| Kommentar |
East Central European historiographies of art in the 20th century have been typically written in national frameworks. This course will critically engage with this tradition to explore its origins as well as its justifications and discontents. Attention given to the region’s rich (and by today largely vanished) multicultural environment, frequently changing national borders, and dynamic patterns of mobility, migration, and exile make the model of “national container” appear highly inadequate. Hence, instead of necessarily focusing on celebrated masters of national art histories, this course will take a transnational perspective to studying the region’s artistic life throughout the 20th century. This approach will make visible phenomena frequently downplayed in national canons: artists’ itinerant career patterns and their participation in global migratory flows, cross-border / cross-regional exchanges, and the role of historical diasporas or exiled cultural communities. |
