Katedra teorií a dějin umění

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    "STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF HISTORY"? MONUMENTS AND (ART-)HISTORICAL AWARENESS
    (WILEY, ) Bulvas Stejskal, Jakub
    Can past agents deliberately influence our historical awareness by designing objects' appearances and sending them to us down the stream of time? We know they have certainly tried to do so by raising monuments. But according to an influential narrative, the efforts of the "monumentalists" are destined to fail: no monument can keep a legacy alive in perpetuity. In this article, I argue that this narrative misrepresents the nature of the monumentalists' mission, and I set out to show that monumentality should be understood as a means of addressing what I term "art-historical awareness." This mode of historical awareness attends to artifacts' appearances in search of visual manifestations of relevance that can survive the loss of context. Those who raise monuments aim to produce such artifacts, or what amount to intentional art-historical documents, and they do so in order to overcome the tension between the monuments' nature as public art and their commemorative function. By visually manifesting a transcendent relevance, monuments ideally appeal to both present and distant audiences, insofar as these audiences are able to appreciate the monuments' potential to sustain at least a semblance of relevance beyond their immediate contexts.
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    Techniky a technologie na kompenzaci bezmoci
    (Národní filmový archiv, 2024-11-08) Pavlík, Matěj
    The video essay Techniques and Technologies to Compensate for Powerlessness is an artistic research output that exemplifies Matěj Pavlík’s approach to historiography, developed through individual projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. Pavlík’s work often focuses on a reflexive approach to fiction, speculation, or myth-making. In this essay, the artist examines the role of borderline science technologies invented in late socialist Czechoslovakia. These technologies (e.g., telesthesia, healing, and locating geopathogenic zones) were linked to research in borderline scientific fields like psychotronics and psychoenergetics. The artist critically analyzes these technologies, highlighting their socio- political and economic contexts. Pavlík suggests that these technologies were responses to the specific crises of high modernity, compensating for feelings of alienation or powerlessness. How can we grasp these techniques and technologies in the present? He hypothesizes that the emergence and proliferation of these borderline scientific practices, particularly healing, in late socialist Czechoslovakia might reflect the era’s disillusionment and the failure of Marxist ideals of emancipation. The attempt to treat individuals and the public space at the hands of the late socialist healer may thus have been a way to individualize social risks and harms. Throughout the video essay, Pavlík argues that the institutionalization of these „wondrous“ techniques and technologies was an attempt to inhabit and adapt to the so-called pharmakon of late modernity: the poison and cure called the Scientific and Technological Revolution.
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    Presence/Absence: Constructing Queer Histories
    (University of Hawai'i at Mnoa, Department of Art and Art History, 9. 2. 2021, 2021-02-09) Jackson, Ladislav
    Art historian Ladislav Zikmund-Lender will discuss qriting and performing queer art history in Central European context, providing insight into how the history of queer lives and experiences is being documented and presented in the Czech Republic. His talk will compare and contrast the ways that the path to queer emancipation in Central Europe has been distinct from the United States.
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    Kalifornská story: Queer malíř Orrin Peck a jeho „druhá máma“ Phoebe Hearst
    (Společnost pro queer paměť, 2020-10-15) Jackson, Ladislav
    Phoebe Apperson Hearst měla velmi úspěšného vlastního syna Williama, který byl ale více jako jeho otec: tvrdý obchodník. Našla však jemnou, uměleckou duši v malíři Orrinu Peckovi (1860–1921), který byl údajně gay a který ji, ještě za života své vlastní matky, začal oslovovat „má druhá mámo.“ Na základě podrobného výzkumu jejich vzájemné korespondence v Peckově pozůstalosti se můžeme ptát, jak moc si byla progresivní, bohatá žena 19. století, jakou byla Phoebe Hearst, vědoma Peckovy sexuality a pokud ano, jestli s tím neměla problém, nebo šlo o nevyřčené tajemství mezi nimi? Jejich příběh představí historik umění Ladislav Zikmund-Lender.
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    Bohemian Rhapsody? Writing and Collecting Queer Cultural History in the Czech Republic
    (GLBT Historical Society, 2020-01-23) Jackson, Ladislav
    In autumn 2019, the Czech Republic celebrated the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ended four decades of communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia. New freedoms have made it easier for LGBTQ people to live their lives more openly in this Central European country, yet they still face significant challenges. Established in 2014, the Society for Queer Memory is the first Czech queer archives and museum. It now holds more than 1,000 objects. Art historian Ladislav Zikmund-Lender will discuss the work of the organization, providing insight into how the history of queer lives and experiences is being documented and presented in the Czech Republic. His talk will compare and contrast the ways that the path to queer emancipation in Central Europe has been distinct from the United States.