Friday 26 March 2010, 11.00–17.00

This conference takes place on the occasion of two major exhibitions, Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde: Constructing a New World (4 February-16 May 2010) and Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (10 February-3 May 2010) at Tate Modern, which provide unique insight to the careers of each artist. Van Doesburg's varied activity as painter, architect, designer, writer, theorist and publicist is situated in relation to around 80 of his contemporaries, demonstrating his dynamic role in coordinating the interwar avant-garde. Meanwhile, the most extensive Gorky retrospective to be held in Europe demonstrates how his assimilation of contemporary styles led to his lyrical, gestural paintings which prefigured Abstract Expressionism.

The artists and their contexts were divided by space and time, and certain histories of modern art have further distinguished their work by positioning it under opposing headings such as constructivist vs. surrealist or geometric vs. biomorphic. However, the coincidence of these exhibitions offers the opportunity to consider broader issues associated with twentieth-century abstract art beyond movement-centred distinctions. 

We therefore invite proposals for 25-minute presentations from academics, graduate students and professionals in the field that consider abstraction in any art form from the perspective of the interrelationships of different media, artistic collaborations and the creation of transnational cultural networks. Exile, displacement and the formation of new identities were common concerns to both van Doesburg and Gorky.

Important themes, such as these, contrast with the standard art historical presentation of abstract art as the result of a process of formal refinement and restrictedness. What will be our concern is the creation of abstract art from opposing impulses: not only separation, distinction and specialisation but collectivity, hybridity and connectivity.

Sessions may include:

•  Abstraction and intermedia (film, photography, music, literature, architecture, design, digital media)

•  Abstraction and mass culture (advertising, graphic design, typography, consumer culture, propaganda)

•  Abstraction and social relevance (political and social engagement)

•  Abstraction and cultural exchange (artists' networks, collaborations, multilingualism, translation, magazines and publishing culture, abstraction's geographical paradigms)

•  Displaying abstraction (abstract art in public space, museums, exhibitions, collections, trade fairs, world's fairs, artists as curators)

•  Theories of abstraction (artists as theorists and/or teachers, abstraction and educational practice)

Please submit abstracts of up to 500 words together with a 100 word biography by 1 December 2009 to Amber.McClory@tate.org.uk.

This conference is part of a two-day event exploring abstraction jointly organised by Tate Modern, The Open University and University of York.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£15 (£12 concessions)
Tickets for this event will go on sale in January.