Marcel Fišer: Art Symposia in the 1960s
The dissertation deals with the tradition of holding art symposia (with a special focus on sculpture symposia) since their origins until the beginning of the 1970s. Both of them coming from German-speaking regions, so far only two works have been dedicated to the topic. However, they both focus on sculpture symposia and totally neglect other disciplines. The fact that they – for perfectly understandable reasons – mostly deal with art from Eastern Europe and overseas is their second weakness. Thus East-European art symposia are commented on scarcely and without knowledge of the local context. The text of the dissertation is therefore for the fist time fully based on an extensive research of the wide spectrum of symposia with respect to their geographical and disciplinary aspects. Thanks to their heavy influence, sculpture symposia, nevertheless, tend to occupy most space.
The text places symposia into the context of general development in visual arts and sculpture after World War 2, especially with respect to some on-going contemporary trends, such as the phenomenon of open-air exhibitions, foundation of sculpture parks, development of public art, emerging of abstract art or welded metal sculptures of the later period. The major part of the text includes data about all art symposia that took place in the period concerned. Although information is sometimes rather fragmentary, the existing lists have been considerably extended. At the same time basic principles of symposia functioning in individual countries and their regional differences and characteristics are being described. The aim of the text is to spot existing mutual relations concerning the choice of participants, ways of presenting outcomes of symposia, ownership of sculptures etc. This list is a part of an international art symposia catalogue. Based on all currently available information (these days some less known symposia have been completely forgotten), a discourse of a length corresponding to the symposium’s significance is dedicated to each one of them. Apart from sculpture symposia, the main stress has been put on the situation in former Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia is here compared to other countries whose art scenes had also been influenced by art symposia in the 1970s, i.e. Austria, Poland and Yugoslavia.
The historical development of the 1960s is followed by theoretical background of art symposia with its author Karl Prantl being one of the key characters of their organization. The text also rehabilitates their second founder, Freidrich Czagan, with respect to the significant part he had played in international symposia foundation. It was their international character, which had been included in the idea since the very beginning, that had enabled the quick expansion of art symposia all over the world.
FIŠER, Marcel. Výtvarná symposia v šedesátých letech. Dizertační práce, vedoucí Wittlich, Petr. Praha: Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta, Ústav pro dějiny umění, 2012.
FIŠER, Marcel. Výtvarná symposia v šedesátých letech. Dizertační práce, vedoucí Wittlich, Petr. Praha: Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta, Ústav pro dějiny umění, 2012.
https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/45548