Opening session: November 27th, 2009, 10 a.m. at Institutul de Istoria Artei „”G. Oprescu”, Calea Victoriei nr. 196, sector 1, Bucharest.

Program

Opening session at 10 a.m.
Introductory speech by the Director of the Institute Dr. Silviu Angelescu.
Introductory speech by the Project Director Olivia Nitis.

First session:

1. Aurora Liiceanu (Romania) Old Stereotypes and Coping With the Change. Women Life Strategies After 1990
2. Ion Bogdan Lefter (Romania) Romanian Context: Feminine/Feminist Art in Two Epochs (or Four?: Communism/Postcommunism, the End of Modernity/the Beginning of Postmodernity). Mentalities, Projects, Ideologies
3. Oana Baluta (Romania) Modernity and Postmodernity in Contemporary Romanian Feminism
4. Zuzana Stefkova (Czech Republic) Teaching Difference: Feminist Discourse within Czech Art Education
5. Ramona Novicov (Romania) Playground: From the Innocent Forest of Elian to the French Garden of Diana Gavrilas
6. Adriana Oprea (Romania) For and Against a Romanian Feminist Art

Lunch break 1 p.m.- 1.30 p.m.

Second session:

1. Keynote Speaker: Ferris Olin (USA) Intersectionalities: Feminism, Art and Activism
2. Liviana Dan (Romania) Act First, Think Later - That Way You Have Somethinng to Think About / Marcia Tucker, a Visionary Curator
3. Liliana Alexandrescu (The Netherlands/Romania) Costume et différence sexuelle. Quelques aspects du corps féminin dans la fiction théâtrale/Costume and Sexual Diffrence. A Few Aspects of Woman’s Body in Theatre Fiction
4. Eniko Magyari-Vincze (Romania) Practicing an Engaged Feminist Cultural Analysis Through Filmmaking

Coffee break

1. Marilena Preda Sanc (Romania) Romanian Women Artists and / in Public Art
2. Celine Omer (France) Image of the Romanian Woman : Beyond "Clichés"
3. Hemma Schmutz (Austria) Ines Doujak's Dirty Old Women. Performing Age and Gender
4. Olivia Nitis (Romania) Perspective 2008 and The Feminist Curatorial Practice
5. Ioana Vlasiu (Romania) Women Art as Modernity. Romania. 1916/1927

Questions and Answers

PARALLEL EVENTS:

• November 24th, 2009, 19.00: Feris Olin (USA) - conference speaker in Cluj, Romania (Casa Tranzit, str. Baritiu nr. 16)
"Outsiders Within: Women Art Collectors Collecting Women Artists"
Dr. Olin will introduce some American women art collectors and their collections as a means to focus attention on the ways in which individuals can catalyze change while simultaneously being on the margin of their society.
• November 26th, 2009, 18.00: Feris Olin (USA) - conference at SNSPA (Conference room 111, Str. Povernei nr. 6, sect. 1, Bucharest)
"Art Collecting and Cultural Politics"
This presentation will examine the intersection of art collecting with United States cultural politics. Using gender (and race and ethnicity) as a category for analysis, Dr. Olin will explore the impact of the social upheavals in the US during the 1950s through 70s, which led to new paths being forged in American cultural history by women visual arts professionals.

Statement:

The Institute of Art History „G.Oprescu” of the Romanian Academy anounces the organization of the session of talks focused on feminist art theory and cultural analysis that will take place at the Insitute headquarters from Calea Victoriei 196, on the 27th of November 2009. The session of talks will bring together art historians and theoreticians from Romania and other few cultural areas interested in feminist art theories and practices and cultural analysis. This event is the first dedicated to this issue in the history of the Institute of Art History „G.Oprescu” of the Romanian Academy. Dismissed as a “local” event and a marginal issue, feminism in art and culture imposed, contrariwise, as an unprecedented phenomenon with global extension, with direct, radical or moderate impact according to the different context of each cultural area. Feminist art and theory had a groundbreaking impact and effect in art history from 1960s. Feminist art theory has proved to be extremely resourceful and opened new ways of approaching the artistic phenomenon. The session designed by the Insitute aims to create the possibility of a dialogue among theoreticians from diffrent cultural areas, to establish contacts between Romanian and foreign curators, critics, professors, theoreticians and artists. Comparing perspectives on feminist issues and discussing ways and means to explore art history and culture through a relevant feminist discourse can contribute to transforming the attitude towards feminist art theory and practice in a natural environment of discussion among art historians and critics, artists, institutions, media. From approaches on women’s contribution to art and culture or the reevaluation of women’s representation in terms of gender stereotypes within culture and various periods of art history, to actual feminist art criticism in the current state of feminist discourse, to approaching theories/histories or marginal histories of feminist art practices, this session aims to be an introduction to the issues of feminist art history and a platform for theoretical feminist debate. The different forms of analysis are to be placed in relation to a variety of feminist theories of gender, politics, experience, social and cultural mores, historical understanding, different methods of feminist art criticism and discussion of different working practices and cultural concerns. This session of talks constitutes the natural follow up of Perspective 2008 project, the first international feminist art project in Romania which included an exhibition with 13 artists from 11 countries at Anaid Art Gallery in Bucharest, a lecture at the National University of Fine Arts held by Monica Mayer (Mexico) and a screening at Anaid Art Gallery with video collages from FemLink (France/USA).

Special mentions:
The international session of talks will be held in English.
For other information please contact: Olivia Nitis – project director, e-mail: olivia_nitis@yahoo.com

Keynote Speaker:

Ferris Olin (USA) is Founding Director, Rutgers Institute for Women and Art and Curator of the nationally recognized and award-winning Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, the oldest continuous exhibition space dedicated to showing the work of emerging and established contemporary women artists. She is the Principal Investigator for the Getty-funded Women Artists Archive National Directory - an innovative web directory to U.S. archival collections of primary source materials by and about women visual artists active in the U.S. since 1945; Director of The Feminist Art Project, a collaborative national initiative celebrating the Feminist Art Movement and the aesthetic, intellectual and political impact of women on the visual arts, art history, and art practice, past and present; and she has initiated and administered many grant-funded projects using emerging technologies. Olin is an art historian, women’s studies scholar and librarian and the author of numerous publications, as well as a sought-after speaker on diverse topics in American cultural and visual studies. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jersey City Museum, the Feminist Theorist Papers at Brown University, and the Neighborhood Narratives Project; on the Editorial Board for Visual Resources; and past Vice-President and member of the Board of Directors of the College Art Association. She is the recipient of the 2008 Art to Life Award, A.I.R. Gallery and Art and Living Magazine, Alice Paul Equality Award, Alice Paul Institute, and the Douglass Medal, Douglass College and Association Alumnae of Douglass College; she received a 2004 Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History; and was honored with the 2007 Annual Recognition Annual from the College Art Association Committee on Women in the Arts.

Speakers:

Hemma Schmutz (Austria) Hemma Schmutz studied art history in Vienna. She worked at the Depot. Art and Discussion from 1994-97. She was part of the academic staff at the Generali Foundation in Vienna since 1998 and became curator in 2003. She teaches at the Vienna University of Technology in Vienna. She has published texts in the journal springerin, Vienna among others. Since March 2005 she is director of Salzburger Kunstverein. She lives in Salzburg and Vienna.

Zuzana Stefkova (Cehia)has earned an M.A. in Art History at the Charles University, Prague. She studies a Ph.D. program at the same institution, her dissertation dealing with the Aspects of Embodiment in Contemporary Czech Art. She teaches courses on modern Czech art at the CIEE, Council on International Educational Exchange, Anglo-American University in Prague, and the Academy of Art Architecture and Design. She also works for the Centre of Contemporary Art, Prague, as a curator. As an independend curator and art critic she co-founded c2c gallery Prague and published articles in Czech and European art magazines.

Celine Omer (France) studied Cultural Mediation in Sorbonne for the Research Department and graduated the Master this year. She developed a particular interest for Romania, the country of her father who oriented her studies. In 2007, her first research was about the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest and she worked in parallel for the Romanian Cultural Institute. These last years, she has been interested in photography; therefore in her second research in 2009, she questions the specificity of Romanian woman through its representation in mass media and contemporary photography. Currently, she works for a gallery in Paris specialized in Russian contemporary art. She lives and works in Paris.

Ramona Novicov (Romania), art critic, university professor and curator, member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) since 2000. She is currently a regular contributor to many periodicals, radio and T.V. programs, some of them as a host (Art Style and Beyond the facades for TV Transilvania) or producer (Pentagon, a TV show on culture, fine arts and architecture for TVS Oradea). She has authored many books and studies in the field of art trends and currents, focused mainly on the artistic phenomenon of the Romanian vanguard of the ’70s and ’80 (Vanguard Art in Romania between 1968-1974, Studio 35. Experiment Cluj – Oradea). She has penned monthly crossover art essays in the Romanian periodical PHOTO magazine ever since its inception in 2005. As a curator she organized individual and collective exhibitions in Romania and abroad. Ramona Novicov is currently lecturing on Art History at The Faculty of Architecture and Constructions in Oradea.

Ion Bogdan Lefter (Romania) is a writer, literary critic, cultural and political analyst. Currently professor at the University of Bucharest and director of the monthly cultural journal aLtitudini, he has been director of the Litera publishing house, co-founder and coordinator of the weekly journals Contrapunct and Observator cultural, and director in Romania (Bucharest bureau chief) of Radio Free Europe. Author of numerous books. Numerous participations in international debates, conferences etc.

Aurora Liiceanu (Romania) is senior researcher at the Institute of Psychology of the Romanian Academy. She has a PhD in Psychology (1975) from the University of Bucharest. She received a Predoctoral Fellowship in Social Psychology (1970) at the National Academy of Sciences(Washington DC). She is curently co-director, PhD Program for Romanian Candidates, Laval University, Canada, professor at the National School of Political Sciences and Adminstration, MA courses, Bucharest, and national researcher in 7 European crosscultural teams (adolescence, conception of citizenship, women issues). She is President of the SECS (Society for Contraceptive and Sexual Education), NGO affiliated to IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation). She published 11 books, 29 book chapters, 147 papers (in country and abroad), and many research reports. She participates in social and educational campaigns or debates concerning national events in TV shows, journals, teledons.

Ioana Vlasiu (Romania) is senior researcher at the Institute for Art History of the Romanian Academy, head of the Department for Modern and Contemporary Art, member of the board of  Revue Roumaine d’Historie de l’Art, the journal of the Institute. She published numerous articles, studies, books on Romanian modern and contemporary art and contributed with essays to several catalogues of important national and international exhibitions: Bucharest in 20s-40s between Avant-Garde and Modernism, Teatrul National Artexpo, Bucharest 1994; Central-European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation. 1910-1930. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002; La vie des formes. Henri Focillon, Musee de beaux-arts, Lyon, INHA, 2004; Culorile avangardei. Arta romaneasca 1910-1950, Muzeul de istorie, Sibiu, 2007, Lisabona, Praga 2008. She edited (in colaboration) the issue Brancusi et la sculpture of the journal Ligeia, Paris, no. 57-60, 2005.

Olivia Nitis (Romania) art critic, curator, poet, journalist. She has a BA in Letters from the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest and an MA in Visual Arts from The National University of Art in Bucharest. She is a PhD student in art history at the Faculty of Art and Design of the University of West in Timsoara. Member of The International Association of Art Critics (AICA) since 2009 and regional coordinator for The Feminist Art Project (Rutgers University, New Jersey) since 2008. She is currently a research assistant at the Institute of Art History “G.Oprescu” of the Romanian Academy. She is the author of the volume: Oglinda in fata femeii. Masti si structuri interioare ale femeii in artele vizuale (Publised by Triade, Timisoara, 2004). She curated and organized the first major international contemporary feminist art project in Romania, Perspective 2008. She has been published with texts on feminist art and contemporary art in important local and international publications, catalogs and collective volumes and she is a collaborator of Radio Romania Cultural. She published a paper on Material Histories. Feminism and Feminist Art in Post-Revolutionary Romania in volume in 2009 in the only international feminist art journal in the world n.paradoxa.

Adriana Oprea (Romania) is an art historian with an MA in art history from the National University of Arts, Bucharest with a paper on Feminism, women artists and gender problems in contemporary Romanian art. Case studies: Marilena Preda-Sanc and Geta Bratescu. She is researcher and museographer in the Documentary Archives & Digital Memory Department, National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest since 2006 and participates in developing the Call for Dossier documentary project. Since 2007 she takes part in the initiative of restructuring the archive dedicated to contemporary Romanian artists, within the Documentary Archives & Digital Memory Department of MNAC. She published in important magazines (Arhitext Design, Observator Cultural, Time Out Bucharest) and in art catalogs.

Liliana Alexandrescu (The Netherlands/Romania) Researcher and stage director, was for many years (1976-2001) co-editor of the FIRT/SIBMAS Information Bulletin (FIRT = Federation Internationale pour la Recherche Theatrale), which appeared in Amsterdam in English and French. Since 1975, the year she settled in the Netherlands (she was born in Romania), she has directed the university theatre group FRI at the University of Amsterdam. Her productions have often been accompanied by conferences and colloquia, as well as by the publication of the text used in its first Dutch translation (as for example Mon Faust by Paul Valery or Paradoxe sur le comedien by Denis Diderot). In december 2003, her translation into Romanian (with her introduction) of Eugenio Barba’s: La canoa di carta was published in Bucharest: O canoe de hartie, Unitext Publishing House, 256 pp. In june 1991, she took part with the FRI - Theatre group in the International Festival for Young Actors in Costinesti (Romania), presenting as a world premiere the play Spectatorul condamnat la moarte (The Spectator under Sentence of Death) by the exile Romanian playwright Matei Visniec. The performance won the Jury’s Honour Prize. In the theoretical field she has worked on modern (20th century) and post-modern theatre and on contemporary ritual theatre as “street theatre”. She also joined for some years in the activities of the “Centre d’Etudes Féminines” (Université de Paris VIII), wrote several papers about the feminist writer Hélène Cixous and staged in 1995 Cixous’s famous Freudian play Portrait de Dora (Portrait of Dora). She has participated in several international gatherings with lectures and has published articles and essays in reviews and books in many countries. In November 2007, a selection of these essays and articles, in the author’s own translation into Romanian (they had appeared first in French, English or Dutch), was published in a volume: Manusa printului. Teatrul dincolo de modern (The Glove of the Prince. Theatre beyond modernism). Bucharest, Fundatia Culturala “Camil Petrescu”, 2007, 225 pp. At present she is preparing a book on the recent Dutch theatre.      

Liviana Dan (Romania) is an art historian, art critic and curator, head of the Contemporary Art Department  at the National Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu. She completed her studies in art history and theory in Bucharest, Prague and Vienna. She has organized exhibitions such as: Ph. Hackert’s Method, Anatomia after Bouchardon, Esprit de Finesse (+), Esprit de Finesse (-), Bartsch Muster, Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia Austriae, In Full Dress, Ich habe keinen Zeitraum, Catching Passages, Plus Zwei, Don’t Complicate the Sleeping Baroque. Liviana Dan has published articles in Balkon, Idea / Art and Society, Euphorion, Artelier, Architext design, Revista 22, Dilema, Observatorul Cultural, Secolul 21.

Oana Baluta (Romania) PhD student in Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, teaching assistant at the Faculty of Journalism, University of Bucharest, president of FILIA: Centre for Curricular Development and Gender Studies. The major studies published focuse on: feminist political theory, gender studies and have as main themes: gender political interests, women's political representation, reconciliation between work and family life, conflicts between modernist and postmodernist feminism. Among them: Gender and Political Interests (2008, co-author), Equal Partners. Equal Competitors (2007, coord.), Gender and Daily Life (2007, co-author), Gender and Power. Lion's share in Romanian Politics (editor, 2006), etc. She also published numerous articles in Romanian cultural magazines on gender equality, history of Romanian feminism, women in Romanian politics etc.

Marilena Preda Sanc (Romania) is an artist, writer, lecturer at the University of Arts, Bucharest. She has a PhD in Visual Arts (2002). She is the editor of Contrapunct (Counterpoint) magazine, founding member of the ARFA (The Romanian Association of the Artist Women) and AICA member (The International Association of the Art Critics). She is also an expert of CNCSIS (The National Board of Scientific Research in the Upper Educational System); ARACIS (The Romanian Agency of Quality Assurance in the Upper Educational System); AFCN (The Administration of the National Cultural Fund). From 1980 she exhibited her art work in many national, international solo and group exhibitions, festivals, symposiums, many of them connected to feminist art. Her art writings are focused on electronic art and art in public space.

Eniko Magyari-Vincze (Romania) is professor at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania and director of the Centre for Gender Studies. Her teaching and research interest is in the domain of socio-cultural anthropology and gender studies, in particular with topics like gender, nation and sexuality in identity politics; reproduction; social inequalities and marginalization; nationalism and feminism; intersectionality, ethnicity and gender; Roma women; rights and culture. She received many research grants in USA and Austria and published in many international publications and collective volumes.

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