[spectre] CONF: Art and Philosophy in Eastern Europe since 1945 (Florence/online, 26-27 Jun 25)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Natalie Arrowsmith
Date: Jun 18, 2025
Subject: CONF: Art and Philosophy in Eastern Europe since 1945 
(Florence/online, 26-27 Jun 25)

Casa Zuccari, KHI – Max-Planck-Institut, Via Capponi 22, Florence, Jun 
26–27, 2025

"Trading Zones. Art and Philosophy in Eastern Europe since 1945" – 
Transdisciplinary Workshop organised by Hana Gründler and Sven Spieker 
(a collaboration between the Research Group Ethico-Aesthetics of the 
Visual, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut and 
the Graduate Center for Literary Research, University of California 
Santa Barbara).

Venue: Casa Zuccari, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – 
Max-Planck-Institut, Via Capponi 22, 50121 Florence & online (Zoom)

The Workshop investigates the trading zone between artistic and 
aesthetic practice and philosophical ideas in Central and Eastern 
Europe. We are interested in artists from the region who are engaged in 
a critical dialogue with philosophy and philosophical ideas (both from 
Eastern Europe and beyond), and whose work possesses transformative 
experiential, intellectual and political potential. We are equally 
interested in philosophers and theorists from the region whose thinking 
engages or addresses art. We view the relationship between art and 
philosophy as a productive form of synergy rather than as an instance of 
appropriation, static commentary, or prescriptive instruction.

In the workshop, we hope to address the following questions, among 
others: - Which philosophical traditions and discourses have 
contemporary artists in or from Eastern Europe engaged with since 1945? 
- How familiar and aware were theorists and philosophers from Eastern 
Europe with contemporary artistic trends, but also with the art of the 
past? - Where have theorists or philosophers tended to conceive of art 
and aesthetic practice schematically, or with too much idealism? More 
generally speaking: - To what extent can art and philosophy resist both 
all-encompassing formalism and ideological instrumentalization?

And, last but not least, in relation to current theory formation: - Why 
is the interpretation of Eastern European art often still exclusively 
based on Western philosophical narratives, neglecting to take into 
account the rich traditions of theory and aesthetic thinking that exist 
in Eastern Europe, now and in the past?

//

PROGRAM

THURSAY, June 26, 2025

2.00 - 2.30 pm: Welcome and Introduction by Hana Gründler and Sven 
Spieker: "The Nation and its Aftermath"

2.30 - 3.00 pm:  Alexander Dmitriev (Charles University, Prague / 
European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder): "The Artistic Ukrainian 
Movement (MUR) in the Long (After)Life of National Modernism (1945-1949)"

3.00 - 3.30 pm: Adrienn Kácsor (Bauhaus University): "A Migrant 
Painter’s Worldview after 1945"

Break

SESSION: Freedom and Crisis

4.00 - 4.30 pm: Jana Ndiaye Berankova (Columbia University, Institute 
for Ideas and Imagination, Reid Hall, Paris): "The True Realm of 
Freedom? The Polarity of Surrealism and Functionalism in the Writings of 
Karel Teige and its Critique"

4.30 - 5.00 pm: Karel Císař (UMPRUM, Prague) and Hana Gründler (KHI – 
MPI, Florence): "Art and Crisis in the Thinking of Jan Patočka"

5.00 - 5.30 pm: Constanze Fritzsch (KHI – MPI, Florence): "How to Digest 
Ernst Bloch? Carlfriedrich Claus‘ Readings of Bloch"

Break

SESSION: Objects and Words

6.00 - 6.30 pm: Branislav Jakovljević (Stanford University): "Reism, the 
Anti-Humanist Humanism"

6.30 - 7.00 pm: Cristian Nae (National University of Arts, Iasi): 
"Presence and Vision: The Artistic Reception of Poststructuralism in 
Romanian Conceptual Art"

--

FRIDAY, June 27, 2025

SESSION: Thinking (Through) Media

9.30 - 10.00 am: Katalin Cseh-Varga (University of Vienna): "Cybernetics 
in Art Discourse and Art Practice across East-Central Europe"

10.00 - 10.30 am: Jakub Banasiak (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw): 
"Pikto-sophy: Philosophical Inspirations in the Art of Jerzy Truszkowski 
in the Context of Late State Socialism in Poland"

10.30 - 11.00 am: Kseniia Pereplotchykova (European University Viadrina, 
Frankfurt/Oder): "An Intellectual Legacy of bad photography: Boris 
Mikhailov’s Unfinished Dissertation (1984/85)"

Break

SESSION: Art, Ideology, Politics

11.30 am - 12.00 pm: Sven Spieker (University of California, Santa 
Barbara): "‘Artists Have to Study Philosophy‘: Mikhail Lifshits Speech 
‘Partiinost’ and ‘Realism’ (1975)

12.00 - 12.30 pm: Keti Chukhrov (Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe): 
"The Polit-technological Architecture of Art Institutions in Russia 
between 1990-2022"

12.30 - 1.00 pm: Final Discussion

--

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
Via Giuseppe Giusti 44
50121 Firenze, Italia
+39 055 24911-1
info at khi.fi.it

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Reference / Quellennachweis:
CONF: Art and Philosophy in Eastern Europe since 1945 (Florence/online, 
26-27 Jun 25). In: ArtHist.net, Jun 18, 2025. 
<https://arthist.net/archive/49538>.