Séminaire IISMM en ligne « Histoires de l’art au Maghreb et au Moyen Orient, XIXe-XXIe » avec Olga Nefedova sur «Art and Artists Crossing Borders: the Early History of Art Education for Arab Artists in the USSR in 1950-70s» — Sur inscription, 15h-17h, vendredi 19 juin 2020

Vendredi 19 juin 2020, 15h-17h

Séance en visio-conférence. Ouverte sur invitation à demander à l’adresse : arvimm.groupe[at]gmail.com

Olga Nefedova, Associate professor – National Research University HSE, Moscow/Researcher – Orient-Institut Beirut (Max Weber Foundation)

Art and Artists Crossing Borders: the Early History of Art Education for Arab Artists in the USSR in 1950-70s

During recent decades, interest in different facets of contemporary Arab art has increased significantly. Although this interest has played a key role in bringing modern and contemporary Arab art into wider focus, significant gaps remains in the scholarly discussion. This seminar will analyse the new artistic practices and the art heritage of Arab artists who graduated from various USSR art institutions. It studies artists who graduated or were continuing as postgraduate students between 1959, when the first group of Arab art students arrived in the USSR and 1979. The study is based on the previously unpublished material from various archives. The research was undertaken with the aid of artists and artists’ relatives, based on the materials gathered through meetings, interviews and correspondence with them. Information from large collections of press clippings from Soviet newspapers, journals and magazines of 1950-1980s was also considered. The seminar will address the problem of Arab artists’ education within the context of social realism ideology in art, as well as problem of students’ adaptation in the USSR and their post-Soviet art career in their own countries and abroad.