(Un)mapping Infrastructures of Modern Art, IV: Infrastructures of supporting travels and exhibiting modernism transnationally (1940s-1990s).

Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts, Poznań, Al. Marcinkowskiego 28, H building, 4th floor, Art Loft

National Museum of Art, Poznań, 08.–10.10.2025, Aleje Karola Marcinkowskiego 9

Streaming-event, live and with discussion at the University of Zurich:
Universität Zürich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich, room KOL-G-217 (second floor)
Please register for the in person event in Zurich by 6.10.2025 at https://khist.uzh.ch/de/institut/registration

Online transmission: https://www.youtube.com/uapoznan (from October 8, 6:00 PM)

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CONFERENCE PROGRAM

WEDNESDAY, 8.10.2025
National Museum of Art, Poznań

15:30 Registration at the National Museum in Poznań

16:00 Guided Tour in English (in person only): Presentation of the National Museum’s permanent collection of 20th-Century Polish Art and the temporary exhibition Ukryte znaczenia. Motyw wnętrz w sztuce polskiej od XIX do XXI wieku (Hidden Meanings: The Motif of Interiors in Polish Art from the 19th to the 21st Century)

18:00 Opening
Keynote: Smooth U. Nwezi (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Making Exhibitions. Infrastructures of Mid-Century African Modernism

Reception at the National Museum of Art, Poznań

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THURSDAY, 9.10.2025
Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts, Poznań

9:00-9:30 Introduction

Section 1 – Structures between Cultural Diplomacy and Exhibition Making
Moderation Part I: Bärbel Küster (University of Zurich)

9:30-10:10 Dominicus Makukula (University of Dar es Salaam)
The Slade School of Art, the Harmon Foundation and Tanzania's Modern Art Exhibitions since the 1950s

10:10-10:50 Nadia von Maltzahn (Orient-Institut Beirut)
Exhibiting Lebanon in London and Paris in 1989: The role of bilateral friendship associations in artistic infrastructures

10:50-11:15 Short coffee break

Moderation Part II: Lynn Rother (Leuphana University Lüneburg)
11:15-11:55 Pujan Karambeigi (Columbia University)
From Colonial Museums to Cultural Nationalism and Back: On UNESCO’s Museum Training Centre in Jos in the 1960s

11:55-12:35 Abigael van Alst (University of Zurich)
Transnational Artistic Networks and the Galleria Trastevere: Italian-Maghrebi Exchanges in Mid-20th-Century Rome

12:35-13:00 Discussion

13:00-14:00 Lunch

Section 2 – Artists Going Abroad, Travelling on Infrastructures
Moderation Part I: Bärbel Küster (University of Zurich)

14:00-14:40 Kristian Handberg (University of Copenhagen)
Exhibitions of Danish Artists in Poland and East Germany 1965: Artist contacts and diplomatic aspirations in two new exhibition initiatives across the Iron Curtain.

14:40-15:10 Annabel Ruckdeschel (University of Giessen/University of Zurich)
Infrastructures of Solidarity: Travels to and from the 1976 East Berlin Printmakers’ Meeting

15:10-15:20 Short coffee break

Moderation Part II: Christa Maria Lerm Hayes (University of Amsterdam)
15:20-16:00 Althea Ruoppo (Boston University)
Untangling Transnational Encounters from Locks of Hair: Rosemarie Trockel’s Weekend in Moscow with the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, 1990

16:00-16:40 Felix Vogel (University of Kassel)
“Is airfare provided to install work?” — Logistics, Travel and Production at documenta

16:40-17:00 Discussion

17:00 Visit to the Arsenał Gallery

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FRIDAY, 10.10.2025
Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts, Poznań

Section 3 – From Institution to NGO to global networks
Moderation Part I: Jan Wasiewicz (Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts)

9:30-10:10 Maria Anna Rogucka (Jagiellonian University/University of Zaragoza)
Museums as Infrastructures of Mobility: Muzeum Sztuki, GASK and Transnational Art Support in Communist Europe (1960s–1970s)

10:10-10:50 Jakub Banasiak (The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw)
Instead of the State: The Birth of the NGO Sector for Contemporary Art in Late Socialist Poland

10:50-11:15 Short coffee break

Moderation Part II: Abigael van Alst (University of Zurich)
11:15-11:55 Daniela Ortiz dos Santos (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Paolo Gasparini and UNESCO: Collaborations, Displacement the (Re)making of Latin American Built Culture

11:55-12:35 Christopher Williams-Wynn (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz/ Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation)
Exhibitionary Infrastructure in an Uneven World-System (Buenos Aires CAyC)

12:35-13:00 Discussion

13:00-14:30 Lunch

14:30-16:00 Visit to the Jarosław Kozłowski Archive

Section 4 – Titograd's multidirectional networks
Moderation: Marta Smolińska (Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts)

16:00-16:40 Nataša Jagdhuhn (Humboldt University of Berlin)
The Gallery for the Art of the Non-Aligned States as a Multinodal Network and Tool for Creating Global Dialogue on Decolonizing Museum Theory and Practice

16:40-17:20 Yini Yang (Free University of Berlin)
(Un)intentional Misunderstandings: The Yugoslav Modern Art Exhibition in China (1980-81) as a Starting Point

17:20-18:00 Sanja Sekelj (Institute of Art History, Zagreb)
Yugoslav Avant-gardes in France (1989–1990): Personal Networks and State Infrastructures in Late Socialist Yugoslavia

18:00 Final Discussion