Tag: European history

What Nazi exhibitions tell us about how the far right engages audiences today

June 4, 2018

BY MICHAEL TYMKIWLecturer in art history at the University of Essex For many people, events such as the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with its torchlight parade, eagle-emblazoned shields and Nazi flags, bring with them uncomfortable reminders of fascist visual culture from the 1920s to 1945. While individuals and organisations associated with the … More What Nazi exhibitions tell us about how the far right engages audiences today

A look behind the challenging, provocative, fascinating history of the color grey.

May 16, 2018

BY FRANCES GUERIN I recall the day The Truth Is Always Grey was conceived. I was visiting the Alberto Giacometti retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Fall 2007—a huge exhibition in which Giacometti’s portraits, sculptures, and busts were placed in dialogue to shed new light on the oeuvre. As I walked from room to room, … More A look behind the challenging, provocative, fascinating history of the color grey.

A lesson in managing uncertainty: digitizing the First German Autumn Salon

February 21, 2018

Image: Jenny Anger, First German Autumn Salon Reconstruction Project. BY JENNY ANGERProfessor of art history, Grinnell College A trio of international exhibitions defined the parameters of modern art ca. 1912-13: the Sonderbund (Cologne 1912), the Armory Show (New York 1913), and the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Salon, Berlin 1913). The Armory Show is … More A lesson in managing uncertainty: digitizing the First German Autumn Salon

Modernism and the Memorial: Public remembrance in the US and Germany.

January 12, 2018

KATHLEEN JAMES-CHAKRABORTYProfessor of art history at University College Dublin 2017 might turn out to be the year in which white Americans ceased to take Confederate monuments lightly; of course, their African-American neighbors never had. The erection of Maya Lin’s remarkable Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1982, inaugurated a memorial boom in the United … More Modernism and the Memorial: Public remembrance in the US and Germany.

The Art of Losing

February 15, 2017

BY CAITLIN DeSILVEYAssociate professor of cultural geography at the University of Exeter. She is currently a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in Olso, Norway. ‘The art of losing’s not too hard to master,’ wrote Elizabeth Bishop, ‘though it may look… like disaster’. Mastering the art of losing—now there’s a project for the 21st … More The Art of Losing

Visual culture and the Nazi perpetrator

January 23, 2013

The New York Times features a slideshow in its piece Wartime Architects: Creating Amid Chaos, on the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal’s exhibit “Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War.” This slide depicts shots of wartime destruction by the German photographer August Sander. Here, Paul Jaskot discusses his new book … More Visual culture and the Nazi perpetrator

Our need for consolation: reading Stig Dagerman.

March 21, 2012

BY LO DAGERMAN Finally, the writings of Swedish author Stig Dagerman are becoming more available in the English language. Several volumes, some in new translations, are currently being published in the USA: German Autumn, Island of the Doomed, A Burnt Child (forthcoming) from the University of Minnesota Press, and a short story collection by Godine … More Our need for consolation: reading Stig Dagerman.

“We wish to understand history as a whole, in order to understand ourselves.”

December 28, 2011

Late this year, U of MN Press published the first American edition of Stig Dagerman’s German Autumn, essays on the tragic aftermath of war, suffering, and guilt that are as hauntingly relevant today as they were sixty-plus years ago when Dagerman was first assigned by the Swedish newspaper Expressen to report on life in Germany … More “We wish to understand history as a whole, in order to understand ourselves.”

Reunion Island’s UNESCO designation puts spotlight on its medieval and colonial legacies—including its relationship with famous scholar Joseph Bédier.

January 13, 2011

Joseph Bédier (1864–1938) was one of the most famous scholars of his day. He held prestigious posts and lectured throughout Europe and the United States, an activity unusual for an academic of his time. A scholar of the French Middle Ages, he translated Tristan and Isolde as well as France’s national epic, The Song of … More Reunion Island’s UNESCO designation puts spotlight on its medieval and colonial legacies—including its relationship with famous scholar Joseph Bédier.

Remembering British punk icon and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren

October 8, 2010

On April 8th, 2010 (six months ago today), former Sex Pistols manager and proclaimed inventor of punk Malcolm McLaren passed away at age 64 after a battle with cancer. The following material was posted to writer and interviewer Jon Savage‘s blog a few days after McLaren’s death. This material is reprinted with permission from the … More Remembering British punk icon and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren