BA (University College London), MA (School of Slavonic and East European Studies), PhD (University College London)
Contact details
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House
Strand
London WC2R 0RN
klara.kemp-welch@courtauld.ac.uk
Klara Kemp-Welch has a BA in French and History of Art from University College London (2000), an MA in Russian and East European Literature and Culture from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London (2002), and a PhD in the History of Art from University College London (2008). Her doctoral thesis, Figures of Reticence: Action and Event in East-Central European Conceptualism 1965-1989, was supervised by Professor Briony Fer.
She has worked as Curatorial Assistant at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2000-01), Teaching Assistant and then Teaching Fellow at University College London, and subsequently as Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts (Camberwell), The University of York, and Birkbeck. In 2009 she was awarded a three year post-doctoral Early Career Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust, held at The Courtauld Institute of Art.
Research interests
Klara Kemp-Welch's current research project is entitled 'Networking the Bloc: Rethinking International Relations in European Art'. It explores exchange between East European experimental artists and their Yugoslav and West European counterparts in the late socialist period. 'Networking the Bloc' is an event and book project.
For more information, please visit the project webpage at www.networkingthebloc.blogspot.com
Klara Kemp-Welch's research interests include:
- Internationalism in modern and contemporary art
- Rewriting art history from the margins
- East-central and East European art and theory
- Politicised conceptualism in Europe and the Americas
- Philosophy and the idea of communism
- Dissidence and civil resistance
- Contemporary art, post-socialism, and globalisation
Courses taught in 2011-12
- BA3 Special Option
East European Art in 'Transition' – From the 1960s to the Present
The course examines ‘Eastern European’ art in relation to the transformations of 1989-1991. We study artistic exchange within divided Europe and link unofficial art to civil resistance; we discuss the transformation of the institutional and ideological framework for artistic production and the entry of the former-East into the neoliberal ‘free market’; we look closely at post-Wall exhibition history, comparing curatorial attempts to promote contemporary art from the ‘new’ Europe, alongside parallel moves to retrospectively theorise the specificity of East-European cultural experience.
What was the role of art in the rebirth of civil society preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall? How does the reunification of Europe affect art history? How do the events of 1989-91 relate to Eastern and Western left-wing dreams of united Europe? What has been the impact of the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc and the globalisation of the art market on art and art theory? From the perspective of ‘global' art history and theory, what is the legacy of real communism and its art? - MA Option
Global Conceptualism: The Last Avant-Garde or a New Beginning (co-taught with Professor Sarah Wilson
This MA course seeks to redefine Conceptual art as the last coherent international avant-garde movement, and as a starting point for different contemporary artistic practices.
Find out more.
Courses taught in 2012-13
- MA Option
Countercultures: Alternative Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America 1953-1991
This new MA Option explores the experimental art scenes that developed, in parallel, in Communist Eastern Europe and under Latin American military dictatorships from the time of the death of Stalin and the beginning of the Cuban Revolution in 1953, to the dismantling of the Soviet 'bloc' in 1989-91.
Find out more.
PUBLICATIONS
In Progress
Antipolitics in Action: Central European Art and Theory 1965-1989 (monograph forthcoming London: I.B. Tauris, 2013)
Anthony Gardner and Klara Kemp-Welch (eds), Post-Socialist Prospects and Contemporary Communisms in Art History (edited volume scheduled for completion in 2013)
Networking the Bloc: International Relations in Late Socialist Art (monograph scheduled for completion in 2014)
Forthcoming
Cristina Freire and Klara Kemp-Welch (eds), Artists' Networks in Eastern Europe and Latin America, ARTMargins #2, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, forthcoming Spring 2012.
‘Impossible Interviews with Ceausescu: Ion Grigorescu and the Dialogic Imagination’, in Alina Serban (ed.), Ion Grigorescu. The Man with a Single Camera, Bucharest: Asociatia Pepluspatru, 2012.
‘KwieKulik’s Monument Without a Passport’, in Kritik und Krise. Kunst in Europa seit 1945 / Critique and Crisis. Art in Europe Since 1945, exh. cat., Berlin: Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum, 2012.
'Art Documentation and Bureaucratic Life: The 'Case' of the Studio of Documentation, Activities and Propagation' in Lukasz Ronduda and Georg Schollhammer (eds), Kwiekulik, Vienna: JPR Ringier, 2012.
Recent
‘Who’s Afraid of Neo-Socialist Realism?’, in Audrey Yeo (ed.), Stefan Constantinescu. An Infinite Blue, exh. cat., London: Gallerie8, 2011, pp. 45-54.
‘54th Venice Biennale, various venues, Venice’, Art Monthly #348, July-August 2011.
‘Transitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe. Book Review’, Artmargins, May 2011. Available online.
‘S.O.S. Socialist Occupation of the Subject. A Visual Essay’, in Lukasz Ronduda, Alex Farquharson, and Barbara Piwowarska (eds), Star City. The Future under Communism, Warsaw: MAMMAL Foundation; Nottingham Contemporary; transit.at, 2011, pp. 70-80.
‘Olga Chernysheva. Calvert 22, London’, Enclave, no, 2, Nov. 2010 (University College Cork). Available online.
‘Emancipation and Daydreams: Kantor’s Happenings’ in Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius (ed.) An Impossible Journey: The Art and Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor, London: Black Dog Publishers, 2010.
‘Hito Steyerl. In Free Fall. Chisenhale Gallery, London’, Art Monthly #342, Dec. 2010- Jan. 2011.
‘Touched. Liverpool Biennial. International Festival of Contemporary Art, Liverpool’, Art Monthly #341, Nov. 2010.
‘Jiří Kovanda’s Collisions’, in Margaret Iversen, ed., Chance. Documents of Contemporary Art Series, London: Whitechapel Gallery; Cambridge Mass. and London: MIT Press, 2010, 147-149 .
‘Articulating the Between: Henryk Stażewski’s Critical Spaces’, in Gabriela Switek (ed.), Avant-garde in the Bloc, Warsaw: Fundacja Galerii Foksal; Vienna, JPR Ringier, 2010, pp. 294-317.
‘Performance and Sculpture’ Conference Report, Henry Moore Institute Newsletter, June/July 2010, Issue no. 90.
‘History of Art, The’. Curators’ Series #3. Mihnea Mircan, David Roberts Art Foundation Fitzrovia, Art Monthly #337, June 2010.
‘Angela de la Cruz: After / Anna Maria Maiolino: Continuous’, Camden Arts Centre, London, Art Monthly #336, May 2010.
‘Journeys with No Return’. A Foundation, London, Art Monthly #335, April 2010.
‘KwieKulik. Form is a Fact of Society. Galeria Awangarda, BWA Wroclaw’, Art Monthly #334, March 2010.
‘Polish Conceptualism: Expanded, Politicised, Contested’, Artmargins, February 2010 (peer-reviewed book review)
‘Taking Women’s Rights Seriously? Sanja Ivekovic. Urgent Matters’, Basis voor Aktuele Kunst (BAK), Utrecht, and the VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven, Third Text, Vol. 23, Issue 6, November 2009 (peer-reviewed).
‘Paradoxical Dissidence’ in Ludlow 38 broadsheet, New York: Goethe Institute, Nov. 2009.
‘Attacking Objectification: Jerzy Bereś in Dialogue with Marcel Duchamp’ in Mel Jordon and Malcolm Miles (eds), Art Theory and Post-Socialism, Bristol UK and Portland USA: Intellect Books, 2008, pp. 21-31 (chapter in book).
‘Aernout Mik. Shifting, Shifting’, Camden Arts Centre, Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, no. 10, London: University College London, 2008 (peer-reviewed).
‘Affirmation and Irony in Endre Tót’s Actions of the 1970s’, in Liniara Dovydaityte (ed.), Art History & Criticism 3, Art and Politics: Case-Studies from Eastern Europe, Kaunas, Lithuania: Vytautas Magnus University, 2007 (peer-review journal), 136-144.
‘Understanding Jerzy Bereś’s Manifestations’, in Jerzy Bereś: Sztuka zgina życie / Art Bends Life, exh. cat., Kraków: Bunkier Sztuki, 2007, pp. 23-31.
‘Jerzy Bereś’s Radical Expansion of the Readymade Event’, in Jerzy Bereś: Sztuka zgina życie / Art Bends Life, exh. cat., Kraków: Bunkier Sztuki, 2007, 35-53.
‘Excursions in Communist Reality: Tadeusz Kantor’s Impossible Happenings’, Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, no. 8, London: University College London, 2005/2006, pp. 45-65 (peer-review journal).
KEYWORDS
east-european art; contemporary art; globalisation; civil resistance; communism; post-socialism; conceptualism; performance art; art and politics; political theory