An article by CRAACE research fellow Marta Filipová, ‘The theatre of exhibitions: Czechoslovakia at the International Exhibition in Paris, 1937,’ has just been published in the Journal of Design History.
Tag: design
Artwork of the Month, July 2021: Logo of the Salzburg Festival by Poldi Wojtek (1928)
One of Austria’s most established cultural highlights each summer is the Salzburg Festival of music and drama. Taking place annually since 1920, the festival was the brainchild of the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929) and the director Max Reinhardt (1873–1943), who sought to give a new lease of life to Austrian culture after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. In his ground-breaking analysis of the festival’s early days, the historian Michael P. Steinberg has shown that Hoffmannsthal conceived of the event as an affirmation of a new Austrian identity, which aimed to merge a cosmopolitan outlook with a deep Catholicism and sense of greater German identity.[1] This sense of ‘national cosmopolitanism’ as a new Austrian culture was also anchored in the turn away from the old imperial capital Vienna – located Austrian identity instead in Salzburg, a former independent prince-archbishopric and Baroque city in the Austrian alps. The festival thus manifested a different kind of modernity in Austrian interwar culture – one that embraced conservatism and nationalism as a significant part of its post-imperial identity.
Women of the Viennese Workshops: Exhibition review
What would an exhibition look like that exclusively acknowledged women’s contributions to modern design? A possible answer to this question can currently be found at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna, where Women Artists of the Wiener Werkstätte puts the work of the Viennese Workshops (Wiener Werkstätte, WW) design company’s female artists and designers in focus. It is the first large show at the MAK since its reopening after the lockdown, having had to be postponed for over six months. The accompanying publication Women Artists of the Wiener Werkstätte, was already published in 2020, offering an introduction to topics such as toy design, ceramics and training in thematic essays, as well as biographies of all the WW’s female artists whose details could be traced.[1]
Marta Filipová appointed Trustee of the Design History Society
CRAACE Research Fellow Marta Filipová has been appointed as Conference Liaison Trustee of the Design History Society.
The Design History Society promotes the study of design histories worldwide and has members from a range of disciplines. It hosts a number of networking, research and teaching events, awards prizes and grants, and publishes the Journal of Design History. It also holds an annual conference hosted by different institutions around the world on a particular theme, aimed at emerging and established scholars, museum professionals and design practitioners.
Marta Filipová’s role as a Trustee of the Society and Conference Liaison Officer will be to facilitate organisation of these prestigious events and oversee their transition to a hybrid conference format in the future. It promises to be a challenging and exciting experience.
Mucha for the 21st century: Exhibition review
Two prominent art institutions in Prague are currently hosting two exhibitions of Alfons Mucha that try to place his work in a contemporary context. Although having the same curator, Karel Srp, they take seemingly different approaches. They, nevertheless, share the question as to whether Mucha is relevant today and if so, why and how and in what format his work might best exhibited.
Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) was a renowned graphic artist, applied arts designer, photographer and painter who spent his life partly in Paris, the USA and Bohemia. He is mostly famed for a variety of posters that promoted and advertised a wide range of lush, fin-de-siècle products: drinks, cigarettes, perfumes as well as the theatrical performances Paris based actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923). His oeuvre, however, also included painting, again in a wide range of genres from portraits to murals; as well as photography and design of household items, such as vases, candle sticks and furniture.