Artists In Exile Research Articles

Natural mythology and cultural imagination: Three portraits of Bessie Head

Hallett, a painting by Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, and a sculpture by Claudette Schreuders. It argues that these portraits each symbolise Head to a certain degree: Hallett wanted to capture the Artist in Exile; Nkosi wanted to capture a Struggle Hero; and Schreuders wanted to capture a Fellow South African. This paper is interested in how all three of these artists – although to different ends and effects – each mythologise Bessie Head, and how this relates to a broader project of national mythology. In this way, this analysis hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of Bessie Head in the cultural imagination of South Africa.

“La calligraphie…c’est l’amour des mots.” An Interview with Atiq Rahimi

In his recent publications, the Prix Goncourt-awarded Franco-Afghan novelist-artist Atiq Rahimi explores cross-cultural contemplations beyond linguistic signs. Across his bilingual calligraphies, inspired by European, Asian and African philosophies, Rahimi emphasizes the effects of war on marginalized groups beyond borders. In this interview, Rahimi allows insight into his lifelong practice of calligraphies. He comments not only on calligraphies published in L’Invité du miroir (Rahimi 2020) but also on callimorphies published in his latest piece Mehstî, chair des mots (Rahimi 2023), He further explicates the notion of translingualism and challenges the definition of ‘exoticism’ from his perspective as an artist in exile.

Photocatalytic destruction of organic dyes by titanium dioxide particles doped with gold

Nanocomposites based on titanium dioxide doped with gold in concentrations of 0.2 and 0.8 wt.% were obtained by the sol-gel method using titanium tetraisopropoxide and chlorauric acid. Thermal treatment of precipitates at T = 600 °C led to the formation of highly dispersed anatase powders and increasing the temperature to 1000-1200 °C contributed to the formation of well-crystallized rutile particles. The gold in the structure of the powders is heterogeneously distributed. The size of the primary particles of anatase did not exceed 10 nm, and that of rutile reached 35-46 nm, gradually increasing with increasing processing temperature. The photocatalytic properties of TiO2&Au structures were studied during the decolorization of solutions of organic dyes (Methylene Blue, Rhodamine B, Methyl Orange, Orange G) with a concentration of 20 mg/dm3. The resulting structures did not show significant sorption activity, and visible light caused a slight desorption of the dyes. At the same time, under the influence of UV irradiation for 60 minutes, the decolorization process took place effectively and was subject to a pseudo-first-order reaction. The biggest photocatalytic activity was shown by the sample of anatase with a gold content of 0.8 wt.%. When it was added into the solution, the degree of decolorization of Rhodamine B reached up to 50%, Methyl Orange - up to 81.5%, Methylene Blue - up to 91%, and Orange G - up to 95.2%. Increasing the efficiency of the destruction of dyes can be achieved by supplementing the photo-catalytic process with a catalytic one.
 
 Аcknowledgements : Olena Lavrynenko is supported by the PAUSE program, a national emergency program for scientists and artists in exile, run by the Collège de France

The Process of Becoming a War Refugee: The Case of a Finnish Boy

The article observes the different stages of the gradual process by which Olev Mikiver became a refugee, following the formation and interweaving of his professional (artist’s) identity, his identity as a soldier and as a refugee, based on his private letters. The study mainly focuses on four letters written by Mikiver during the Finnish Continuation War, in which he participated as a volunteer in 1943–1944; these volunteers later became known as the Finnish Boys. The analysis of the letters focuses on the topics discussed in the letters and on Mikiver’s word usage. In addition to verbal means of expression, visual means have also been observed to gain additional information about the changes in identity, attitudes, and mood of the letter-writer. The analysis showed that despite Mikiver remaining a devoted artist, he adopted the soldier identity in a relatively short time and no conflict arose between the two identities. In 1944, Mikiver fled to Sweden. Based on the letters he sent to his friend Ilmar Laaban between 1948 and 1993, some observations have also been made about how he coped with refugee life in Sweden. In the post-war period, the opportunity to continue as an artist in exile, on the one hand, and the sense of solidarity with other Finnish Continuation War veterans on the other hand, helped Mikiver overcome his depression as a refugee.

Being (not) at home: Exiled women artists in postwar New York

In postwar art, the question of exile is the question of home. House defines a space as a locative concept. Home represents a place with a symbolic value of belonging and refers to objects, people, and ideas. Home does not designate a fixed state but rather a relational and transformative site in which individual and collective acts of remembering are embedded. In this article, the author explores the aesthetics of exile in the artistic production of exiled women artists in postwar New York, most notably Ruth Vollmer, Louise Nevelson, and Eva Hesse, who have often been excluded from the discourse around 1960s sculptural practice. The author casts the mode of construction and the viewing experience of their artworks through the notions of home and body. This contribution focuses on the intricate interrelations between women, domesticity, and artmaking associated with the aesthetics of exile and displacement, which significantly challenges any stable and absolute conception of home and place. By drawing on the works of feminist scholars and theorists, such as Sarah Ahmed, Julia Bryan-Wilson, and Iris Marion Young - in their argument that the idea of home and the practices of homemaking support relational identities-the author sheds light on how women artists in exile investigate notions of home, borders (both physical and psychological), diasporic longing, habitation, and uprootedness in a constant state of exchange.

Художник и его круг. Мастер русского зарубежья Евгений Климов

The article is devoted to the artist of the Russian emigre artistic circle Eugene E. Klimoff (1901–1990). A committed realist, as a painter and graphic artist, Klimoff worked in the field of landscape and portrait. The artist’s creative heritage includes many portraits of representatives of Russian artistic emigre circles, cultural and scientific figures, as well as landscapes of those places in which he happened to live during his life. These landscapes are autobiographical and belong to the category of historical evidence, acquiring special value after a hundred of years. A significant part of the landscapes is executed in the technique of lithography, and the attention of this article is focused on them. At the same time, the landscapes by Klimoff are analysed not only from the point of view of a modern art critic but also from that of his contemporaries. This perspective became possible due to Klimoff’s extensive correspondence with many famous Russian artists in exile, including Alexandre Benois, Zinaida Serebryakova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and others. Klimoff’s activities in various fields of art pursued a specific goal — the promotion of Russian art in its entirety in those cities and countries where he happened to stay. He became one of the founders of the cultural and educational society “Akropol” in Latvia, and in 1932 became its executive secretary; in 1940, he headed the Russian Department at the Riga Art Museum. In different countries of the world, Klimoff painted churches and restored church murals; he also gave public lectures on ancient Russian icon painting, subsequently expanding a variety of lecture topics and including Russian fine art of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including the work of his Russian contemporaries. At the same time, Klimoff’s activities as an educator began to spread in another direction — towards homeland, for which he carefully preserved not only his and his circle artists’ works but also memories of them in a form of correspondence with famous Russian culture and art personalities.

Giving voice to Anna Mahler, sculptor in exile

In his introduction to the catalogue published for a retrospective exhibition at the Salzburg Festival on the work of Vienna-born sculptor Anna Mahler (1904–88), which she did not live to see, Ernst Gombrich reflected on the fragmented career of an artist in exile: ‘We cannot hope ever to see the full range of [her] works. Many were destroyed in an air-raid on her abandoned studios in Vienna.’ Due to her transitory life between London, Los Angeles and Spoleto, Italy, following her forced flight from Vienna in 1938, Mahler’s works have been ‘scattered to the world, or have disappeared from sight’. Her Grand-Prix winning figure of a standing woman installed at the entrance to the Austria Pavilion at the Paris World Fair in 1937 is currently inaccessible (or has disappeared), as is Woman with Pitcher, commissioned for the Festival of Britain. Immersed in the world of music, Mahler’s portrait busts of significant musical and other cultural figures, mainly in bronze, held a particular and enduring place in her work. In parallel, throughout her life Mahler worked in stone, creating mainly female figures, ‘large, heavy creatures’ in the words of her daughter, Marina, which convey intimacy and introspection, however monumental in scale. This article will follow the trajectory of her life; the circles in which she moved in London; and her contribution to various exhibitions. In her own words, the article will evaluate the feeling of ‘inner necessity’ which drove her work, and the lightness of touch she displayed, in the filmed commentary on her ‘double’ sculpture, Two Women (1954).

“The Man Who Clashed with Khrushchev”: Ernst Neizvestny in the American Press in the 1960s–1980s

This article is devoted to the reception of Ernst Neizvestny’s art by the American daily and specialised press between the 1960s and 1980s. The research focuses on constructing the heroic image of Ernst Neizvestny based on several clichйs that are well-established in American culture: a fighter for freedom in art and an oppressed artist, “an artist in exile” after emigration. This article aims to fix the changes in the reception of Ernst Neizvestny’s oeuvre by American critics and journalists at different stages of the Cold War. The interdisciplinary approach contains the social, historical, and political factors that underlie artistic practice and necessitate the use of methods from different areas of the humanities including media and cultural studies. The main sources are reviews of solo exhibitions, interviews with the artist, notes, and articles in the American press. They are supplemented by video interviews with the sculptor from the archives of the National Centre for Contemporary Art (part of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts) and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Neizvestny’s published correspondence, as well as historical archival materials. If in the publications of the 1960s and 1970s, the authors were most interested in the relationship between Neizvestny and the Soviet authorities, at the end of the Détente, more analytical materials on art history appeared. The author concludes that the actualisation of a particular image depended on social and political factors, changes in the international cultural landscape, and the nature of the relationship between the two superpowers. The construction of the heroic image of Neizvestny in the US media became one of the tools of anti-Soviet propaganda in the cultural confrontation. An analysis of the reception of E. Neizvestny’s artworks helps reveal the ways in which ideas about Soviet art were produced and spread in American culture during the Cold War.

THE ROLE AND IDENTITY OF LATVIAN EXILE ART IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: EXAMPLE OF THE STUDENT FRATERNITY “ DZINTARZEME ” OF THE ART ACADEMY OF LATVIA

The year 1944/45 is inscribed on the pages of Latvia’s history as the time of the second occupation by the USSR, as a result hundreds of thousands of Latvian citizens left Latvia as refugees. Since the 1945 the development of contemporary Latvian art was tragically divided between the occupied native land and the free world. The period in exile from 1945 to 1952 can be called the “restoration period”, or the period of preservation of Latvian national values and art, when the continuation of the form of artistic expression during the period of Latvia’s independence took place in refugee camps in Germany. The issue of national art became more problematic after 1952, when the exile lasted and Latvian artists were scattered on several continents of the world, the question of the fate of the expression of Latvian national art became more topical. In November 1958, with an art exhibition in New York (USA), the Art Academy of Latvia student fraternity “Dzintarzeme” (“Amberland”), which was banned in July 1940 by the USSR, was renewed. There is reason to assume that “Dzintarzeme” can be called as one of the most purposeful associations of Latvian artists in exile in the efforts to preserve and popularize Latvian national art in the USA until 1973. The main purpose of this research is through the example of student fraternity “Dzintarzeme” to clarifiy the concept – what is Latvian national art in exile, what we can define as Latvianness in Latvian exile art, and also look at art development and its role in the society of exile Latvians in the United States of America where the most active community of “Dzintarzeme” was located.

Artistic Work of Polish Exiles in the Trans-Baikal Region of Russia in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Polish political exiles to Siberia of the latter half of the 1800s were involved in many aspects of the social and cultural life of the time in the Trans-Baikal Region of Russia. However, in contrast to their scholarly research conducted while in exile, their artistic activities have never been a topic of independent studies. The objective of this paper is to study artistic work of Polish exiles in the context of penal labor and penal settlements. When developing the topic of this study, the author relied on fundamental research principles and methods. Using a broad range of archive materials and private sources, the author describes the artistic journeys of the most famous Polish artists in exile who left a prominent legacy in the Trans-Baikal artistic life of the time. When working on the topic of the article, the author used the following methods of historical research: analysis of written sources, bibliographic method, historical and genetic method. While being formally convicted to penal labor in the mines and factories of Nerchinsk mining region, some Polish exiles were not actually required to engage in hard labor. The most artistically minded among them were looking for the opportunities to selfeducate themselves and engage in artistic activities. The author identified several previously unknown facts associated with the artistic legacy of Polish exiles. Against the backdrop of Polish deportation in the 1800s, the author reconstructed the artistic work of Jozef Baerkman and Stanislaw Wronski. During their time in the Siberian penal system, Polish artists created paintings, taxidermic works, and illustrations to the scholarly works of Benedykt Dybowski. However, their most active creative period began when they were released from hard labor and settled in penal colonies. Today, some works of Polish artists in exile created during the second half of the 19th century are part of collections of regional museums. Keywords: Polish exiles, Polish artists, artistic activity, Trans-Baikal region, Stanislaw Wronski, Jozef Baerkman

Dramaturgia, exilio e insilio. Encuentros transoceánicos entre Argentina, España e Italia

This works examines how the dramaturgical creative act varies according to the reality of the artist in exile, whether at home or abroad, in the context of Argentina’s last dictatorship (1976-1983). Our corpus examines three playwrights in exile at the time in Spain (Bortnik, Gambaro and Raznovich) and the works of two artists who considered the topic of exile while remaining in Argentina (Gris de ausencia by Cossa and Lejana tierra prometida by Halac). In turn, this allows us to consider an ontological perspective of theatre and uphold the vitality of contact between Argentina, Spain and Italy during this time.

19세기 말~20세기 초 일본인의 한국 서화 수집 - 사노시향토박물관(佐野市鄕土博物館) 스나가문고(須永文庫)를 중심으로

This article examines the Japanese collection of Korean calligraphy and painting from the late 19th to the early 20th century in Japan. Especially, the collection of the Sunaga Hjime(須永元,1868-1942) in Sano city museum is the primary subject to find out interchanges Korean artist and Japanese patronage. Sunaga collection was expended to one of the largest collection of Korean modern calligraphy and painting in Japan in relation with Korean exiles, Kim Okkyun(金玉均, 1851-1894), Park younghyo(朴泳孝, 1861-1939). Having lived in exile for about ten years, Kim Okkyun was supported by Sunga Hajim and gave his calligraphies in return of patronage. This relation formed the basis of the Sunaga collection. After sudden death of Kim Okkyun, however, interchanges with Korean artist in exile has expanded to Oh Sechang(吳世昌, 1864-1953), Hwang Cheol(黃鐵, 1864-1930), Ji Unyoung(池雲英, 1852-1935). The relation of these artist has lasted throughout the period of Japanese colonial rule.BR Sunaga collection is not limited to the exiles and covers from painters of late Joseon dynasty such as Kim Junghui(金正喜, 1786-1856), Shin Wi(申緯, 1769-1845), Jang Seungup(張承業, 1843-1897), Choi Seokhwan(崔奭煥, 1908-?), Yang Kihoon(楊基薰, 1843-?) to Modern artists such as An Jungsik(安中植, 1861-1919), Cho Seokjin(趙錫晋, 1853-1920), Kim Kyujin(金圭鎭, 1868-1933), Kim Unwon(金應元, 1855-1921), Yoon Yonggu(尹用求, 1853-1939), Seo Byungo(徐丙五, 1862-1935), Kim Donhui(金敦熙, 1871-1937) and Kim Yongjin(金容鎭, 1878-1968). In this regard, Sunaga collection became the priory historical sources to find out the unknown interchanges with Korean artist in exile and Japanese patronage.

ПОЕТИКА НОКТЮРНУ В ЛІРИЦІ ЮРІЯ КОСАЧА

The article deals with the poetical works of Ukrainian writer in exile Jurij Kosach in context of Frederic Chopin nocturne tradition in the European art. The parallels to the visions of Ukrainian oral national tradition, romantic writers (particularly T.Shevchenko), Ukrainian emigrant poets of the previous generation (B.Lepky, E.Malaniuk, Alexander Oles’ and others), and European symbolists (Sh. Baudelaire, A.Rimbaud) are given. The author outlines the nocturne tendencies in music, literature and other arts as traditions of cultures in bondage as well as the artists in exile. The main attention is drawn to the influences of existential situations after the revolutions of the beginning of the 20th century and two World Wars. In Soviet space the minority of nocturne music was interpreted as a protest against major tone of so called social realism pseudo art. Night as the main concept of Jurij Kosach’s lyrical selections (especially “Manhattan Nights”, “Summer in Delaware”) is analyzed in different poetical intentions and interpretative perspectives: night in Motherland as an idea of national and spiritual darkness of enslavement Ukraine, as lost land (in parallel to Atlántida); night of exile as the way of uncertainty and lost, as the nostalgia; night travelling by sea as a development of antique Homeric tradition of Odyssey as well as Alcaeus traditions of the idea of life obstacles; night travelling by land as a development of Goethe’s tradition – way of life to the calmness of death; mystery of night as the reinforced Faustian and Wagnerian ideas; solitude of night as a reflection of Nietzsche’s ideas of the world sorrow and existential fear. Motives of night, night travelling, poetics of starlit sky, constellations as secret signs and silent language etc. are analyzed in their projection upon the philosophic concepts of destiny, solitude, and bondage. They are interpreted on different levels: in the life of one person (night reflections of different artists in exile, such as T. Shevchenko, A.Pushkin, M.Tsvetaeva, F. Villon, E.A. Poe, A. Mickiewicz, W.Whitman and others are outlined in the contexts of their destiny situations); in the existence of a city (European, American and Ukrainian in their “night” living in different centuries and historical circumstances); or in the life of the nation at large.

“While Dust is Settling”: The Perception of Exhibitions of Soviet Émigré Painters in the American Press between the 1970s and 1980s

This article considers the perception of the main group and personal exhibitions of Soviet third-wave emigre artists by the American press between the 1970s and 1980s. It analyses reviews in periodicals, which recorded the amplitude of growth and decline of interest in exhibitions of USSR artists, and correlates the results with the events of the cultural life of the Cold War period. The author refers to articles in American specialised magazines ( Art in America, ARTnews, Artforum, October , etc.) and daily newspapers ( The New York Times, Newsweek , etc.) as well as in Russian emigre publications in circulation in New York ( Novoe Russkoe Slovo , Tretia Volna, A–Ya , etc.). The majority of the sources come from the archive of L. P. Talochkin (1936–2002), a collector of Soviet unofficial art of the 1960s–1990s (now the archive is kept in the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art). The author notes that in the 1970s, the American press was mostly interested in the political hype around unofficial artists, as well as their status as “artists in exile”, whereas in the 1980s, the emphasis shifted towards the analysis of the artistic value of the works. Special attention is paid to the gradual introduction of the idea of the genetic connection of Soviet unofficial art with the Russian historical avant-garde, which legitimises the fact that American critics were becoming aware of it. The term “second avant-garde” in relation to non-conformism first began to be used by the artist and researcher M. Grobman (Jerusalem) in the 1970s, M. Tupitsyn and D. Bowlt (New York) emphasised in their publications the connection of some third-wave emigre artists with the Russian historical avant-garde in the 1980s. Similar analogies were often used by the American daily press, but the terms themselves (“second avant-garde”, “neo-avant-garde”) in relation to post-war unofficial art were not widely used in professional art history literature, remaining in the cultural situation of the period under consideration.

The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London, French Artists in Exile (1870–1904)

The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London, French Artists in Exile (1870–1904)

Artists and the Rite of Passage North to the Temperate Zone

For an aspiring Australian artist, a sojourn north to the world’s large cultural centres has become a rite of passage and to some extent a requirement to achieve recognition both abroad and at home. Many of Australia’s most recognised artists have spent some or a considerable amount of time abroad, such as musician Peter Sculthorpe, painter Arthur Streeton and contemporary indigenous photographer Tracy Moffatt. Despite the frequency of this rite of passage, Australian art continues to struggle to achieve significant international recognition. This article considers the influence of this rite of passage for Australian artists in the context of a rapidly changing global art world, which is increasingly subject to changing production and consumption patterns. It does so in the context of what Bourdieu describes as a cultural field and which involves a complex arrangement of horizontal and vertical power relationships. The paper also considers the extent to which this rite of passage is relevant in the second decade of the 21st century and for a nation which, although having strong historical ties to Britain in particular, is geographically closer to Asia and in a time of the Asian century.

Revisiting Iraqi Cultural Heritage from “Outside” in Times of Looting and Destruction: Al-Mutanabi Street in Motion

Comment penser la question de l’héritage dans une société caractérisée par la destruction et la dispersion de son patrimoine matériel et immatériel ? En mars 2007, une bombe a explosé dans la rue Al-Mutanabi, quartier rassemblant historiquement les bouquinistes de Bagdad. Survenant quatre années après les pillages des musées de la capitale irakienne, cet événement meurtrier incarne la destruction de la vie culturelle à Bagdad. Des artistes irakiens en exil réagissent rapidement de l’extérieur, ressuscitant par leurs créations l’atmosphère d’une ville perdue. Entre hommage et testament, leur travail interroge la notion d’héritage comme processus en (de) construction à travers un ensemble de pratiques transnationales. À partir d’entretiens conduits auprès d’artistes irakiens en exil et d’analyse de certaines de leurs productions liées à la rue Al-Mutanabi, cet article met en lumière des processus simultanés d’abstraction et de matérialisation de pratiques patrimoniales, fragilisant l’idée d’héritage défini comme trace d’authenticité.

When ethnography does not rhyme with anonymity: Reflections on name disclosure, self-censorship, and storytelling

Maintaining informants’ confidentiality is a cornerstone of ethical clearance in most academic institutions’ boards, and a pre-requisite to conduct ethnographic fieldwork. However, this prescriptive environment does not account for the diversity of contemporary ethnographic fieldwork, and little has been written on the challenges faced by anthropologists who may need to identify participants in their research by their name. What are the specific empirical and theoretical implications of non-anonymous ethnographies? Drawing on accounts from a research conducted between 2007 and 2013 among Iraqi artists in exile, this study presents a situation that did not allow for protecting the anonymity and confidentiality of informants. This paper reflects on some of the challenges associated with name disclosure in anthropological research, and questions implications for both the participants and the researcher. The paper finally explores avenues to tackle barriers to unveil the collective in non-anonymous ethnographies across and beyond artists’ tales of creative individualities.

Past Reviews of “The Identity Puzzle” in Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977), a Russian-born American writer, is one of the most gifted exilic writers of the twentieth century. His first English novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, which inherits certain aesthetic motifs of his Russian works, such as the artist in exile, the motif of the double, and the theme of "the other world", has attracted the academic circle and received extreme views spreading between the good and the bad. But the core question in the whole of Nabokov scholarship is the ambiguous identities of the novel's two heroes, Sebastian and V. who are half-brothers. It is the identity puzzle that makes this novel more and more popular in Nabokov criticism. This essay attempts to review past reviews concerning this problem and analyze the four interpretations occasioned by "the identity puzzle" in Nabokov criticism.

The Artist’s Longing and Belonging: Cultural Sensitivity in Yurii Kosach’s Narratives

As an emigre writer living outside of Ukraine, Yurii Kosach constructed an “imaginary homeland” through his treatment of history, culture, and memory in his literary works. This article analyzes these categories in Kosach’s meta-narratives of the artist in exile, by focusing on the texts “Zaproshennia na Tsyteru” (An Invitation to Cythera, 1945), Skorbna symfoniia (The Sorrowful Symphony, undated), and Senior Nikolo (Signore Nikolo, 1954). Kosach’s characters are placed between exile and homeland, nation and empire, and self and other. All these notions are included in a discourse that is inclusive rather than oppositional. Following a strategy used by Lesia Ukrainka, Yurii Kosach also tests the artist’s ability to create in lands beyond one’s homeland and in conditions of cultural oppression. Each story plot of the analyzed narratives is constructed in terms of the cultural and national aspects of the artist’s identity.