ARTSAY. THE ORAL RECEPTION OF AMERICAN ART IN EASTERN EUROPE FROM 1960S ONWARDS

Part of the Project “Hot Art, Cold War: Three Eastern European Workshops”



ArtSay. The Oral Reception of American Art in Eastern Europe from 1960 Onwards is a symposium on the alternative reception of American art and visual culture in the mainly (ex) communist, East European Countries, held at MARe/Museum of Recent Art Bucharest, on May 18, 2023. 


Alternative reception means otherwise than the official, published reception of American art exhibitions either shown in the respective countries or reported to be shown in Europe or elsewhere. The official publications of the time, the specialized art and art history reviews as well as the newspapers and magazines from Eastern Europe usually followed the line of the communist ideology. They were either openly censored or subtly self-censored. 

On the contrary, the unpublished reception under scrutiny during the symposium ranges from (artists’, but not only) diary entries, passages in private correspondence, recorded memories, gossip and atelier culture, informal debate circles and study groups, preserved and (re)contextualized magazine and catalogue cut-outs, bibliographical lists and reading recommendations, invitation cards, posters with art reproductions (framed or not framed), reportedly hanging in private homes or in public offices. Everything which supposedly (and retrospectively) worked like a statement of interest and support of the American visual culture or evidencing it as a source of influence on the development of the Eastern European art of the time could be a topic of the symposium. 

For the first time, such loose anthropological and art historical data will be focused upon in a consistent and systematic manner. Next to the scrutiny of either published or as yet unpublished artists’ diaries, another key-source for the symposium will be a series of interviews to be taped with living witnesses of the early American exhibitions shown in this part of Europe during the 1960s and 1980s. Artists, survivors of those times, who formed the public of the American exhibitions and pondered upon them further on, will be invited to contribute to the symposium and to evaluate their impact (or absent impact). 






ArtSay. The Oral Reception of American Art in Eastern Europe from 1960 Onwards took place on May 18th 2023 at Fundația MARe/Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest, in the Auditorium hall on the underground floor.


The symposium is completed by interviews (RO/EN; audio-video-text) with many artists, art historians and curators from different generations. The materials will be available on our website (www.mare.ro) starting with May 15th CY. 


“Seeing American Art & Feeling European Influence is an investigation into the contrasting experiences of the local, Romanian artists and larger public exposed during the late 1960s and 1970s to a substantial strain of exhibitions of American art and visual or material culture. 

The oral reception of the Romanian specialized public (artists, students, art historians and critics), gathered through an extensive series of retrospective interviews shows how the enthusiasm of attending the mind-boggling events of American art was largely toned down by the revealed short-range influence of the contemplated works onto the real development of each artist's language, and the ever-present backdrop constituted by the pervasive interest in the European artistic models.”

(Erwin Kessler - Seeing American Art & Feeling European Influence)

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