Selected Topics from the Czech Art History V

Winter Semester of 2021/2022

Viktória Beličáková

Gender and Sexuality during Socialism

The lecture will explore the topics of gender, sexuality and intimacy in visual arts during socialism in Czechoslovakia. It will present several key authors of this period, the overall context in which they worked, and it will tackle topics of materiality, performativity, corporeality and other foundational characteristics of these practices. Moreover, the lecture will discuss this phenomenon from contemporary perspective, placing it in the broader context of Eastern Europe and reflecting on similarities and differences of these practices across the region. Finally, the lecture will discuss the relevance of feminist framework when analyzing this topic.

Literature:

Iveta Jusová – Jiřina Šiklová (eds): Czech Feminisms: Perspectives on Gender in East Central Europe., Indiana University Press, 2016

Bojana Pejić (ed): Gender Check, A Reader: Art and Theory in Eastern Europe, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010

Bojana Pejić (ed.), Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe. Cologne: Walter König, 2009

Kateřina Lišková: Sexual liberation, socialist style : Communist Czechoslovakia and the science of desire, 1945-1989, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018

Kateřina Lišková: Sex under socialism: From emancipation of women to normalized families in Czechoslovakia, Sexualities 19 (1–2), s. 211–235, 2016

Marianne A. Ferber, Raabe Hutton, Women in the Czech Republic: Feminism, Czech Style, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 16, No. 3., Toward Gender Equity: policies and Strategies, 2003, s. 407-430

Susanne Lozo, Katarina Wagner Hilke: The Medea Insurrection. Radical Women Artists behind the Iron Curtain, 2019

Tomáš Pospiszyl: An associative art history: comparative studies of neo-avant-gardes in a bipolar world, Praha: tranzit.cz, 2017

Tomáš Pospiszyl: Reading Performances. Literary Aspects of Conceptual and Performance Art in Eastern Europe. Sandra Frimmel, Tomáš Glanc, Sabine Hänsgen, Katalin Krasznahorkai, Nastasia Louveau, Dorota Sajewska, Sylvia Sasse (eds.). 2020. Doing Performance Art History. http://www.apparatusjournal.net/index.php/apparatus/article/view/192/468

Taťána Petrasová – Rostislav Švácha (eds.), Art in the Czech Lands 800–2000, Praha: Artefactum – Arbor vitae societas, 2017

Gender and Sexuality in the 90s and 00s

The lecture will discuss the art practices that tackle gender identity and gendered experience during the 90s and 00s in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This period brought a strong generation of female artists, as well as art historians and theoreticians, who dealt with gender, intimacy and sexuality. They were reflecting on impulses from Wester Feminism, while considering the local context and their predecessors who addressed similar topics in the previous period.

Literature:

Iveta Jusová – Jiřina Šiklová (eds): Czech Feminisms: Perspectives on Gender in East Central Europe, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016

Zuzana Štefková: Naked Babes, Macho Feminists, and Queer Eyes. Curating Gender in Contemporary Czech and Slovak Exhibition Practice, In: Mária Orišková (ed): Curating 'Eastern Europe' and beyond: art histories through the exhibition, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013

Martina Pachmanová: The Muzzle: Gender and Sexual Politics in Contemporary Czech Art [online], ArtMargins, https://artmargins.com/the-muzzle-gender-and-sexual-politics-in-contemporary-czech-art/

Eva Kalivodová: Czech Society in-between the Waves, European Journal of Women’s Studies 12 (4), London 2005

Rebecca Nash: Exhaustion from Explanation: Reading Czech Gender Studies in the 1990s, European Journal of Women’s Studies 9 (3), London 2002

Marianne A. Ferber, Raabe Hutton, Women in the Czech Republic: Feminism, Czech Style, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 16, No. 3., Toward Gender Equity: policies and Strategies, 2003, s. 407-430

Bojana Pejić (ed): Gender Check, A Reader: Art and Theory in Eastern Europe, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010

Bojana Pejić (ed.), Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe. Cologne: Walter König, 2009

Ana Janevski, Roxana Marcoci, Ksenia Nouril (eds): Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: Critical Anthology, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2018

Ing. Mgr. Markéta Čejková

Czech Modernism in Architecture (focused on Prague)

The lecture will outline the Czech architectural modernism between the world wars with the special focus on Prague. The economic, political and cultural specifics will be briefly discussed first to explain the unique situation of Czechoslovakia as a newly established democracy. The lecture will then cover the individual as well as collective housing with excellent examples of Villa Müller designed by Adolf Loos, the housing estate Baba built in Prague 6 by almost exclusively Czech architects continuing with examples of other than housing architecture.

Literature:

Premysl Veverka, Radomira Sedlakova, Petr Krajci, Zdenek Lukes, Dita Dvorakova, Pavel Vlcek: Great Villas of Prague, Prague 2008

Petr Urlich (ed), Lenka Popelová, Radomíra Sedláková, Pavel Skranc, Pavel Vlček, Petr Vorlík: Great Buildings of Prague 6, Prague 2009

Jana Hornekova, Karel Ksandr, Maria Szadkowska, Vladimir Slapeta: Villa Müller, Prague 2002

Lecture 2: Villa Müller, entrance fee, limited number of participants

The lecture will be held in Villa Müller, designed by Adolf Loos and being an excellent example of modernist architecture. The tour will be focused on the architecture and Raumplan, original design concept developed by Adolf Loos and will also cover the history of the villa and the family as well as the furniture, fittings and art inside the villa.

Literature:

Jana Hornekova, Karel Ksandr, Maria Szadkowska, Vladimir Slapeta: Villa Müller, Prague 2002

Lucie Daňková

The Phenomenon of Japonisme in Czech Art

The lecture will focus on the phenomenon of Japonisme in the Czech lands - specifically on the popularity of Japanese art and its influence on Czech art from the 1880s to the early 20th century. Local collectors of Japanese art will also be discussed.

Literature:

Helen BURNHAM / Sarah THOMPSON / Jane BRAUN: Looking East: Western Artists and the Allure of Japan. Boston 2014
Karel FIALA: First Contacts of Czechs and Slovaks with Japanese Culture (Up to World War I): The Major Publications and Personalities. In: Japan Review 3, 1992, 47–55
Markéta HÁNOVÁ: Japonisme in the fine arts of the Czech lands. Prague 2010
Markéta HÁNOVÁ: Japonisme in Czech art. Prague 2014
Markéta HÁNOVÁ: Emil Orlik: From Japan. In: Journal of Japonisme Vol. 3 Issue 1, December 2018, 84–105
Markéta HÁNOVÁ: Japanese Woodblock Prints and Collectors in the Czech Lands. Prague 2019
Libuse CHMIELOVÁ: The Japanese art collection of the National Gallery and a brief history of Japanese art appreciation in the Czech Republic. In: Report of Japanese Art Abroad Research Project, vol. 4, xii–xvii. The International Research Center for Japanese Studies/Nichibunken Japanese Studies Series 5, 1994
Siegfried WICHMANN: Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art Since 1858. London 1999

Romantic Landscape Architecture of the Czech Lands

The lecture will focus on pavilions and other small architectural structures in Bohemian and Moravian landscape parks from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Can be combined with an excursion.

Literature:

Marie BENESOVA, : Les trois périodes du néo-gothique en Bohême. In: A. BOUSAGLIA / V. TERRAZOLI (eds.): Il Neogotico nel XIX e XX secolo. Milano 1989, 128
Ambra EDWARDS: The Story of the English Garden. London 2018
Karel KUČA: Castles, Country Houses and other Monuments in the Care of the National Heritage Institute. Prague 2009
Taťána PETRASOVÁ: The Origins of Prague Neo-Gothic Architecture. In: Umění XLIV, 1996, 499–513
Taťána PETRASOVÁ / Rostislav ŠVÁCHA (eds.): Art in the Czech Lands 800–2000. Prague 2017
Roman PRAHL: Prag 1780-1830: Kunst und Kultur zwischen den Epochen und Völkern. Prague 1999
David WATKIN: The English Vision: The Picturesque in Architecture, Landscape and Garden Des