Thesis: The Reversed Power of the Image – Exhibitions of Graphic Art in Eastern Europe during the Cold War

Supervised by: Dr Klara Kemp-Welch

Funded by:

• CHASE/AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership
• Morven and Michael Heller Scholarship
• Joseph and Esther Lichtenstein Scholarship

The purpose of my research is to investigate the role artistic prints played in building cultural networks within and across Eastern European societies during the Cold War. It assesses the ways that post-war printmakers and curators of print exhibitions initiated an international cultural dialogue in countries suffering from political censorship. This study, therefore, will focus on exploring the printmaking strategies that stimulated the process of democratisation of societies that stayed under totalitarian rule. Censorship forced artists to work in closed circles of reciprocal artistic influence, while access to the international art world was rationed only to those in the good graces of the state.

Cultural isolation resulted in a common artistic aspiration to westernise and modernise art produced behind the curtain of censorship. In this respect, international exhibitions of prints were important events that significantly helped re-connect disjointed societies. In 1955, the Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana was initiated; in 1966, the Biennale of Graphic Art in Krakow was established; and in 1968, the Tallinn Print Triennial came to life. In addition, many minor initiatives such as the International Exhibition of Small-Sized Prints established in Lodz in 1979, were begun amid adverse political circumstances. Eastern European artistic prints were also regularly exhibited during the biggest international biennales such as Venice Biennale, Havana Biennale and São Paulo Biennale. The network of dedicated international art exhibitions became a window onto the world not only for printmakers, but also for all artists who were affected by censorship.

Additional Interests

Education

• 2015-18 MPhil/PhD History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art
• 2014-15 MA History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art
  • Countercultures: Alternative Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America 1959-1989
  • Dissertation: ‘Seriously Ironic: Eastern European Postmodern Irony and Latin American Modernist Pathos in the Conceptual Practice of Endre Tót And No-Grupo’
  • Supervisor: Dr Klara Kemp-Welch
• 2010-14 BA Hons History of Art and Portuguese, The University of Manchester
  • Dissertation: ‘Grisaille and the Vanity of Seeing in Hieronymus Bosch’s Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony’
  • (received The Adam Kay Prize for the best undergraduate dissertation in History of Art at the University of Manchester in 2013-14)
  • Supervisor: Dr Edward Wouk