Liberation through Art: The Case of Maurycy Amster

• In Event: Art, Liberation, and the Emigration Experience

Abstract

The presentation will focus on the work of Maurycy Amster as a graphic artist and a designer. A Polish book designer born into a Lviv-based assimilated Jewish family, Amster and his artistic trajectory (Poland-Austria-Germany-Spain-Chile) perfectly exemplify, in my view, an effective liberation from the national, social, and religious determinants of Eastern Europe and the embracement of the universal community of the book. I argue that Amster’s evolution from pure art (painting) to applied art (design) and thousands of his designs underpinned by avantgarde aesthetics and techniques helped him develop agency (social impact) amid 20th-century capitalism and the commodification of culture.

Author

• Marcin Kurek, U of Wrocław (Poland)