Decentering Transnationality: the Impact of Latin American Artists in Postwar Europe

From the early decades of the twentieth century, Europe – followed by North America after 1945 – became the nexus of migratory flows of artists, objects, ideas, and cultural agents, particularly from Latin America. Yet, while the presence of Latin American artists in the United Kingdom and France has been the subject of extensive and ongoing research projects, the same is not true for other European countries, eschewing the powerful axis of Paris - London - New York. The 2-day workshop welcomes research contributions that decenter such canonization of the transnational to recover histories that involve other places of arrival and a new polycentric understanding. What was the impact of artists settling at the so-called margins of Europe? How did they contribute to an ongoing international dialogue crossing the European continent and a process of hybridization of local narratives?

Surveying the ferment that developed within a more diverse network, the workshop aims to decenter transnational art histories that have privileged certain sites of interest. It also strives to contribute to a diverse, more encompassing, understanding of the transnational and a multifaceted yet global modernity.

Program

(please note that each paper will last 20 minutes followed by 20 minutes discussion)

March 3, 2025

14:00 – 14:15 Welcome by Lara Demori (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Elize Mazadiego (University of Bern), and Felipe Martinez (Leiden University)

14:15 – 15:00 Aleca Le Blanc (University of California, Riverside)
“The Reinvention of Ulm”

15:00 – 15:45 Claudia Cendales Paredes (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
“Between Bogotá and Munich: Godula Buchholz and Latin American art in the 1960s”

15:45 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 16:45 Annabel Ruckdeschel (University of Giessen)
“Exhibiting Printmaking in Exile. Chilean Artists in the GDR after 1973”

16:45 – 17:30 Ine Engels (Ghent University)
“Disentangling the Web. Latin American Artists and Video Art in Belgium in the 1970s”

17:30 – 18:15 Anamaria Garzon Mantilla (University of Essex)
“Ancestralista Abstraction and Mobility in Ecuadorian Modern Art”

18:15 – 18:30 Final remarks

18:30: Happy hour and informal discussion

March 4, 2025

09:30 – 10:15 Denis Viva (Università di Trento)
“Reverse Trajectories: Francisco Smythe and Gonzalo Díaz Cuevas in Florence”

10:15 – 11:00 Paulina Caro Troncoso (Bibliotheca Hertziana)
“The Influence of Roberto Matta’s Work in Post-War Italian Art, 1949 – 1954”

11:00 – 11:15 Coffee break

11:15 – 12:00 Francesca d’ Andrea (Università degli Studi di Genova)
“Contemporary Cuban Painting: Rome Welcomes the Revolution”

12:00 – 12:45 Laura Moure Cecchini (Università degli Studi di Padova)
“Buenos Aires – Venecia: Antonio Berni in the 1960s and the Antinomies of Realism”

12:45 – 13:30 Michele d’Aurizio, University of California, Berkeley
“Jorge Eduardo Eielson: From Perù to the Moon, via Italy”

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30 – 15:30 Guided tour of the Bibliotheca Hertziana

Scientific Organization: Lara Demori, Bibliotheca Hertziana in collaboration with Elize Mazadiego, University of Bern and Felipe Martinez, Leiden University

PLEASE FOLLOW THE EVENT ALSO ON ZOOM: https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/7475586652?omn=67148978566