Decolonizing the Postwar
Avant-Garde in the West

June 12-13, 2024
American University of Paris

As the avant-garde often has been regarded as a typically Western phenomenon, it is perhaps to the West that we should turn first in an attempt to decolonize the post-1945 avant-garde. This first symposium explored the impact of colonization and colonialism within Western Europe's, Northern America's and Australia's geographical borders on post-1945 practices of artists related to the avant-garde across races and ethnicities.
 
Questions addressed included: How can we decolonize the post-1945 avant-garde within the West? What aspects of art and artists' trajectories and positionalities require special attention in this undertaking? What experimental artists or artists' formations in the West have been largely neglected and why? To what extent do creative decolonizing practices set forth by avant-garde artists from the West shed light on these issues? What, if any, alternative view(s) of 'the West' did the avant-garde give shape to and circulate? And when all is said and done, how do answers to these questions alter our understanding of 'the avant-garde'? Does it still make sense, for example, to talk about a 'Western' (neo-)avant-garde, or is a different nomination called for?   

Speakers

Jennifer Biddle (University of New South Wales, Sydney)
Sara Crangle (University of Sussex)
Catherine Dossin (Purdue College of Liberal Arts)
Jonathan P. Eburne (Penn State University)
Hannah J. Feldman (Northwestern University)
Fabrice Flahutez (Université de Lyon-Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne)
Jacopo Galimberti (Università Iuav di Venezia)
Tsitsi Jaji (Duke University)
Julia Leach (University of Manitoba, Winnipeg)
Dorotha Michalska (University of Oxford)
Olivier Penot-Lacassagne (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3)
Dorothy Price (Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
Effie Rentzou (Princeton University)
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Program and Abstracts

A program with abstracts and bios of speakers can be consulted here.

Venue and Registration

The conference took place at the American University of Paris (AUP). Participation (in-person or online) was free.

Organization

This conference was organized by Sascha Bru (University of Leuven), Fabrice Flahutez (Université de Lyon-Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne), Iveta Slavkova (American University of Paris) and Isabel Wünsche (Constructor University, Bremen).

© The D-AG Collective. Banner image: Detail from Ana Hatherly, The streets of Lisbon (1977). Collage on paper on hardboard from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Modern Collection, Lisbon, Portugal. Inv.: 91P742. Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões. CC by 2.0 Deed. Source.