Whatʼs on
20. October 2022

European Realities. Realism movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, Symposium at Museum Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz

Otto Dix, Rothaarige Frau (Damenporträt), 1931

SYMPOSIUM
European Realities. Realism Movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser
22 – 23 March 2023

With a focus on painting, the European Realities project is dedicated to the many different European Realism movements throughout nearly all of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The project addresses the issues of poverty, starvation and misery, and about the modernisation of industry. It reports on the economic upswing and cultural boom, on scientific and technical progress, on the big city and nightlife, on emancipation and diversity. This period in European art has never been presented on such a scale: the project not only includes the well-known movements in Italy, France, Germany and the USA that characterise this period, it also features artists from northern, eastern and southeastern European countries who captured the spirit of the 1920s and 1930s impressively in their works. The project also pays special attention to the means by which the Realism movements spread throughout Europe: the circulation of ideas and artist networks within Europe.

The upheavals of the First World War were key to the shift towards Realist art. For Europe, the »Great War« marked an epochal turning point. The War traumatised Europe and destroyed great empires. In art, reality was captured in images reflecting the present and emphasising the object. Realist movements emerged and lasted until the 1930s, as the political situation deteriorated with the establishment of totalitarian regimes. The European Realism movements, however, were not superficial reactions to contemporary taste; rather they arose from a world out of kilter that found artistic expression in reality-oriented art. The political and social antagonisms of the era were also reflected in artistic attitudes. In general, Realism at that time consisted of two different tendencies, the so-called left- and right-wing, the Verists and the Classicists. The left wing turned to critically realist art. Verists employed objective sobriety to draw attention to social grievances and, like seismographs of current conditions, they registered not only the splendour of the era but also its dark sides. The right wing, on the other hand, adhered to a conservative style of painting, oscillating between melancholy and idyll, between a fatigue with civilisation and a pathos of progress. Characterised by grandiose classicism, these artists expressed a rather sceptical and distanced relationship to the modern world. Common to all Realists was the search for a new art that was appropriate to the times. What the European movements had in common was a desire to return to an art that, behind the depiction of reality, rendered the existential fears and endangered ideals of the 20th century visible.

The city of Chemnitz will be European Capital of Culture in 2025. In this context, we focus on European Realities – the European Realism movements. From 22 to 23 March 2023, we will organise an international symposium to bring together European research on the respective nationalRealism movements in fine arts.

The symposium will be held in German and English. Participation to the conference is free of charge.
The conference registration is requested until 17th March 2023 by email: gunzenhauser@stadt-chemnitz.de.

Concept and Contact European Realities
Anja Richter
anja.richter@stadt-chemnitz.de

PROGRAMME (>>> als PDF)
22 March 2023
Overview Realism Movements in Europe

8.30 am
Arrival and Registration

9.00
Words of Welcome
Prof. Dr. Frédéric Bußmann, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz

Introduction
Anja Richter, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz Museum Gunzenhauser

9.20
Prof. Dr. Rainer Stamm, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg (DE)
Expressionism is Dead – Long Live Realism! The Proclamations of the End of Expressionism in 1920 as the Starting Point for a New Turn in Style

10.00
Ana Redondo Plaza, Complutense University of Madrid (ES)
›Realists‹ in the Quattrocento: Aesthetics and Politics in Italy and France (1926–1936)

10.40
Coffee Break

11.00
Prof. Dr. Lovorka Magaš Bilandžić, University of Zagreb (HR)
Dr. Petar Prelog, Institute of Art History, Zagreb (HR)

From Magic Realism to Socially Engaged Art. Croatian Painting of the 1920s and 1930s

11.40
Susana Dolores Puente Matos, University of Amsterdam (NL)
»Das ist keine Kunst!«: Der niederländische Magische Realismus und seine Abgrenzung zu den Berliner Veristen
»That’s not art!«: Dutch Magical Realism and the Purification of the Berlin Verists

12.20
Prof. Dr. Eduards Kļaviņš, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga (LV)
Development towards Increased Figurative Representation: ›New Realism‹ of Latvian Modernists during the 1920s and 1930s. Its Social and Political Context

1.00 pm
Lunch Break

2.00
Miha Colner, Galerija Božidar Jakac – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Kostanjevica na Krki (SI)
Peripheral Manifestations of Social Realism: Case Study Yugoslavia in the 1930s

2.45
Dr. Neda Tsvetanova Zhivkova, Sofia City Art Gallery (BG)
Influences of New Objectivity in Bulgarian Art during 30s and 40s

3.25
Dr. András Zwickl, Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (HU)
From Neoclassicism to New Objectivity. Realisms in Hungary

4.05
Coffee Break

4.25
Dr. Katarzyna Nowakowska-Sito, The Warsaw Ghetto Museum (PL)
New Classicism in Polish Art between the two Wars: Sources and Relations

5.05
Dr. Chloë Théault, Regional Office of Cultural Affairs in Occitania / French Ministry of culture, Toulouse (FR)
Subject versus Object: About the Difficulty of Being. British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s

 

23 March 2023
Case Studies Realism Movements in Europe

8.45 am
Arrival and Registration

9.05
Introduction
Anja Richter, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser

9.20
Dr. Przemysław Strożek, Archiv der Avantgarden – Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (DE)
Towards Sporting Realism in Painting. The Case of Olympic Art Competition in Amsterdam 1928

10.00
Julia Dijkstra, Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL)
The Life and Work of Dutch ›Magic Realist‹ Carel Willink

10.40
Coffee Break

11.00
Dr. Anna Habánová, University of Liberec (CZ)
Erwin Müller and Paul Gebauer. Two Examples of New Objectivity from Czechoslovakia

11.40
Christian Drobe, Masaryk University, Brno (CZ)
Ernst Neuschul and the Prospects of Proletarian Art in Central and Eastern Europe

12.20
Ivana Hanaček, University of Zadar (HR)
Spuren der Arbeit im Kroatien der Zwischenkriegszeit: Die Darstellung des arbeitenden Körpers im kritischen Realismus der Künstlervereinigung »Zemlja«
Lines of Labour in Interwar Croatia: Representing the Labouring Body in Critical Realism of the Artists’ Association »Zemlja«

1.00 pm
Lunch Break

2.00
Elena Voronovich, Moscow (RU)
Neorealism of the Society of Easel Painters (OST) and European Realism Movements in the 1920s and 1930s

2.45
Prof. Dr. Martina Pachmanová, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (CZ)
Dark Fantasies of (Some) Women Realists: From Lustmord to Female Rage

3.25
Coffee Break

3.40
Dr. Michal Goldschmidt, Tate, London (UK)
»In England’s Green and Pleasant Land«? The Politics of David Bomberg’s Paintings of Jerusalem

4.20
Dr. Anna Manicka, National Gallery Warsaw (PL)
Berliner Luft and Bronisław Wojciech Linke, the Apostate

 

 

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