Exhibitions of contemporary Polish art in Western Germany 1956-1970. Constellations, intentions, reception

• Applicant: Dr. Regina Wenninger
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 284090716

The project investigates for the first time exhibitions of contemporary Polish art in Western Germany between 1956 () and 1970 (Treaty of Warsaw). Based on new archival material, its aim is to reconstruct the genesis and background of selected exhibitions, and to analyze their art critical reception within the context of the difficult political relationship between the two countries. Part of the so called in Western Germany, the c. 100 exhibitions organized between 1956 and 1970 had a significant impact on Western German cultural life and on the cultural relationships between the two countries during the Cold War. They resulted from a very specific historical constellation: the cultural in Poland after 1956 on the one hand, and the political impetus of Western German organizers to overcome the deadlocks of the complicated Polish-Western German relationship, on the other. At the same time, and partly prompted by the exhibitions, contemporary Polish abstractionism figured as a major point of reference in the programmatic, ideologically charged debates about abstract art in Western Germany. The project analyses for the first time this peculiar role of Polish abstract art and thus sheds new light on one of the most eminent postwar art discourses. To examine the political implications of the exhibitions, their multifaceted entanglement with the historical-political context and their impact on Western German art discourses, is the overarching aim of the investigation. Drawing upon of the methodological approaches of histoire croisée and Konstellationsforschung, special focus in put on the agents involved, their networks and social and intellectual milieus, and on the motives, interests and intentions underlying the exhibitions. In particular, the study discusses how and to what extent the exhibitions were politically, morally, ideologically, or aesthetically instrumentalized by the various parties involved. The project thus investigates a pivotal and most fruitful, but largely forgotten chapter in the history of Polish-German relationships and sheds new light on the political functions of art in the Cold War.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants