Art and design history researcher, based at Masaryk University in Brno, trustee of the Design History Society. I am currently Principal Investigator on the Czech Science Foundation project 'Beyond the Village: Folk Cultures as Agents of Modernity, 1918-1945.' My interests include the visual arts of Central Europe, modernism, exhibition cultures and histories, and questions of identity in art and design.
Czechoslovakia at the world's fairs. Behind the facade , 2024
Born in 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic was keen to project a distinct image of the new sta... more Born in 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic was keen to project a distinct image of the new state in others. Participation in World Fairs offered the perfect opportunity to make such an effort, which Czechoslovakia did not hesitate to seize. The comprehensive picture of Czechoslovak efforts at the largest international exhibition events of the interwar period is not, however, a mere survey of the national participation in world’s fairs in a chronological sequence. Marta Filipová looks beyond the sleek façade of the modernist pavilions to examine the intersections of architecture, art and design with commercial interests, state agendas, individual action and the public, and offers a complex insight into the production and reception of national displays.
The rich collection of images – mainly photographs – provides a closer look at the Czechoslovak pavilions. The design, content and context of the displays convey the idealized narrative, that was created for the fairs, and the myths on which the Czechoslovak nation and state were built. Heavy machinery, modern art, tourist destinations, or food and drink were presented as Czechoslovak, while many aspects of social life – particularly women or ethnic minorities – were strikingly underrepresented or absent. The book argues that the objects and ideas that the pavilion organizers put on display legitimized and validated the existence of the new state through the inclusion and exclusion of exhibits, people and ideas.
While the book focuses on Czechoslovakia, it also offers substantial insight into how other emerging new nations projected and sustained their image during this historical period and how interwar world’s fairs accommodated them.
Not everyone shared the image of success promoted by national pavilions at world’s fairs. The Cze... more Not everyone shared the image of success promoted by national pavilions at world’s fairs. The Czechoslovak participation in the interwar period was always a result of extensive negotiations between different interest groups of the various ministries, industrial representatives or designers. The Czechoslovak pavilion at the 1937 exposition in Paris, for example, was highly praised and awarded multiple prizes, yet in Czechoslovakia it received harsh criticism. The Czech industrialist and owner of the global shoe manufactory, Jan Antonín Baťa, called it a ‘magnificent failure’ as the pavilion did not give proper justice to business and fell for cheap, artistic avant-gardisms. Frustrated by the failures of the state in promoting the nation and its companies, Baťa offered a solution for a better Czechoslovak pavilion for New York’s World of Tomorrow in 1939. A combination of commerce and entertainment, the pavilion reflected the industrialist’s understanding of the relation between a successful company, the state and the world’s fair.
Baťa ran much more than shoe production, he built a town where the company’s first factory was founded and he also owned a vision of the future of his workers and the entire state. As a company, Baťa also put up their own pavilions at world’s fairs in Brussels and Paris presented not only their products, but also a happy community of workers whose work life, past time, education and health were well looked after. By the late 1930s, Baťa built factories, towns and culture of living, not dissimilar to those of Ford, Pullmann and similar giants. They also shared an interest in using the world’s fair as a useful tool for displaying and promoting the company worldview. This text explores previously neglected questions about the links between entrepreneurialism and statehood on the one hand and eugenic visions of progress on the other and claims that these came to visual prominence at world's fairs especially in the times of radicalised nationalism of the 1930s.
Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918, (Eds) Paul Miller and Claire Morelon; afterword by Pieter Judson. Collection: Austrian and Habsburg Studies: Book 22., 2018
The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical ch... more The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical change for East-Central European political structures and national identities. Yet this transformed landscape inevitably still bore the traces of its imperial past. Breaking with traditional histories that take 1918 as a strict line of demarcation, this collection focuses on the complexities that attended the transition from the Habsburg Empire to its successor states. In so doing, it produces new and more nuanced insights into the persistence and effectiveness of imperial institutions, as well as the sources of instability in the newly formed nation-states.
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments
Introduction Claire Morelon
PART I: PERMANENCE AND REVOLUTION: NATIONAL POLITICS IN THE TRANSITION TO THE SUCCESSOR STATES
Chapter 1. Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions: Local Societies and Nationalizing States in East Central Europe Gábor Egry
Chapter 2. State Legitimacy and Continuity between the Habsburg Empire and Czechoslovakia: The 1918 Transition in Prague Claire Morelon
Chapter 3. Strangers among Friends: Leon Biliński between Imperial Austria and New Poland Iryna Vushko
Chapter 4. Ideology on Display: Continuity and Rupture at Exhibitions in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1873–1928 Marta Filipová
PART II: THE HABSBURG ARMY'S FINAL BATTLES
Chapter 5. Reflections on the Legacy of the Imperial and Royal Army in the Successor States Richard Bassett
Chapter 6. Imperial into National Officers: K.(u.) K. Officers of Romanian Nationality Before and after the Great War Irina Marin
Chapter 7. Shades of Empire: Austro-Hungarian Officers, Frankists, and the Afterlives of Austria-Hungary in Croatia, 1918–1929 John Paul Newman
PART III: CHURCH, DYNASTY, ARISTOCRACY: THE POST-WAR FATE OF IMPERIAL PILLARS
Chapter 8. “All the German Princes Driven Out!”: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic Michael Carter-Sinclair
Chapter 9. Wealthy Landowners or Weak Remnants of the Imperial Past?: Central European Nobles during and after the First World War Konstantinos Raptis
Chapter 10. Sinner, Saint―or Cipher?: The Austrian Republic and the Death of Emperor Karl I Christopher Brennan
PART IV: HISTORY, MEMORY, MENTALITÉ: PROCESSING THE EMPIRE'S PASSING
Chapter 11. “What Did They Die For?”: War Remembrance in Austria in the Transition from Empire to Nation State Christoph Mick
Chapter 12. “The First Victim of the First World War”: Franz Ferdinand in Austrian Memory Paul Miller
Modernity, History and Politics in Czech Art, 2019
How does changing political environment influence the construction of narratives about art? The v... more How does changing political environment influence the construction of narratives about art? The volume tackles this question in relationship to the formulation of ideas about Czech art in the Czech lands between 1895 and 1939 in art criticism, art theory and exhibitions. The period is marked by radical political changes, formation of national and regional identities and the rise of modernism in Central Europe. By focusing on the location of Bohemia and – after the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918 – Czechoslovakia, it aims to demonstrate how artists, art critics and historians in a concrete geopolitical and historical moment respond to external and internal influences, such as political, social and economic changes. The volume is concerned especially with the way the narratives of modern art were formed as a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and remain authentically local and national during a period that saw the rise of nationalism, the emergence of nation-states as well as strong inclinations for internationalization .
The volume is particularly interested in the relationships between modernity and nation building, the global and local in art, and the arts and contemporary politics. Modernism in the Czech speaking space is seen as a multi-directional phenomenon with a multitude of exchanges and influences that took place across regional and national borders. In this way, the volume includes attention to the alleged peripheries of modernism found in the locations beyond Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow. It has three main aims: 1. to consider the development of art criticism, history and theory in the political, cultural, ethnic and social context of Bohemia, the late Habsburg Empire and the interwar successor state of Czechoslovakia; 2. to challenge the established narratives of modernism in Central Europe that tend to privilege the avant-garde at the expense of other, coexisting forms of artistic expression, such as cubism versus historicism, progressivism versus regionalism; 3. to open up the subject to new audiences and contribute to their understanding of art and writing of art in Central Europe through translations of key texts into English. It will do so by examining key texts by historians, art historians, art critics and journalists writing mainly in Czech such as F. X. Šalda, Renata Tyršová, Vincenc Kramář, Josef and Karel Čapek, Karel Teige, as well as the work of others writing in German, Slovak, English and French, such as William Ritter, Meier-Graefe, and Adolf Loos. Therefore the book is concerned with the narratives in which works of art were framed, interpreted and conceptualized.
Beyond the great exhibitions, expositions universelles and world fairs in London, Paris or Chicag... more Beyond the great exhibitions, expositions universelles and world fairs in London, Paris or Chicago, numerous smaller, yet ambitious exhibitions took place in provincial cities and towns across the world. Focusing on the period between 1840 and 1940, this volume takes a novel look at the exhibitionary cultures of this period and examines the motivations, scope, and impact of lesser-known exhibitions in, for example, Australia, Japan, Brazil, as well as a number of European countries.
The individual case studies included explore the role of these exhibitions in the global exhibitionary network and consider their ‘marginality’ related to their location and omission by academic research so far. The chapters also highlight a number of important issues from regional or national identities, the role of modernisation and tradition, to the relationship between capital cities and provincial towns present in these exhibitions. They also address the key topic of colonial exhibitions as well as the displays of arts and design in the context of the so-called marginal fairs. Cultures of International Exhibitions 1840-1940 : Great Exhibitions in the Margins therefore opens up new angles in the way the global phenomenon of a great exhibition can be examined through the prism of the regional, and will make a vital contribution to those interested in exhibition studies and related fields.
Kniha Možnosti vizuálních studií. Obrazy – texty – interpretace poskytuje úvod do nové oblasti vi... more Kniha Možnosti vizuálních studií. Obrazy – texty – interpretace poskytuje úvod do nové oblasti vizuálních studií a teorií obrazu. Je určena jednak širokému publiku čtenářů, kteří se zajímají o roli vizuální reprezentace v současné kultuře a společnosti, a jednak studentům vizuálních umění, dějin umění, masových médií, architektury a designu.
Řada českých a zahraničních autorů zde zkoumá možnosti interpretace různých druhů obrazů, od komiksu, digitální fotografie přes mapy a vědeckou ilustraci až po umělecká díla. Zamýšlejí se také nad nejrůznějšími politickými, estetickými a filozofickými otázkami, které tyto interpretace předkládají.
Z obsahu:
Matthew Rampley: Pojem vizuální studia
Richard Williams: Architektura ve vizuální kultuře
Jan Michl: Vidět design jako redesign
Petra Trnková: Fotografie v dějinách umělecké fotografie
František Kůst: Estetická role nových médií
Tomáš Pospiszyl: Vzpoura mozků. Komiks a ideologie dvacátého století
Ladislav Kesner: Obrazy a modely ve vědě a medicíně
J. B. Harley: Mapy, vědění a moc
Marta Filipová: Vizuální studia v českém prostředí
James Elkins: Sbohem, vizuální kulturo
In the increasingly modernized Central Europe of the late nineteenth century, folk culture, with ... more In the increasingly modernized Central Europe of the late nineteenth century, folk culture, with its alleged ancient character, was still understood by some scholars as the bearer of national identity. The Czechoslavic [sic] Ethnographic Exhibition, which took place in Prague in 1895, aimed to promote the idea of the ethnically unified, but at the same time regionally diverse, identity of the Czech-speaking people living in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. Having to negotiate their identity with the ethnic Germans of Bohemia, the Czechs consciously excluded them from the event both as organizers and as exhibitors. The exhibition could therefore be seen as a symptom of its time—in the late nineteenth century Central Europe, locating national heritage was crucial and folk culture played an important role in the national politics, and not only for the Czechs. This article focuses mainly on the ethnographic exhibit entitled ‘the Exhibition Village’, which consisted of an eclectic selection of village houses and their imitations from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. On this basis, it explores the political intentions behind the display of folk culture to both urban and rural audiences and brings attention to the question of integration of the diverse regional objects in a utopian national whole. The article thus also aims to demonstrate issues related to the use of folk artefacts for the purposes of cultural nationalism in Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.
This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, his... more This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, history, and theory between 1895 and 1939, looking beyond the avant-garde to the peripheries of modern art. The period is marked by radical political changes, the formation of national and regional identities, and the rise of modernism in Central Europe – specifically, the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the creation of the new democratic state of Czechoslovakia. Marta Filipova studies the way in which narratives of modern art were formed in a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and a desire to remain authentically local.
Contents: Introduction: The margins of exhibitions and exhibitions studies, Marta Filipova. Exhib... more Contents: Introduction: The margins of exhibitions and exhibitions studies, Marta Filipova. Exhibition as a Concept: A capital in the margins: concepts for a Budapest Universal Exhibition between 1867 and 1917, Miklos Szekely Barcelona's Universal Exhibition of 1888: an atypical case of a Great Exhibition, Marina Munoz Torreblanca A marginal exhibition? The all-German exhibition in Berlin, 1844, John R. Davis. Constructing Identities: 'Witness to the momentous significance of German labour in Bohemia': exhibitions in the German-speaking regions of Bohemia before the First World War, Tomas Okurka The nation for itself: the 1896 Hungarian Millennium and the 1906 Romanian National General Exhibition, Samuel D. Albert The forefront of English commercial centres: Wolverhampton's exhibitions of 1869 and 1902, Marta Filipova. Historicity and Modernity: Nature and the Brazilian state at the Independence Centennial International Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, 1922, Livia Rezende The Ghent Universal and International Exhibition of 1913: reconciling historicism, modernity and exoticism, Davy Depelchin Old London, Old Edinburgh: constructing historic cities, Wilson Smith. Art and Design Exhibited: A red-letter day: evaluating progress in New Zealand's art at Dunedin's international exhibitions, 1865 and 1889, Rebecca Rice International exhibitions and urban aspirations: Launceston, Tasmania, in the 19th century, Anne Neale 'Urbi et orbi': decentralization and design in Nancy's International Exposition of eastern France 1909, Claire O'Mahony. International Ambitions: Merging peripheries and centres: the transnational interconnectedness of the Helsinki National Exhibition of 1876, Taina Syrjamaa The last exhibition of the Italian colonial empire: Naples 1938-1940, Giovanni Arena International ambitions of an exhibition at the margin: Japan's 1903 Osaka Exposition, Jeffer Daykin. Index.
Czechoslovakia at the world's fairs. Behind the facade , 2024
Born in 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic was keen to project a distinct image of the new sta... more Born in 1918, the First Czechoslovak Republic was keen to project a distinct image of the new state in others. Participation in World Fairs offered the perfect opportunity to make such an effort, which Czechoslovakia did not hesitate to seize. The comprehensive picture of Czechoslovak efforts at the largest international exhibition events of the interwar period is not, however, a mere survey of the national participation in world’s fairs in a chronological sequence. Marta Filipová looks beyond the sleek façade of the modernist pavilions to examine the intersections of architecture, art and design with commercial interests, state agendas, individual action and the public, and offers a complex insight into the production and reception of national displays.
The rich collection of images – mainly photographs – provides a closer look at the Czechoslovak pavilions. The design, content and context of the displays convey the idealized narrative, that was created for the fairs, and the myths on which the Czechoslovak nation and state were built. Heavy machinery, modern art, tourist destinations, or food and drink were presented as Czechoslovak, while many aspects of social life – particularly women or ethnic minorities – were strikingly underrepresented or absent. The book argues that the objects and ideas that the pavilion organizers put on display legitimized and validated the existence of the new state through the inclusion and exclusion of exhibits, people and ideas.
While the book focuses on Czechoslovakia, it also offers substantial insight into how other emerging new nations projected and sustained their image during this historical period and how interwar world’s fairs accommodated them.
Not everyone shared the image of success promoted by national pavilions at world’s fairs. The Cze... more Not everyone shared the image of success promoted by national pavilions at world’s fairs. The Czechoslovak participation in the interwar period was always a result of extensive negotiations between different interest groups of the various ministries, industrial representatives or designers. The Czechoslovak pavilion at the 1937 exposition in Paris, for example, was highly praised and awarded multiple prizes, yet in Czechoslovakia it received harsh criticism. The Czech industrialist and owner of the global shoe manufactory, Jan Antonín Baťa, called it a ‘magnificent failure’ as the pavilion did not give proper justice to business and fell for cheap, artistic avant-gardisms. Frustrated by the failures of the state in promoting the nation and its companies, Baťa offered a solution for a better Czechoslovak pavilion for New York’s World of Tomorrow in 1939. A combination of commerce and entertainment, the pavilion reflected the industrialist’s understanding of the relation between a successful company, the state and the world’s fair.
Baťa ran much more than shoe production, he built a town where the company’s first factory was founded and he also owned a vision of the future of his workers and the entire state. As a company, Baťa also put up their own pavilions at world’s fairs in Brussels and Paris presented not only their products, but also a happy community of workers whose work life, past time, education and health were well looked after. By the late 1930s, Baťa built factories, towns and culture of living, not dissimilar to those of Ford, Pullmann and similar giants. They also shared an interest in using the world’s fair as a useful tool for displaying and promoting the company worldview. This text explores previously neglected questions about the links between entrepreneurialism and statehood on the one hand and eugenic visions of progress on the other and claims that these came to visual prominence at world's fairs especially in the times of radicalised nationalism of the 1930s.
Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918, (Eds) Paul Miller and Claire Morelon; afterword by Pieter Judson. Collection: Austrian and Habsburg Studies: Book 22., 2018
The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical ch... more The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical change for East-Central European political structures and national identities. Yet this transformed landscape inevitably still bore the traces of its imperial past. Breaking with traditional histories that take 1918 as a strict line of demarcation, this collection focuses on the complexities that attended the transition from the Habsburg Empire to its successor states. In so doing, it produces new and more nuanced insights into the persistence and effectiveness of imperial institutions, as well as the sources of instability in the newly formed nation-states.
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments
Introduction Claire Morelon
PART I: PERMANENCE AND REVOLUTION: NATIONAL POLITICS IN THE TRANSITION TO THE SUCCESSOR STATES
Chapter 1. Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions: Local Societies and Nationalizing States in East Central Europe Gábor Egry
Chapter 2. State Legitimacy and Continuity between the Habsburg Empire and Czechoslovakia: The 1918 Transition in Prague Claire Morelon
Chapter 3. Strangers among Friends: Leon Biliński between Imperial Austria and New Poland Iryna Vushko
Chapter 4. Ideology on Display: Continuity and Rupture at Exhibitions in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1873–1928 Marta Filipová
PART II: THE HABSBURG ARMY'S FINAL BATTLES
Chapter 5. Reflections on the Legacy of the Imperial and Royal Army in the Successor States Richard Bassett
Chapter 6. Imperial into National Officers: K.(u.) K. Officers of Romanian Nationality Before and after the Great War Irina Marin
Chapter 7. Shades of Empire: Austro-Hungarian Officers, Frankists, and the Afterlives of Austria-Hungary in Croatia, 1918–1929 John Paul Newman
PART III: CHURCH, DYNASTY, ARISTOCRACY: THE POST-WAR FATE OF IMPERIAL PILLARS
Chapter 8. “All the German Princes Driven Out!”: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic Michael Carter-Sinclair
Chapter 9. Wealthy Landowners or Weak Remnants of the Imperial Past?: Central European Nobles during and after the First World War Konstantinos Raptis
Chapter 10. Sinner, Saint―or Cipher?: The Austrian Republic and the Death of Emperor Karl I Christopher Brennan
PART IV: HISTORY, MEMORY, MENTALITÉ: PROCESSING THE EMPIRE'S PASSING
Chapter 11. “What Did They Die For?”: War Remembrance in Austria in the Transition from Empire to Nation State Christoph Mick
Chapter 12. “The First Victim of the First World War”: Franz Ferdinand in Austrian Memory Paul Miller
Modernity, History and Politics in Czech Art, 2019
How does changing political environment influence the construction of narratives about art? The v... more How does changing political environment influence the construction of narratives about art? The volume tackles this question in relationship to the formulation of ideas about Czech art in the Czech lands between 1895 and 1939 in art criticism, art theory and exhibitions. The period is marked by radical political changes, formation of national and regional identities and the rise of modernism in Central Europe. By focusing on the location of Bohemia and – after the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918 – Czechoslovakia, it aims to demonstrate how artists, art critics and historians in a concrete geopolitical and historical moment respond to external and internal influences, such as political, social and economic changes. The volume is concerned especially with the way the narratives of modern art were formed as a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and remain authentically local and national during a period that saw the rise of nationalism, the emergence of nation-states as well as strong inclinations for internationalization .
The volume is particularly interested in the relationships between modernity and nation building, the global and local in art, and the arts and contemporary politics. Modernism in the Czech speaking space is seen as a multi-directional phenomenon with a multitude of exchanges and influences that took place across regional and national borders. In this way, the volume includes attention to the alleged peripheries of modernism found in the locations beyond Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow. It has three main aims: 1. to consider the development of art criticism, history and theory in the political, cultural, ethnic and social context of Bohemia, the late Habsburg Empire and the interwar successor state of Czechoslovakia; 2. to challenge the established narratives of modernism in Central Europe that tend to privilege the avant-garde at the expense of other, coexisting forms of artistic expression, such as cubism versus historicism, progressivism versus regionalism; 3. to open up the subject to new audiences and contribute to their understanding of art and writing of art in Central Europe through translations of key texts into English. It will do so by examining key texts by historians, art historians, art critics and journalists writing mainly in Czech such as F. X. Šalda, Renata Tyršová, Vincenc Kramář, Josef and Karel Čapek, Karel Teige, as well as the work of others writing in German, Slovak, English and French, such as William Ritter, Meier-Graefe, and Adolf Loos. Therefore the book is concerned with the narratives in which works of art were framed, interpreted and conceptualized.
Beyond the great exhibitions, expositions universelles and world fairs in London, Paris or Chicag... more Beyond the great exhibitions, expositions universelles and world fairs in London, Paris or Chicago, numerous smaller, yet ambitious exhibitions took place in provincial cities and towns across the world. Focusing on the period between 1840 and 1940, this volume takes a novel look at the exhibitionary cultures of this period and examines the motivations, scope, and impact of lesser-known exhibitions in, for example, Australia, Japan, Brazil, as well as a number of European countries.
The individual case studies included explore the role of these exhibitions in the global exhibitionary network and consider their ‘marginality’ related to their location and omission by academic research so far. The chapters also highlight a number of important issues from regional or national identities, the role of modernisation and tradition, to the relationship between capital cities and provincial towns present in these exhibitions. They also address the key topic of colonial exhibitions as well as the displays of arts and design in the context of the so-called marginal fairs. Cultures of International Exhibitions 1840-1940 : Great Exhibitions in the Margins therefore opens up new angles in the way the global phenomenon of a great exhibition can be examined through the prism of the regional, and will make a vital contribution to those interested in exhibition studies and related fields.
Kniha Možnosti vizuálních studií. Obrazy – texty – interpretace poskytuje úvod do nové oblasti vi... more Kniha Možnosti vizuálních studií. Obrazy – texty – interpretace poskytuje úvod do nové oblasti vizuálních studií a teorií obrazu. Je určena jednak širokému publiku čtenářů, kteří se zajímají o roli vizuální reprezentace v současné kultuře a společnosti, a jednak studentům vizuálních umění, dějin umění, masových médií, architektury a designu.
Řada českých a zahraničních autorů zde zkoumá možnosti interpretace různých druhů obrazů, od komiksu, digitální fotografie přes mapy a vědeckou ilustraci až po umělecká díla. Zamýšlejí se také nad nejrůznějšími politickými, estetickými a filozofickými otázkami, které tyto interpretace předkládají.
Z obsahu:
Matthew Rampley: Pojem vizuální studia
Richard Williams: Architektura ve vizuální kultuře
Jan Michl: Vidět design jako redesign
Petra Trnková: Fotografie v dějinách umělecké fotografie
František Kůst: Estetická role nových médií
Tomáš Pospiszyl: Vzpoura mozků. Komiks a ideologie dvacátého století
Ladislav Kesner: Obrazy a modely ve vědě a medicíně
J. B. Harley: Mapy, vědění a moc
Marta Filipová: Vizuální studia v českém prostředí
James Elkins: Sbohem, vizuální kulturo
In the increasingly modernized Central Europe of the late nineteenth century, folk culture, with ... more In the increasingly modernized Central Europe of the late nineteenth century, folk culture, with its alleged ancient character, was still understood by some scholars as the bearer of national identity. The Czechoslavic [sic] Ethnographic Exhibition, which took place in Prague in 1895, aimed to promote the idea of the ethnically unified, but at the same time regionally diverse, identity of the Czech-speaking people living in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. Having to negotiate their identity with the ethnic Germans of Bohemia, the Czechs consciously excluded them from the event both as organizers and as exhibitors. The exhibition could therefore be seen as a symptom of its time—in the late nineteenth century Central Europe, locating national heritage was crucial and folk culture played an important role in the national politics, and not only for the Czechs. This article focuses mainly on the ethnographic exhibit entitled ‘the Exhibition Village’, which consisted of an eclectic selection of village houses and their imitations from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. On this basis, it explores the political intentions behind the display of folk culture to both urban and rural audiences and brings attention to the question of integration of the diverse regional objects in a utopian national whole. The article thus also aims to demonstrate issues related to the use of folk artefacts for the purposes of cultural nationalism in Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.
This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, his... more This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, history, and theory between 1895 and 1939, looking beyond the avant-garde to the peripheries of modern art. The period is marked by radical political changes, the formation of national and regional identities, and the rise of modernism in Central Europe – specifically, the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the creation of the new democratic state of Czechoslovakia. Marta Filipova studies the way in which narratives of modern art were formed in a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and a desire to remain authentically local.
Contents: Introduction: The margins of exhibitions and exhibitions studies, Marta Filipova. Exhib... more Contents: Introduction: The margins of exhibitions and exhibitions studies, Marta Filipova. Exhibition as a Concept: A capital in the margins: concepts for a Budapest Universal Exhibition between 1867 and 1917, Miklos Szekely Barcelona's Universal Exhibition of 1888: an atypical case of a Great Exhibition, Marina Munoz Torreblanca A marginal exhibition? The all-German exhibition in Berlin, 1844, John R. Davis. Constructing Identities: 'Witness to the momentous significance of German labour in Bohemia': exhibitions in the German-speaking regions of Bohemia before the First World War, Tomas Okurka The nation for itself: the 1896 Hungarian Millennium and the 1906 Romanian National General Exhibition, Samuel D. Albert The forefront of English commercial centres: Wolverhampton's exhibitions of 1869 and 1902, Marta Filipova. Historicity and Modernity: Nature and the Brazilian state at the Independence Centennial International Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, 1922, Livia Rezende The Ghent Universal and International Exhibition of 1913: reconciling historicism, modernity and exoticism, Davy Depelchin Old London, Old Edinburgh: constructing historic cities, Wilson Smith. Art and Design Exhibited: A red-letter day: evaluating progress in New Zealand's art at Dunedin's international exhibitions, 1865 and 1889, Rebecca Rice International exhibitions and urban aspirations: Launceston, Tasmania, in the 19th century, Anne Neale 'Urbi et orbi': decentralization and design in Nancy's International Exposition of eastern France 1909, Claire O'Mahony. International Ambitions: Merging peripheries and centres: the transnational interconnectedness of the Helsinki National Exhibition of 1876, Taina Syrjamaa The last exhibition of the Italian colonial empire: Naples 1938-1940, Giovanni Arena International ambitions of an exhibition at the margin: Japan's 1903 Osaka Exposition, Jeffer Daykin. Index.
Based in Masaryk University's Department of Art History, the mission of the Centre for Modern Art... more Based in Masaryk University's Department of Art History, the mission of the Centre for Modern Art and Theory is to promote research and teaching in the fields of modern and contemporary art, visual culture, aesthetics, design and art criticism. It hosts several individual and joint research projects and organises a regular programme of events, including guest lectures, work in progress seminars and reading group.
This collection of essays focuses on the exhibition architecture in Central and Eastern European ... more This collection of essays focuses on the exhibition architecture in Central and Eastern European countries, a region of fluid geo-political conception, composed of multi-ethnic countries with constantly shifting borders. The authors analyse temporary constructions erected for national and international exhibitions in the 19th and 20th centuries presenting Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian-Herzegovinian, Yugoslav, Romanian, Russian cases. In the papers the pavilions are considered hubs of architectural and artistic trends, political visions of this culturally heterogeneous territory. The papers demonstrate the complex political, cultural, social, economic and urban context in which the exhibition architecture was created. The complexity of the hitherto less known Central-Eastern European exhibition architecture is demonstrated not only by the variety of cases analyzed, but also by the diversity of scholarly approaches applied. In the 19th century pavilions and exhibition galleries were powerful means for nation building and mass entertainment, as well as they provided a "magic frame" for the latest technological and cultural achievements. In 20th century ephemeral constructions were often appropriated and utilized by the changing political regimes for power demonstration or for signifying their role as flagships of modernism.
Proměny dějin umění. Sborník příspěvků z 2. konference historiků umění [Transformations of Art History. Proceedings from the 2nd Conference of Art Historians], eds. Roman Prahl and Tomáš Winter , 2007
On behalf of the Design History Society, we seek proposals for a sponsored session at the CAA ann... more On behalf of the Design History Society, we seek proposals for a sponsored session at the CAA annual conference scheduled to take place on 10-13 February 2021 in New York.
Research has for a long time focused on world fairs, great exhibitions or expositions universelle... more Research has for a long time focused on world fairs, great exhibitions or expositions universelles in the capitals of Europe and in the large cities of the USA. Their crucial role in communicating ideas about the identities of the exhibiting nations (and their relation to other cultures) and in showcasing contemporary art and design has been examined in detail. In the heyday of these spectacular events, smaller cities and regional centres worldwide, staged their own “great exhibitions” modelled on those held in the national (or imperial) centres. Their goals, although executed on a more modest scale, were often the same, and involved the promotion and sale of goods but also communicated ideas, ideologies and identities. These smaller shows were still ambitious and tried to engage not only the local population but also national and international audiences and exhibitors. This symposium turns attention to the exhibitions of arts and industries in the regions outside the capitals and to the assumptions that lay behind them.
In the 19th century, studying folk art was a subject of many disciplines, including art history. ... more In the 19th century, studying folk art was a subject of many disciplines, including art history. In Bohemia, as well as in other regions of in Central Europe, researchers focused on relating folk art to the concept of national art and saw the peasant as a bearer of inherent, ancient character of the nation. The political milieu of Central Europe of the turn of the century, however, created diversified and often contrasting views of folk art. Focusing mainly on the Czech-speaking environment and the Czechoslavic Ethnographic Exhibition of 1895, this paper examines the changing attitudes of art historical study in Central Europe to folk art and focuses on - a selection of exhibitions held in major cities of Central Europe (such as Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Lwow), - art historical responses to folk art as a rich source for many architects and painters, - modernist critique of folk art as national and as a derivate of high art.
Reflecting on the nature of art history as a subject and its historic and contemporary role in so... more Reflecting on the nature of art history as a subject and its historic and contemporary role in society is an interesting and much need task that the volume Století ústavu pro dějiny umění promises to achieve. The book examines the history of the Institute of Art History at the Charles University in Prague, which recently commemorated its centenary. Has the book achieved this goal? And could it appeal to readers outside of art history to create an informed view of art history not based on a caricature?
A Review of: Richard Biegl, Roman Prahl and Jakub Bachtík, eds, Století ústavu pro dějiny umění na Filozofické fakultě Univerzity Karlovy [A Century of the Institute for Art History at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University]. Prague: Charles University, 2020. 942 pp. ISBN: 9788073089627.
Continuity/Rupture: Art and Architecture in Central Europe, 1918-1939, 2020
This review focuses on the exhibition at the Stone Bell House in Prague, organised by the Gallery... more This review focuses on the exhibition at the Stone Bell House in Prague, organised by the Gallery of the City of Prague, in association with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.
West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, 2018
Academic interest in international exhibitions and world's fairs of the nineteenth and twentieth ... more Academic interest in international exhibitions and world's fairs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been lively for at least the last three decades. Explorations of the intents, contents, goals, and politics of the largest fairs and their historic sequence have captured the attention of many historians, cultural historians, and art historians. The latter have increasingly focused on the role architecture, fine art, and design of the various displays played in the fairs, which were originally dedicated to promoting trade and commerce, as well as showcasing imperial ambitions. In the recent decade, focus has also turned towards interpretations of exhibitions as global events where the concepts of modernism, internationalism, and globalism were of equal importance to the promotion of trade and business. The global village of exhibitions provides a great opportunity to explore cross-cultural exchanges and international networks. Division of the exhibition grounds into national displays, a pattern that started with the Paris Exposition of 1867, also invites examination of how individual countries of all sizes approached the opportunity of displaying their goods and technology in a self-contained space. Juxtaposition with other national exhibits helped to facilitate a comparison of each country's identity, while emphasizing diversity and promoting exchange. This is also the focus, and the subtitle, of a new publication on the phenomenon of world's fairs. The ten chapters of Expanding Nationalisms at World's Fairs: Identity, Diversity, and Exchange, 1851–1915, edited by David Raizman and Ethan Robey, explore the " complex representations of collective identity among interest groups " that were not part of the established power houses of, for example, Great Britain, the United States, and France (1). The book instead focuses on countries that were marginal in the political, geographical, or economic sense, in order to contribute to the discipline of global design history by disrupting the dominant western viewpoint.
mejkal focuses on Kurt Schwitters's relationship with Prague and with the Czech... more mejkal focuses on Kurt Schwitters's relationship with Prague and with the Czech avant-garde. The article provides the first full record of Schwitters's stays in Prague and the reaction of Czech artists to his work. mejkal shows that Schwitters's presence in Prague in 1921 ...
Czech art historian Hubert Guzik examines the Czech feminist movements of the first half of the t... more Czech art historian Hubert Guzik examines the Czech feminist movements of the first half of the twentieth century in relation to architecture. Guzik's analysis challenges current ideas about the local canon, the programs of the liberal women's movements and leftist avant-gardists in ...
Abstract: This article makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the development o... more Abstract: This article makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the development of art history as a discipline. Kroupa shows the genesis of the first “historics “of art by Carl Friedrich von Rumohr (1785-1843) and his influence on later, major figures in ...
Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural Exchange 1870-1920 , 2019
in Grace Brockington and Sarah Turner, eds., Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural E... more in Grace Brockington and Sarah Turner, eds., Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural Exchange 1870-1920 (Peter Lang, forthcoming)
What kind of freedoms did creative individuals cooperating with national governments on exhibitio... more What kind of freedoms did creative individuals cooperating with national governments on exhibitions enjoy? How did the political stances of individual organisers, designers and artists influence their work for the institutions and events concerned? Who were the visitors, and did they experience the exhibitions as intended? To what extent did individuals, employed in the national displays, influence the meaning and interpretation of the exhibition? How did the social and cultural identities of visitors determine interpretation of the content of the display?
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Books by Marta Filipová
The rich collection of images – mainly photographs – provides a closer look at the Czechoslovak pavilions. The design, content and context of the displays convey the idealized narrative, that was created for the fairs, and the myths on which the Czechoslovak nation and state were built. Heavy machinery, modern art, tourist destinations, or food and drink were presented as Czechoslovak, while many aspects of social life – particularly women or ethnic minorities – were strikingly underrepresented or absent. The book argues that the objects and ideas that the pavilion organizers put on display legitimized and validated the existence of the new state through the inclusion and exclusion of exhibits, people and ideas.
While the book focuses on Czechoslovakia, it also offers substantial insight into how other emerging new nations projected and sustained their image during this historical period and how interwar world’s fairs accommodated them.
Baťa ran much more than shoe production, he built a town where the company’s first factory was founded and he also owned a vision of the future of his workers and the entire state. As a company, Baťa also put up their own pavilions at world’s fairs in Brussels and Paris presented not only their products, but also a happy community of workers whose work life, past time, education and health were well looked after. By the late 1930s, Baťa built factories, towns and culture of living, not dissimilar to those of Ford, Pullmann and similar giants. They also shared an interest in using the world’s fair as a useful tool for displaying and promoting the company worldview. This text explores previously neglected questions about the links between entrepreneurialism and statehood on the one hand and eugenic visions of progress on the other and claims that these came to visual prominence at world's fairs especially in the times of radicalised nationalism of the 1930s.
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Claire Morelon
PART I: PERMANENCE AND REVOLUTION: NATIONAL POLITICS IN THE TRANSITION TO THE SUCCESSOR STATES
Chapter 1. Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions: Local Societies and Nationalizing States in East Central Europe
Gábor Egry
Chapter 2. State Legitimacy and Continuity between the Habsburg Empire and Czechoslovakia: The 1918 Transition in Prague
Claire Morelon
Chapter 3. Strangers among Friends: Leon Biliński between Imperial Austria and New Poland
Iryna Vushko
Chapter 4. Ideology on Display: Continuity and Rupture at Exhibitions in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1873–1928
Marta Filipová
PART II: THE HABSBURG ARMY'S FINAL BATTLES
Chapter 5. Reflections on the Legacy of the Imperial and Royal Army in the Successor States
Richard Bassett
Chapter 6. Imperial into National Officers: K.(u.) K. Officers of Romanian Nationality Before and after the Great War
Irina Marin
Chapter 7. Shades of Empire: Austro-Hungarian Officers, Frankists, and the Afterlives of Austria-Hungary in Croatia, 1918–1929
John Paul Newman
PART III: CHURCH, DYNASTY, ARISTOCRACY: THE POST-WAR FATE OF IMPERIAL PILLARS
Chapter 8. “All the German Princes Driven Out!”: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic
Michael Carter-Sinclair
Chapter 9. Wealthy Landowners or Weak Remnants of the Imperial Past?: Central European Nobles during and after the First World War
Konstantinos Raptis
Chapter 10. Sinner, Saint―or Cipher?: The Austrian Republic and the Death of Emperor Karl I
Christopher Brennan
PART IV: HISTORY, MEMORY, MENTALITÉ: PROCESSING THE EMPIRE'S PASSING
Chapter 11. “What Did They Die For?”: War Remembrance in Austria in the Transition from Empire to Nation State
Christoph Mick
Chapter 12. “The First Victim of the First World War”: Franz Ferdinand in Austrian Memory
Paul Miller
Afterword
Pieter M. Judson
The volume is particularly interested in the relationships between modernity and nation building, the global and local in art, and the arts and contemporary politics. Modernism in the Czech speaking space is seen as a multi-directional phenomenon with a multitude of exchanges and influences that took place across regional and national borders. In this way, the volume includes attention to the alleged peripheries of modernism found in the locations beyond Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow.
It has three main aims:
1. to consider the development of art criticism, history and theory in the political, cultural, ethnic and social context of Bohemia, the late Habsburg Empire and the interwar successor state of Czechoslovakia;
2. to challenge the established narratives of modernism in Central Europe that tend to privilege the avant-garde at the expense of other, coexisting forms of artistic expression, such as cubism versus historicism, progressivism versus regionalism;
3. to open up the subject to new audiences and contribute to their understanding of art and writing of art in Central Europe through translations of key texts into English.
It will do so by examining key texts by historians, art historians, art critics and journalists writing mainly in Czech such as F. X. Šalda, Renata Tyršová, Vincenc Kramář, Josef and Karel Čapek, Karel Teige, as well as the work of others writing in German, Slovak, English and French, such as William Ritter, Meier-Graefe, and Adolf Loos. Therefore the book is concerned with the narratives in which works of art were framed, interpreted and conceptualized.
The individual case studies included explore the role of these exhibitions in the global exhibitionary network and consider their ‘marginality’ related to their location and omission by academic research so far. The chapters also highlight a number of important issues from regional or national identities, the role of modernisation and tradition, to the relationship between capital cities and provincial towns present in these exhibitions. They also address the key topic of colonial exhibitions as well as the displays of arts and design in the context of the so-called marginal fairs. Cultures of International Exhibitions 1840-1940 : Great Exhibitions in the Margins therefore opens up new angles in the way the global phenomenon of a great exhibition can be examined through the prism of the regional, and will make a vital contribution to those interested in exhibition studies and related fields.
Řada českých a zahraničních autorů zde zkoumá možnosti interpretace různých druhů obrazů, od komiksu, digitální fotografie přes mapy a vědeckou ilustraci až po umělecká díla. Zamýšlejí se také nad nejrůznějšími politickými, estetickými a filozofickými otázkami, které tyto interpretace předkládají.
Z obsahu:
Matthew Rampley: Pojem vizuální studia
Richard Williams: Architektura ve vizuální kultuře
Jan Michl: Vidět design jako redesign
Petra Trnková: Fotografie v dějinách umělecké fotografie
František Kůst: Estetická role nových médií
Tomáš Pospiszyl: Vzpoura mozků. Komiks a ideologie dvacátého století
Ladislav Kesner: Obrazy a modely ve vědě a medicíně
J. B. Harley: Mapy, vědění a moc
Marta Filipová: Vizuální studia v českém prostředí
James Elkins: Sbohem, vizuální kulturo
Papers by Marta Filipová
The rich collection of images – mainly photographs – provides a closer look at the Czechoslovak pavilions. The design, content and context of the displays convey the idealized narrative, that was created for the fairs, and the myths on which the Czechoslovak nation and state were built. Heavy machinery, modern art, tourist destinations, or food and drink were presented as Czechoslovak, while many aspects of social life – particularly women or ethnic minorities – were strikingly underrepresented or absent. The book argues that the objects and ideas that the pavilion organizers put on display legitimized and validated the existence of the new state through the inclusion and exclusion of exhibits, people and ideas.
While the book focuses on Czechoslovakia, it also offers substantial insight into how other emerging new nations projected and sustained their image during this historical period and how interwar world’s fairs accommodated them.
Baťa ran much more than shoe production, he built a town where the company’s first factory was founded and he also owned a vision of the future of his workers and the entire state. As a company, Baťa also put up their own pavilions at world’s fairs in Brussels and Paris presented not only their products, but also a happy community of workers whose work life, past time, education and health were well looked after. By the late 1930s, Baťa built factories, towns and culture of living, not dissimilar to those of Ford, Pullmann and similar giants. They also shared an interest in using the world’s fair as a useful tool for displaying and promoting the company worldview. This text explores previously neglected questions about the links between entrepreneurialism and statehood on the one hand and eugenic visions of progress on the other and claims that these came to visual prominence at world's fairs especially in the times of radicalised nationalism of the 1930s.
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Claire Morelon
PART I: PERMANENCE AND REVOLUTION: NATIONAL POLITICS IN THE TRANSITION TO THE SUCCESSOR STATES
Chapter 1. Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions: Local Societies and Nationalizing States in East Central Europe
Gábor Egry
Chapter 2. State Legitimacy and Continuity between the Habsburg Empire and Czechoslovakia: The 1918 Transition in Prague
Claire Morelon
Chapter 3. Strangers among Friends: Leon Biliński between Imperial Austria and New Poland
Iryna Vushko
Chapter 4. Ideology on Display: Continuity and Rupture at Exhibitions in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1873–1928
Marta Filipová
PART II: THE HABSBURG ARMY'S FINAL BATTLES
Chapter 5. Reflections on the Legacy of the Imperial and Royal Army in the Successor States
Richard Bassett
Chapter 6. Imperial into National Officers: K.(u.) K. Officers of Romanian Nationality Before and after the Great War
Irina Marin
Chapter 7. Shades of Empire: Austro-Hungarian Officers, Frankists, and the Afterlives of Austria-Hungary in Croatia, 1918–1929
John Paul Newman
PART III: CHURCH, DYNASTY, ARISTOCRACY: THE POST-WAR FATE OF IMPERIAL PILLARS
Chapter 8. “All the German Princes Driven Out!”: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic
Michael Carter-Sinclair
Chapter 9. Wealthy Landowners or Weak Remnants of the Imperial Past?: Central European Nobles during and after the First World War
Konstantinos Raptis
Chapter 10. Sinner, Saint―or Cipher?: The Austrian Republic and the Death of Emperor Karl I
Christopher Brennan
PART IV: HISTORY, MEMORY, MENTALITÉ: PROCESSING THE EMPIRE'S PASSING
Chapter 11. “What Did They Die For?”: War Remembrance in Austria in the Transition from Empire to Nation State
Christoph Mick
Chapter 12. “The First Victim of the First World War”: Franz Ferdinand in Austrian Memory
Paul Miller
Afterword
Pieter M. Judson
The volume is particularly interested in the relationships between modernity and nation building, the global and local in art, and the arts and contemporary politics. Modernism in the Czech speaking space is seen as a multi-directional phenomenon with a multitude of exchanges and influences that took place across regional and national borders. In this way, the volume includes attention to the alleged peripheries of modernism found in the locations beyond Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow.
It has three main aims:
1. to consider the development of art criticism, history and theory in the political, cultural, ethnic and social context of Bohemia, the late Habsburg Empire and the interwar successor state of Czechoslovakia;
2. to challenge the established narratives of modernism in Central Europe that tend to privilege the avant-garde at the expense of other, coexisting forms of artistic expression, such as cubism versus historicism, progressivism versus regionalism;
3. to open up the subject to new audiences and contribute to their understanding of art and writing of art in Central Europe through translations of key texts into English.
It will do so by examining key texts by historians, art historians, art critics and journalists writing mainly in Czech such as F. X. Šalda, Renata Tyršová, Vincenc Kramář, Josef and Karel Čapek, Karel Teige, as well as the work of others writing in German, Slovak, English and French, such as William Ritter, Meier-Graefe, and Adolf Loos. Therefore the book is concerned with the narratives in which works of art were framed, interpreted and conceptualized.
The individual case studies included explore the role of these exhibitions in the global exhibitionary network and consider their ‘marginality’ related to their location and omission by academic research so far. The chapters also highlight a number of important issues from regional or national identities, the role of modernisation and tradition, to the relationship between capital cities and provincial towns present in these exhibitions. They also address the key topic of colonial exhibitions as well as the displays of arts and design in the context of the so-called marginal fairs. Cultures of International Exhibitions 1840-1940 : Great Exhibitions in the Margins therefore opens up new angles in the way the global phenomenon of a great exhibition can be examined through the prism of the regional, and will make a vital contribution to those interested in exhibition studies and related fields.
Řada českých a zahraničních autorů zde zkoumá možnosti interpretace různých druhů obrazů, od komiksu, digitální fotografie přes mapy a vědeckou ilustraci až po umělecká díla. Zamýšlejí se také nad nejrůznějšími politickými, estetickými a filozofickými otázkami, které tyto interpretace předkládají.
Z obsahu:
Matthew Rampley: Pojem vizuální studia
Richard Williams: Architektura ve vizuální kultuře
Jan Michl: Vidět design jako redesign
Petra Trnková: Fotografie v dějinách umělecké fotografie
František Kůst: Estetická role nových médií
Tomáš Pospiszyl: Vzpoura mozků. Komiks a ideologie dvacátého století
Ladislav Kesner: Obrazy a modely ve vědě a medicíně
J. B. Harley: Mapy, vědění a moc
Marta Filipová: Vizuální studia v českém prostředí
James Elkins: Sbohem, vizuální kulturo
- a selection of exhibitions held in major cities of Central Europe (such as Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Lwow),
- art historical responses to folk art as a rich source for many architects and painters,
- modernist critique of folk art as national and as a derivate of high art.
A Review of: Richard Biegl, Roman Prahl and Jakub Bachtík, eds, Století ústavu pro dějiny umění na Filozofické fakultě Univerzity Karlovy [A Century of the Institute for Art History at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University]. Prague: Charles University, 2020. 942 pp. ISBN: 9788073089627.
How did the political stances of individual organisers, designers and artists influence their work for the institutions and events concerned?
Who were the visitors, and did they experience the exhibitions as intended?
To what extent did individuals, employed in the national displays, influence the meaning and interpretation of the exhibition?
How did the social and cultural identities of visitors determine interpretation of the content of the display?