Conference: Hot Art, Cold War: US Art and Portugal, 1945-1990 Day 1

This conference examines the artistic relations between Portugal and the US in the complex climate of the Cold War and the transition from Salazar’s dictatorship to democracy. The intersections between the Portuguese and US art worlds in this period have rarely been examined. Portuguese audiences had limited access to US art during this time, as the first exhibition of US art shown in Lisbon only took place in the late 1970s. Throughout Salazar’s dictatorship, information about US art often reached audiences via exhibitions and networks in other European countries, especially England, France and Spain. One aim of the conference is to evaluate the different means by which Portuguese artists, critics, curators and wider audiences discovered and engaged with US art. Invited scholars and critics will offer first-hand insights into the challenges of studying and writing about US art during the late Cold War period. In addition, scholars will discuss the exhibition reviews that shaped the Portuguese perceptions of US art. They will examine the impact of US artists and movements on Portuguese art practice and tease out parallels and affinities between the artists of the two countries.

The event is inspired by the anthology Hot Art, Cold War–Southern and Eastern European Writing on American Art, 1945-1990 edited by C. Hopkins and I.B.Whyte (Routledge, 2020), an initiative of the journal Art in Translation and funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The conference is organised by Pedro Lapa (ARTIS, School of Arts And Humanities, University of Lisbon) and Sofia Nunes (IHA/NOVA FCSH) in collaboration with Claudia Hopkins (Durham University) with generous funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Schedule

27 April 2022

10:00-10:30    Welcome and introductory remarks

Introduction: Hot Art, Cold War: European Writing on US Art.

Claudia Hopkins (Professor and Director of the Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, University of Durham).

A Difficult Gap: the reception of North-American Art in Portugal, 1945-1990

Pedro Lapa (Professor, ARTIS, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon) and Sofia Nunes (Art Critic, PhD. Candidate, IHA/NOVA FCSH). 

Keynote Lecture

10:35-11.40     Vieira da Silva: Looking at a Cold World from above.

Serge Guilbaut (Professor Emeritus of Art History, British Columbia University)

11.40-12.00     Coffee Break

Panel 1: Reviews Revisited

12:00-12.30     The Outspread of Scale

Sílvia Chicó (Art Critic, Professor retired, FBAUL University of Lisbon)

12:30-13.00     After my First Trip to New York (1983): a Personal Memoir

Alexandre Melo (Professor, ISCTE - IUL)

13.00-14.30     Lunch Break

Panel 2: US Art Exhibitions and Portugal

14:30-15.00    The Exhibition “Painting and Sculpture of a Decade 1954-1964” Seen by Art Critics and Portuguese Artists: a First Encounter with USA Art

Leonor de Oliveira (IHA/ NOVA FCSH)

15.00-15.30    A Liberating Impulse? The Exhibition “Liberation: 14 American Artists” in Lisbon in 1977

Giulia Lamoni (IHA/ NOVA FCSH)

15.30-16.00     Coffee Break

16:00-16.30    The Exhibition “Contemporary American Sculpture: Signs of Life” (1989): Framework, Aesthetics and Criticism

Isabel Nogueira (CIEBA, FBAUL)

16:30-17.00     US Photography in Photographic Meetings in Coimbra

Conversation between Albano Silva Pereira (Director CAV) and Sérgio Mah (Invited Professor, NOVA FCSH, FBAUL)

28 April 2022

Keynote Lecture

10:00-11.00     Robert Rauschenberg: Neo-Dada and Intermedia

Branden Joseph (Frank Gallipoli Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, Columbia University)

11.00-11.30     Coffee Break

Panel 3: Affinities between US and Portuguese Artists, 1945-1990

11.30-12.00    Júlio Pomar and Thomas Hart Benton: Formal Approaches Between Different Conceptions of Realism for an Emergency of the Present 

David Santos (Curator, State Art Collection)

12.00-12.30     The Family of Man Effect on Portuguese Photography

Emília Tavares (Curator MNAC/Invited Professor NOVA FCSH)

12.30-13.00     Expressionist Features in Portuguese Abstract Painting

Fernando Rosa Dias (Professor, CIEBA, FBAUL)

13:00-14.30     Lunch Break

14:30-15.00     Title to be announced

Delfim Sardo (Professor, CIEBA, FBAUL/Institut ACTE, Paris 1; Administrator, CCB)

15:00-15.30     Neo-Dadaism and Pop Art in Paralax view

Pedro Lapa (Professor, ARTIS-IHA, FLUL)

15:30-16.00     Coffee Break

16:00-16.30     Julião Sarmento, Transatlantic Crossing

Sofia Nunes (Art Critic, Phd Candidate, IHA/NOVA FCSH)

16:30-17.00     The Eighties, a first-hand experience

Pedro Portugal (artist)

17:00-17.30     Final remarks

Conference Programme In Portugese