The upcoming workshop is part of a series guided by an international art history research group focusing since 2020 on the infrastructures of modern art from a transnational perspective. Former workshops took place in Amsterdam, Munich, Zagreb and Budapest. The focus of this workshop will turn from objects to travelling subjects: to infrastructures which connected and financially supported artists from places elsewhere as well as related strategies of exhibiting art from 1945 to the1990s.

The original meaning of “infrastructure” refers to stable and enduring substructures or underpinnings of society and are often technical in nature as well as run by the state. As such, they safeguard nodal points of support and connectivity. As the development of international artistic networks evolved into a predominant goal for modern artists, collectors, dealers and displaying institutions over the 20th century, the conditions of these networks merit a closer look. The term infrastructures not only refers to technical support, but also – as referenced throughout by institutional critique – to ways of making some things possible or conceivable of including certain areas and individuals while not others. Applied to the arts, the term highlights underlying structures for institutions such as museums, exhibition venues, biennials, private collections, production sites (studios, workshops, laboratories, academies, art schools) and universities but also funding of institutions, publishers, and other (academic) authorities that contributed to relevant discourses, networks, and the publishing of art, (un)mapping their transnational relations.

The organisers are interested in how individual cases correspond to histories of institutional funding, travel grants, residencies, project funding (exhibitions, research trips). How inclusive have traveling exhibitions, festivals, competitions, foundations and transnational funding programs been? What purposes (open and hidden) drive the funding, what individual opportunities are removed from it? They welcome critical investigations into cases of contradicting perspectives between subjects and state, about investments that swing from private into stately structures, and individual artistic travel opportunities from programs that were not on the map until now.

They welcome proposals that cross over from art historical perspectives to sociological, political history/diplomacy or economics. Case studies as well as papers providing a broader view and/or of a more reflective nature are requested. The talks should be no longer than 20 minutes. The workshop will be conducted in English. A publication is planned.

Please submit short proposals (maximum of 500 words) and a short CV to  Prof. Dr. Bärbel Küster (baerbel.kuester@khist.uzh.ch) and Prof. Dr. Marta Smolińska (marta.smolinska@uap.edu.pl) by February 1st 2025.

This workshop takes place in Poznań, Poland, on 8-10 October 2025.

Institutional framework of the core group: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Universität Zürich, Uniwersytet Artystyczny im. Magdaleny Abakanowicz w Poznaniu, HBK Braunschweig (from Oktober 2023); Leuphana University Lüneburg; Justus Liebig Universität Gießen; Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte München (until September 2023).

More information: https://www.khist.uzh.ch/de/chairs/moderne/events/CALL-FOR-PAPERS–(Un)mapping-Infrastructures-of-Modern-Art,-IV.html