Global and forgotten connections: the circulation of visual arts between socialist European countries and Asia, Latin America and Africa during the Cold War.

International Conference
Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
Pl. Małachowskiego 3, 00–916 Warsaw

Thursday, 5 February 2026

9:30 a.m. Event opening and welcome by Agnieszka Pindera, director of the Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
Introduction by Wiktoria Szczupacka
10:00–11:30 a.m. Panel 1 Institutions [chair: Wiktoria Szczupacka]
Gabriela Świtek, CBWA
Terezie Nekvindová, A Distributed Exhibition State: Institutional Conditions of Organising Exhibitions Abroad in Czechoslovakia
Dorota Jarecka, Art Institution as Quilt: Global Transfers at the Galeria Studio in Warsaw
discussion

11:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Coffee break

12:00–1:30 p.m. Panel 2 Geographies: Asia [chair: Zsuzsa László]
Thục Linh Nguyễn Vũ, The Socialist Postcolonial Moment: Vietnamese Art in Zachęta in the 1950s
Maija Koskinen, Formal and Informal Artistic Exchanges. Finnish Art in the Soviet Union and China in 1958: An Unorthodox Journey Across Planned and Improvised Venues
Hatice Özdogan Türkyilmaz, Participation of Artists from Socialist European Countries in the First Two International Istanbul Biennials
discussion

1:30–3:00 p.m. Lunch break

3:00–4:30 p.m. Panel 3 Geographies: Asia [chair: Gabriela Świtek]
Simone Wille, South Asian Art and Artists in Central Europe: 1947–1989
Wiktoria Szczupacka, Between the People’s Republic of Poland and India: Women Artists, Feminism, and the Exhibition at the BWA Gallery in Bydgoszcz in 1988
Justyna Balisz-Schmelz, India as an Imaginary Spiritual Home: Jerzy Ćwiertnia’s Work as an Early Example of the “Eastward Turn” in Postwar Polish Artistic Theory and Practice
discussion

4:30–5:00 p.m. Coffee break

5:00–6:30 p.m. Panel 4 Geographies: Africa [chair: Pavlína Morganová]
Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Monumental Alignments with Revolutionary Ethiopia: Collaborative, Decolonial and Ecological Practices of Socialist Memorialisation
Katarzyna Falecka, On Artistic Exchanges between Algeria and the former Eastern Bloc
Paulina Banas, Publishing Living Egypt on Both Sides of the Cold War: Paul Strand’s Photography and the Networks of 1960s Art Publishing
Discussion

7:00–8:00 p.m. Curators’ tour of the What Are Our Collective Dreams? Global connections – abandoned friendships exhibition [curators: Taras Gembik, Joanna Kordjak, Antonina Stebur]

Friday, 6 February 2026

10:00–11:30 a.m. Panel 5 Geographies: Latin America [chair: Daniel Grúň]
Agata Jakubowska, Exhibitions of Mexican Women Artists in Europe: Feminism and Cultural Diplomacy
Karolina Zychowicz, Mexican Art as a Catalyst for Change: Exhibitions in Warsaw (1955) and Beijing (1956)
Jorge M Sanguino, The Legacy of Marcos Kurtycz: Three Decades of Contemporary Mexican Art
discussion

11:30 a.m. –12:00 p.m. Coffee break

12:00–1:30 p.m. Panel 6 Geographies: Latin America [chair: Zsuzsa László]
Heloisa Espada, From Bioromanticism to Concrete Art: Kázmér Fejér and the Connections Between Abstractionism in Brazil and Central Europe
Rado Ištok, Czechoslovakia at the 10th Bienial de São Paulo
Rada Georgieva, Beyond Alignment: Liuba Wolf at the São Paulo Biennial
discussion

1:30–3:00 p.m. Lunch break

3:00–4:30 p.m. Panel 7 Geographies: Latin America [chair: Pavlína Morganová]
Juliane Debeusscher, Multidirectional Realisms: Antonio Berni in Socialist Europe (1956–1966)
Katarzyna Cytlak, Cultural Antropophagy: Angelo de Aquino’s Decolonial Dialogue with the Polish Artist Jarosław Kozłowski
Katerina Valdivia Bruch, Third World Solidarity: Transnational Cultural Encounters in 1970s Peru
discussion

4:30–5:00 p.m. Coffee break

5:00–6:50 p.m. Panel 8 Geographies: Latin America [chair: Wiktoria Szczupacka]

Zsuzsa László, Divergent Attempts Towards a Transregional Profile of Art
Daniel Grúň, Cosmic Utopia as a Critique of Cold War Ideology? Július Koller and his Participation in International Mail Art Networks
Diego Renart González, A Dominican Artist in Poland: Silvano Lora and His Forbidden Exhibition in Warsaw
Dorota Jagoda Michalska, The Open Veins of The Earth: Władysław Hasior (1928–1999), Post-War Marxism and Decoloniality Between Poland and Uruguay
discussion

7:00–7:30 p.m. Closing remarks: New research directions
Zsuzsa László, Daniel Grúň, Pavlína Morganová; [chair: Gabriela Świtek]