(Please contact organisers. DG)

International Conference
ART AND POLITICS: CASE-STUDIES FROM EASTERN EUROPE

Art Institute
Vytautas Magnus University
Kaunas, Lithuania
October 26-27, 2006


Political art, art as a tool of power and a hostage of authority – these 
questions are hard to escape when researching Eastern European culture. 
The 20th century turned this region into a laboratory of social 
engineering and political experiments where boundaries of artistic 
practices have been tested too. Here one can easily find the most 
radical examples of cultural production that flirts between art and 
politics, the magic and failure of avant-garde utopia, the sharpest 
conflicts between ethics and aesthetics. Thus contexts of art practices 
as well as political contents of artistic strategies (rather than pure 
stylistic qualities and artistic values) are under consideration in 
recent studies of Eastern Europe art history.

An objective of the conference is to bring together different case 
studies on art and politics in order to analyse a complex relationship 
between artistic and political regimes as well as political meanings of 
art in Soviet and Post-Soviet conditions. Participants are invited to 
consider the following topics:

• Subversions of political art in non-democratic state
• Cultural policy and culture as resistance
• In search of panacea: resistance, transgression, appropriation
• Critique of representation and creating of new myths
• Aesthetical norms and/or national style
• Self identities [autobiography, body, individual mythologies] in the 
sidelines of regime
• Ideological art and artistic ideologies.

Participants are requested to submit their papers in the form of case 
studies using a particular artifact, event or phenomena as a ground for 
research of a broader problem focused on the varied intersections of art 
and politics. Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. A publication 
of conference proceedings is also planned.

Abstracts (250-300 words) accompanied with short CV should be sent to 
the address below by April 20, 2006. Accepted papers will be notified by 
May 2, 2006.

Conference organiser:
Art Institute, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Academic Referees:
Assoc. prof. Rasa Zukienė (Art Institute, VDU, Kaunas)
Prof. Egidijus Aleksandravicius (VDU, Kaunas)
Prof. Vojtech Lahoda (Institute of Art History, Academy of Science of 
the Czech Republic, Prague)
Prof. Piotr Piotrowski (Institute of Art History, A. Mickiewicz 
University, Poznan)

Coordinators:
Linara Dovydaityte, dr. Jurate Tutlyte.

Art Institute
Vytautas Magnus University
Laisves ave. 53-405
LT-44309 Kaunas
Lithuania
E-mail: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]

-- 
Dr. David J. Galbreath, Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3QY, tel: 01224 273 821