1960s Africa Albania American modern art Armando Lulaj authorship Belgrade Capitalism collective project conceptual art contemporary art copy and original DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art fluid identities identity identity politics international exhibition Jonida Gashi local history photography Pleurad Xhafa postcolonialism public art Roma art Roma Pavilion Soviet Union Tirana transnational dialogues traveling exhibitions Venice Biennale Yugoslavia ZETA Gallery
September 13th (Wednesday)
Why not – feminist…? Linking Art Worlds through missed encounters
@The James Gallery, 365 5th Avenue New York, NY 10016
An exchange between Zanna Gilbert and Beáta Hock
In the art scenes of state-socialist Eastern Europe, the topic of women’s art or feminist oeuvres is complex. Established truths reiterate the non-existence of such art practices or a feminist consciousness in those societies. In this public exchange, Zanna Gilbert and Beata Hock explore their encounters with feminist archival remnants in the archives of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and Dóra Maurer. Neither artist identifies as feminist, and the emerging canon of East European feminist art history does not usually mention them. What then, was the nature of these outliers’ engagement with feminism, and how did the backdrop of the state-socialist emancipation program shape this relation? How can we explore the gendered conditions of profuxtion without overdetermining a feminist framework? The conversation will explore gendered labor and the implicit biases affecting women artists and their work.
Inspired by BBC Radio 4’s programme “Only Artists”, this evening exchange brings two art professionals together to talk about their intellectual and creative work. The agenda is theirs, the conversation is free-flowing, and there is no moderator.
September 17th (Sunday)
Working Together: Open Discussion on Linking Feminist Art – A.I.R meets LAW
@A.I.R. Gallery, 155 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn NY 11201
Two collectives dedicated to artistic work (A.I.R) and art historical research (LAW) meet to discuss current and possible connections between feminist art and art history in the United States and former socialist Europe.
The focus of the meeting is the emancipatory art production and the collective empowerment strategies of artists who identify as women, from the 1970s to the present day. How can we interpret similar artistic interventions, strategies, and working methods on both sides of the Iron Curtain? How to imagine the possible connections and exchanges between them? What was the significance of collective and collaborative work for the feminist art movement in the USA, and how can we form feminist transnational alliances today?
We will also discuss what art feminisms have in common today in terms of current situations and concerns, with a particular focus on the 50-year history of the struggle for reproductive rights in the US and currently also in parts of post-socialist Europe.
The meeting takes the form of an open collective public discussion and is open to all.
Seminar guests and professional encounters in New York
Zanna Gilbert Senior research specialist at the Getty Research Institute
Michael Berman New York based photographer and filmmaker
Team members of MoMA’s International Program and C-MAP research group
Nora Almeida and Maggie Schreiner, volunteer staff at Interference Archive
Joshua I. Cohen Associate Professor of Art History at The Graduate Center of CUNY
Masha Chlenova Lecturer at the New School
Juliane Camfield director and Sarah Girner cultural program coordinator at Deutsches Haus at NYU
Yevgeniy Fiks exhibiting artist at the James Gallery
Lexington Davis guest curator at Apexart
Steven G. Fullwood archivist, visual artist and exhibition coordinator for “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration”
Joan Snitzer A.I.R. Gallery
Patryk Tomaszewski Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art