The Polish Institute of World Art Studies, in cooperation with the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, has the pleasure to announce the call for papers for the 2nd Congress of Jewish Art in Poland: “Art in Jewish Society”.
The 1th Congress of Jewish Art,entitled “Jewish artists and Central-Eastern Europe: Art centers, Identity, Heritage from the 19th century to the Second World War”, took place in Kazimierz Dolny in 2008. The post-conference volume was published in 2010 (ISBN 978-83-7181-655-0).

After five years, in connection with the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, we are organizing the 2nd Congress, dedicated to the artistic life and the role of visual arts in the Jewish communities.
The Congress will cover subjects related to the area east of Berlin, Munich and Vienna, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe in the period from the late 18th century until the Second World War.

The ideas of the Haskalah formed in the late 18th and early 19th century in Berlin resulted in the inclusion of Jews in the political and cultural life of Europe. In the process of modernization the Jewish society revaluated its attitude towards its own artistic tradition. In the second part of the 19th century and early 20th century many important Jewish artists, theorists, critics, patrons and collectors of art were active in Central and Eastern Europe. Independent exhibitions of Jewish artists, starting from the one organized in Berlin in 1907, integrated artistic and intellectual circles. New horizons, usually associated with political ideologies, opened to the Jewish art.

The years between the late 19th century until the Second World War were the time of important accomplishments of Jewish artists who belonged to the European societies and searched for their own cultural identity, while forming a separate, „national”, art and independent institutions.

Vital questions are posed in the program assumptions of the 2nd Congress of Jewish Art in Poland, regarding: artistic ideas, thus the attitude towards tradition; artistic life, and, related to it, creation of aesthetic values;reception of art,and hence absorption of the tradition and new trends by the Jewish society.
The Congress will take place in a newly opened Museum of the History of Polish in Warsaw.

THE MAIN TOPICS OF THE CONGRESS:
1. Artistic ideas in the Jewish society
• the Haskalah and visual arts
• art in the Jewish thought
• the Jewish artistic tradition and Jews in the quest of the national art
• museums of Jewish art, collectors and scholarly research
2. Jewish artistic life
• artistic patronage, exhibition and artistic institutions
• artistic education
• groups, unions and artistic colonies
• art magazines, book on art
• artistic centers and province
3. Reception – forming role of Jewish art
• political aspects of the reception of art
• circulation of art: traditional, popular, children’s, avant-garde
• art criticism and its languages (Polish, Yiddish, German, Russian, Hebrew)
• communal or individual? – strategies of self-representations in the Jewish art

PARTICIPANTS
We invite participants in two categories:
1. Speakers who deliver their papers
2. General audience who participate without presenting a paper.

PAPERS AND ABSTRACTS
All papers will be delivered in English. The maximum length of the presentation should not exceed 20 min.
There will be additional 10 min. for discussion after each presentation.

The registration forms will include short abstracts in English and are expected by February 28, 2014.

CONFERENCE FEE
100 EUR (400 PLN)
50 EUR for Ph.D. students (200 PLN)

For further questions please contact:
jewishcongress2014word-art.pl or
m.stolarskaworld-art.pl