational Exchanges.

The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (4–5 October 2024).

Coinciding with the final stop of the touring exhibition In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (29 June – 13 October 2024), this international conference will bring together established and emerging scholars for a first-ever discussion dedicated exclusively to Ukraine’s visual culture of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to be held outside Ukraine.

For decades the modernist art production of Ukraine has been viewed through the imperialist lens of the so-called ‘Russian avant-garde’, with scholarship dedicated specifically to the local Ukrainian context remaining marginal and mostly a purview of home-produced historiography. The Russian Federation’s brutal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has finally prompted a reassessment of the existing art historical canon, posing uncomfortable questions regarding the complicity of western academia and institutions in overlooking the Kremlin’s neo-imperialist pretensions. The current conference seeks to harness this unprecedented moment to redress historical injustices, invest in epistemic reparations and reclaim names, events and institutions for Ukraine’s cultural space. At the same time, by recognising and celebrating the country’s multicultural dimension and pluralism of its artistic practices, the presented discussions will go beyond the established national paradigm to investigate cultural transfers and intercultural exchanges.

The conference seeks to address the following questions: How did artists engage with indigenous pictorial traditions to construct Ukraine’s modern cultural identity? How did this engagement evolve under the changing political and ideological regimes? What intercultural and transnational encounters had informed the development of modern art in Ukraine? What is the legacy of Ukraine’s artistic modernism and what vision of the future can it offer?

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers or presentations that address the abovementioned questions and/or the conference themes more broadly. Proposals can be dedicated to visual arts in a variety of media, roughly spanning the period from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, as well as the practice of contemporary artists working with the legacy of Ukraine’s artistic modernism.

Proposal submissions

Please submit the following materials, along with the full name and contact email address of the participant and information about any access requirements:

A proposal of up to 500 words for a 20-minute paper, or an alternative presentation
An academic CV of no more than 2 sheets of A4 or a 200-word biography
To: modernisminukrainegmail.com

By: 11 pm (23:00) BST on Sunday 9 June 2024
Selected participants will be contacted by the end of June 2024

Funding/Access statement

We welcome the participation of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, and independent scholars, from all backgrounds and will do our best to ensure that the event is accessible to all attendees.

The event will be held in London with on-site participation of all speakers, wherever possible. The conference organisers will aim to cover travel expenses and accommodation of the invited speakers, especially those in need of financial assistance and without institutional funding.

Co-organised by Katia Denysova (University of Tübingen) and Maria Mileeva (The Courtauld Institute of Art)