Liberation through the Exhibition and Display of Art?

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Displays of art for various publics in the modern era were laden with power and status relations. Similarly, the venues of modern exhibitions – as spaces of interaction between art and the public and as primarily visual spectacles – advanced visual arguments connected either with representation and dominance or with the struggle for liberation and equality. Ultimately, exhibitions became vehicles not only for the changing status of the art world and its protagonists, but also for a shift in the power relations at the level of national cultures and politics.
In much of what is now East-Central Europe, or the lands of the late Habsburg empire, exhibitions during the 19th century helped to formulate, channel and negotiate interests that encouraged specific communities to free themselves from existing power relations. Many exhibition organizers, curators, juries or critics thus participated in a process of revolt against disadvantages, oppression, marginalization and/or stereotyped perspectives.
In the art sphere, to exhibit works in a specific context meant often to revolt against traditional patron–artist relationships, a universal academic canon, conventional exhibition authorities, etc. In the larger socio-political and cultural sphere, similar arguments were used for political goals in the struggles against existing situations and narratives of cultural or political dominance (e.g. manifestations of “liberating partner” discourses, regional issues vs. the hegemonic power).
This panel demonstrates how displays of art in the 19th century constructed visual and theoretical arguments that participated in a process of liberating both art and societies from convention and domination.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Chair

• Pavla Machalíková, Institute of Art History CAS (Czech Republic)

Papers

• Portraits of the Russian Tsar, Austrian Emperor, and King of Prussia: Putting 'Liberating Partners' in Their Place - Andrew Graciano, U of South Carolina

• Liberating the Artworld and the Nation in Central Europe: Exhibitions between Absolutism and Emancipation - Pavla Machalíková, Institute of Art History CAS (Czech Republic)

• The Emancipatory Role of Exhibitionary Communication: Displays of Cast Iron Sculptures - Tatiana Petrasova, Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic)

Discussant

• Richard Kurdiovsky, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Austria)