Memory and Recovery
This panel will examine the ways in which artists and architects engaged with the issue of memory, both as an individual and a collective phenomenon, in their effort to address the changing conditions of European society. During the years immediately following World War II, the question of how to address the traumas of war was paramount in the minds of many artists and architects. While returning to traditional modes of creation was one option, many refused to follow the path of the historical avant-garde and chose instead to move in new directions. For all, issues of commemoration existed side by side with concerns regarding the future of European culture. The variety of ways in which artists engaged with the past, present and future through the issues of memory and recovery are exemplified by the work of Gerhard Richter, the parodic Meta-matics and self-destructing sculptures of Jean Tinguely, and the competition for the Tomb of the Unknown Political Prisoner, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Papers may consider specific artists and architects who identified memory as a significant factor of their work, the role of memory in the construction of a vision of the past and/or a plan for the future, and the shifting relationship between innovation and tradition in the post-war cultural environment.
Panel Presentations:
- Of Spectres, Cinders and Ruins: Matter and Memory in Post-War France by Dr. R. Perry, NYU (Paris)
- The Problem of Memory in Situationist Artwork and Painting by K. Kurczynski, Institute of Fine Arts
- Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960: Informel, Dodecaphonia, Politics and Opera in Venice at the Dawn of Post Modernism by A. Duran, University of Delaware
- A Surplus
of Memory: Envisioning the Future of Old Warsaw by D. Snyder, Princeton
Panel Chair: Dr. Rachel Perry, Independent Scholar
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