Programme

SYMPOSIUM
Gender Check — Narratives and Exhibition Practises
19-20 November 2010, MUMOK

Friday, November 19
19.00
Book Launch and Talk: Gender Check: A Reader – Art and Theory in Eastern Europe
Editor’s statement: Bojana Pejić
Comments and discussion: Angela Dimitrakaki, Johanna Schaffer

One of the outcomes of the research project is the book “Gender Check: A Reader – Art and Gender in Eastern Europe”, which comprises over 30 texts on the relationship between art and gender identity in 24 Eastern European countries since the 1960s. This book is the first representative selection of texts covering the concepts and discourses which have emerged in each country. The reader provides a new foundation for writing the art history of this period and casts new light on the societies of Eastern Europe.

Saturday, November 20
12.00 – 13.30
Keynote Amelia Jones: “The Return of Feminist Art: Thoughts on the Resurgence of Feminist Exhibitions 2000-2010”
Response: Martina Pachmanová

The keynote explores the recent surge in exhibitions on historical feminist art across Europe and North America. It speculates as to why this explosion of interest in feminist art histories has occurred at this time and what effects such a renewed interest might have. The speech will also address the political implications of the institutionalization of feminist art at places such as MoCA Los Angeles and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. What does it mean for a supposedly radical counter-cultural art movement to be inscribed into „history“?

13.30 – 14.00
Break

14.00 – 16.00
Panel I: Gender Check: Reflections and Perspectives
Screening of the Gender Check video documentation by Ricarda Denzer.
Discussion with Christine Böhler, Katarzyna Kozyra, Christian Kravagna, Bojana Pejić, Ruth Noack, Hanna Wróblewska. Moderation: Rainer Fuchs

The reception of the exhibition Gender Check has raised challenging questions – some anticipated, some less anticipated – about the structure of the exhibition, the representational strategies and the context of the show in Vienna and Warsaw. The panel will begin by re-examining these questions: What were the experiences and outcomes of the complex cooperation on this project? How did the public receive the exhibition in Vienna and in Warsaw? In what ways can an art exhibition address feminist and gender histories?

16.00 – 16.30
Break

16.30 – 18.30
Panel II: Why history? What history?
Discussion with Katrin Kivimaa, Laima Kreivyte  Suzana Milevska, Angelika Richter. Moderation: Ma¯ra Traumane

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in feminist art history that has coincided with a new wave of re-evaluation of post-WWII art histories in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The panel takes a closer look at this process and examines the current tendency of investing the past with political significance. Revisions of art history, particularly in Eastern European countries, also mean that it is necessary to discuss artworks under new conditions taking into account the rhetoric of national canons.

19.00
Conclusion Bojana Pejić: “Eppur si muove!”
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Presentations and discussions will be in English. Admission is free.

Amelia Jones will give another lecture at the conference „This Sentence Is Now Being Performed. Research and Teaching in Performative Art“ at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, on Friday, November 19, at 5 p.m.
http://blogs.akbild.ac.at/performancesymposium/