Speakers: Doina Anghel, László Beke, Mark Boswell, Paolo Cirio, Anthony Downey, Catherine Fraise, Kata Krasznahorkai, Nina Levitt, Lukasz Ronduda, Kädi Talvoja, Raluca Voinea and Franciska Zólyom.
Program: www.socialeast.org/SocialEastSeminaronArtandEspionage-posterfinal.pdf
The SocialEast Forum was initiated by Dr. Reuben Fowkes at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2006. This symposium considers the involvement of art during the Cold War with espionage, both on the level of international exchange and in specific national contexts. It deals with attempts within the Eastern Bloc to monitor artists through surveillance and networks of informers, the role of art espionage as an instrument of Sovietisation, and the methods used to control the involvement of artists in the international art world.
There will also be discussion of the parallel role of Western organisations in activities from cultural espionage to the use of art as a propaganda weapon. The seminar will also consider artistic responses to the phenomenon of spying and the wider legacy of artistic espionage for the topography of contemporary art.
The symposium has been organised by SocialEast Forum in collaboration with The Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum. The SocialEast Forum is conceived as a platform for innovative, transnational research on the art and visual culture of Eastern Europe.
Based on active collaboration with institutes of art history across Europe and the involvement of prominent academics, curators and artists, SocialEast is an internationally-recognised generator of groundbreaking research into the art history of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.