[spectre] (fwd) CFP: Global Art History Studies / CEE - Austria

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Karolina Majewska-Güde
Date: Jan 26, 2021
Subject: CFP: Second volume: Global Art History Studies

Deadline: Feb 20, 2021

Call for Papers
Second volume of KU Linz

Global Art History Studies: Central and Eastern European Art and Art 
History with a focus on Austria. Imperial Pasts/ Neoliberal Presences/ 
Decolonial Futures
by transcript

Editors: Karolina Majewska-Güde (KU Linz) and Julia Allerstorfer-Hertel 
(KU Linz)

The book is the second volume in the KU Global Art History series, which 
is the result of a research project and of guest lectures held at the KU 
Linz since 2015 focusing on the concepts, theoretical foundations, 
perspectives, and methods of a global art history.

With the current volume, we want to rethink the concept of global art 
history by introducing two main actors who are traditionally positioned 
in a center-periphery narrative: Austria and Central and Eastern Europe.

The genealogy of the current volume relates to last year's guest lecture 
series Global or Alter-Globalist? Contemporary Central and Eastern 
European Art Histories. This series focused on the latest regional art 
histories and their position vis-à-vis and within the global art history 
discourse.  Unlike the lecture series we would like to expand the 
timeframe of the publication beyond the post-war period to juxtapose 
different narrative strategies, perspectives and theoretical tools 
related to the critical overcoming of the dynamics of the 
center-periphery, and provide a fruitful basis for further discussions 
about methods and goals of regional art history, critical art geography, 
and their relationship to post-colonial and decolonial studies.

Part 1 revisits the subject of Central and Eastern European art history 
by rethinking concepts of colonialism, modernity, and transmodernity, 
and focuses on artistic practices and art historiographies during the 
period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918) with particular 
attention to imperialist politics, discourses of "othering," and 
transculturality.  Part 2 problematizes regional art history within a 
spectrum of problems related to concepts of neo-colonialism / 
self-colonization, globalization, and alter-globalism, and focuses on 
regional art histories written after 1989 in the context of the global 
art history debate.

The book does not attempt to draw a direct parallel between the imperial 
legacy of the Habsburg Empire in Central and Eastern Europe and the 
recent post-1989 period marked by neo-colonial imbalances of power. 
Without conflating historical circumstances, the publication seeks to 
question how these historical conditions influenced local 
historiographies. The two parts of the book are linked by the following 
questions:

- How have the cultural politics of the Austrian Empire and contemporary 
Austria influenced the modes of writing the art histories of Central and 
Eastern Europe and how do they continue to do so? - How do Central and 
Eastern European art histories address the former colonizer/ imperial 
power (Austrian Empire) within a postcolonial project to reclaim 
regional and national art histories?
- In what ways do Austria-based institutions such as museums, 
collections, exhibitions, art fairs, and academic institutions shape 
regional Central and Eastern European art histories?
- How were/are Austrian art and the Austrian art scene positioned within 
regional art histories in connection with an artist's biography on a 
micro level and in terms of trans-national art histories (i.e. 
Czech-Austrian, Polish-Austrian etc.) on a macro level?
- What are possible critical art geographies that reconsider power 
relations between Austria and Central and Eastern Europe? - How did 
ideas of the artistic center and periphery develop in regional art 
histories with the changing political and historical context (1867–1918 
and post-1989)?

We invite scholars and independent researchers who engage with these 
themes to submit proposals focusing on one or more of the following 
questions:

Part 1: Transmodernity in Art and Art History within the 
Austro-Hungarian Empire until the Anschluss (1938) - How have artistic 
practices and art history been determined by the k.u.k. politics of 
internal colonization/continental imperialism on the one hand and by the 
imagined cosmopolitanism within the Habsburg Empire on the other hand?
- In what ways do the discourses on multiethnicity, supranationalism, 
and cosmopolitanism shape regional art histories, and how do they relate 
to internal colonialism? To what extent did the question of nationality 
affect artistic and academic careers as well as art historiography? - 
What impact did discourses of superiority, discrimination and racism 
(forms of othering, Orientalism and Balkanism) have on art histories of 
the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

Part 2: Situating Post-Socialist Histories of Central and Eastern 
European Art. Narratives from and on the Region.
- How have recent histories of CEE art produced during socialism been 
determined by Austria-based art infrastructures (institutions, 
collections, grants)?
- What is the role of Austria-based institutions in the process of 
instituting modern, neo-avant-garde, and contemporary art from Central 
and Eastern Europe?
- What are the dominant critical moments in the narratives that consider 
the relationships between Austrian and Central and Eastern European 
post-war art histories?

Abstracts of 500 words, plus a brief speaker bio of c. 100 words, should 
be submitted to Julia Allerstorfer-Hertel (j.allerstorfer at ku-linz.at) 
and Karolina Majewska-Güde (k.majewska-guede at ku-linz.at), by 20.02 2021.

Accepted contributions will be subject to peer review.
Deadline for Abstracts: 20.02 2021; Acceptance of Abstracts: 01.03.2021; 
Submission Deadline: 20.06.2021


Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Second volume: Global Art History Studies. In: ArtHist.net, Jan 26, 
2021. <https://arthist.net/archive/33277>.