Upheaval! On Changing Ways of Thinking, Creating and Receiving | LECTURE SERIES

A series of lectures dedicated to diverse phenomena in the history and theory of art. The material presented shows how artworks and artistic practices reflect changing cultural, social and political contexts. Topics will include restitution of artworks, transformations in the representation of the body, non-binary and queer artistic perspectives, and ethical dilemmas in museology. The whole series invites critical reflection on art history as a living, polyphonic field of interpretation and dialogue with the past.

Dates: Mondays, November 17 - March 9, 18:00
Duration: approx. 75 min.
Location: online event, ClickMeeting platform
Single-session tickets: https://bit.ly/47Pu5vv
Named season passes for the whole series: https://bit.ly/3XzsWC2
Regulations: https://bit.ly/48QZC0O

Additional information:

• Both season passes and single tickets can only be purchased online.
• Season pass holders receive the lecture link three times: a week before (except for the first lecture), on the day of the event, and 30 minutes before the lecture starts.
• People who bought a single-lecture ticket receive the link at the moment of purchase (the link is on the ticket sent to the address provided at purchase).

SCHEDULE

• 17 November
  Great returns - restitution of wartime losses of the National Museum in Warsaw / Karolina Zalewska
  The speaker will talk about the returns of works looted during World War II to the National Museum in Warsaw, presenting histories of canvases such as Marcin Zaleski’s Interior of the Cathedral in Milan and Jacek Malczewski’s At the Piano.
• 24 November
  "Just naked women!" - what do female nudes tell us about cultural changes? / Sonia Kisza
  The lecture analyses the function and history of female nudes in museum collections and their role in discussions about power and the body in European art.
• 1 December
  Non-binary subjectivity in art and politics / Dr. habil. Paweł Leszkowicz
  A return to the Ars Homo Erotica exhibition and a discussion of portraits and self-portraits representing non-binary and transgender people and the context of transphobic politics in the contemporary world.
• 8 December
  Between oppression and emancipation – the male nude in modern art / Dr. habil. Paweł Leszkowicz
  An analysis of transformations of the male nude in the 20th and 21st centuries in Eastern Europe, its connections with politics, censorship and emancipation movements.
• 15 December
  Human remains in museums – sensitive heritage / Dr. Łukasz Bukowiecki
  Reflections on the presence of human remains in museum collections, their legal and ethical issues, and the history of their collecting.
• 5 January
  And what is it actually made of? The journey of materials in buildings and monuments / Marcin Matuszewski
  A lecture on the materiality of monuments and buildings: where the materials for rebuilding Warsaw came from, what was done with post-war rubble and what monuments were cast from.
• 12 January
  Abstraction – from spiritual beginnings to contemporary explorations / Magdalena Kucza-Kuczyńska
  Tracing the history of abstraction from Hilma af Klint to contemporary formal, coloristic and conceptual searches.
• 19 January
  How photography changed the image of the world / Dr. Paulina Kwiatkowska
  A discussion of the impact of photography on visual practices, its relation to traditional painting and its socio-cultural consequences.
• 26 January
  Do we say “Oriental art”? On changing approaches to non-European art / Magdalena Pinker
  A lecture on changes in terminology and thinking about the art of Asia and Africa and the move away from a hierarchical, colonial order of thinking about art history.
• 2 February
  How cinematography changed the image of the world / Dr. Paulina Kwiatkowska
  An analysis of the role of cinematography in expanding visual practices and communicating new visual languages to audiences at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
• 9 February
  Decoration, scenography, spatial architecture, or how theatrical worlds change / Dorota Buchwald
  Reflections on creating worlds in theatre, changes in the way the viewer is invited into intimate artistic space, and the influence of technology and AI.
• 16 February
  Art history in comics: Batman, Asterix, Michelangelo and others / Dr. Dawid Głownia
  A lecture on the use of artworks in comics, from their referential function to giving additional meanings and visual quotations.
• 23 February
  Memory practices in Polish museums / Sara Herczyńska
  An analysis of the mechanisms of constructing historical narratives in exhibitions and changes in the Polish museum landscape since 2004.
• 2 March
  Capitalist realism of the Polish transformation / Dr. habil. Magda Szcześniak
  A lecture on the role of images (billboards, advertising, film, press) in the economic transformation process and the shaping of the new middle class.
• 9 March
  When did copying become bad? / Dr. Marek Płuciniczak
  Reflections on the status of copies and originals in the history of collecting and moments of growing scepticism toward copying.
• Coordination: Marcin Matuszewski / Education Department