Moving times, moving spaces. Conference report on ‘Questions of Periodisation in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe

Conference report on ‘Questions of Periodisation in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe

ARTWORK OF THE MONTH, OCTOBER 2023: THE ABC OF WOMEN BY LISL WEIL (1933)

Austrian caricaturist Lisl Weil forged an imagery whose ostensible playfulness betrays acute insight into modern Austrian society

ARTWORK OF THE MONTH, JULY 2021: LOGO OF THE SALZBURG FESTIVAL BY POLDI WOJTEK (1928)

Through this design by the future National Socialist Poldi Wojtek the article explores how modernity and reactionary politics coexisted in interwar Austrian modernism

Beyond the single-artist study: Bohumil Kubišta and new ways of monographic research in the Czech Lands: Book review

Bohumil Kubišta a Evropa by Marie Rakušanová and co-authors reconsiders the artist by shifting focus onto his networks

ARTWORK OF THE MONTH, APRIL 2023: MÁNES STREAMLINING THE CARICATURE EXHIBITION BY ADOLF HOFFMEISTER (1934)

This caricature by Adolf Hoffmeister highlights an instance when caricature gained growing traction in the international fight against fascism and when Prague briefly stood at the centre of such effort

Women of the Viennese Workshops: Exhibition review

Women Artists of the Wiener Werkstätte at the MAK in Vienna shows the importance of female artists and designers at the Viennese Workshops

Hybridity, communism and the avant-garde: Irena Blühová and Tina Modotti

This investigation compares the work of Irena Blühová and Tina Modotti between 1924 and 1936 based on ideas of cultural hybridity, photographic theory and social and Marxist art history. Centred on the premise that they worked in similar socio- political environments, shared common biographical points and were some of the first modernist women photographers in their region, a number of aspects relating to their work are examined in relation to their socio-political background. Selected works by Blühová and Modotti are analysed and compared, making apparent that, whilst they start photographing with different ulterior motives, thematically their work is moving into a similar direction from around 1926. Partly, this is due to their involvement with the communist party and the links between politics and photography on an international scale; partly to the fact that they share a concern for the culture of the countries they worked in. These concerns are expanded upon by the fact that both Blühová and Modotti intermediate between the national and the international, the aesthetic, social and the political within their local contexts, which forms distinct similarities in their work