Session 1 – Memory Revisited 1

Irina Emelianova
The Architectural Monuments to Dante Alighieri During the Fascist Era: The Dialogue of Art Between Politics and the Aesthetics

During the Fascist era in Italy the set of architectural utopian monuments to the most important Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, were designed. The artists and the architects tried to transmit the contain of the Dante’s poem, Divina Commedia, using the architectural methods. How can we explain this phenomenon?
Since XIX century the figure of the medieval poet was associated in Italian culture with the struggle for independence of the country and the dream about it’s unification. The Fascism manipulated the memory of Dante, the figure par excellence of Italian culture for its own political ends. So what kind of monuments these architectures were? To Dante Alighieri or to the political regime? In this regard we can remember the words of George L. Mosse who, speaking about German of the XX century, said that this type of gigantic architectural monuments might be define as the “monumental symbol” of the political power.
My paper aims to analyse some of the little-known projects of the architectural monuments to Dante of the Thirties and the cultural context in which they were conceived. My paper also aims to identify the instruments which the regime used to “modify” the memory of the medieval poet and determinate the mechanism of collaboration between the arts and the literature under totalitarian regime.

Irina Emelianova studied at the Russian State University for the Humanities of Moscow in the History of Art Faculty and did an internship at The State Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg. In 2012 she won the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Scholars and Artists so she could continue her studies at Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano (Switzerland) and attend a Master of Arts in Lingua, letteratura e civiltà italiana. In 2018 she obtained her Phd in cultural studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities of Moscow. Currently she is a doctoral student and Teaching assistant at the Institute for the History and Theory of Art and Architecture of the Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland).

Veronica Rudorfer
Seeing the Void: Forms of Visual Representation of So-Called “Arisierungen” in Contemporary Art

This paper analyzes artistic practices by contemporary artists visualizing so-called “Arisierungen” (“Aryanization”). The term was coined by the National Socialists, meaning the forced transfer of property from the Jewish population in Germany, Austria and German-occupied Europe to Nazi owners. How can this robbery, the destruction of contexts as well as restitution be visualized by contemporary artists? Which interdisciplinary forms of medialization can be found for the absence of these stolen objects and the relationships between them and their former owners? In which ways are these non-human entities witnesses of trauma?
These questions are relevant today, since human witnesses of the holocaust have been gradually disappearing. Due to this fact, the communicative memory is transformed into a cultural memory (Jan Assmann) and makes new forms of memory necessary. The analysis of artistic practices dealing with so-called “Arisierungen” requires a close look at discourses of legitimate forms of visual representation of Nazi crimes as well as art after Auschwitz (Theodor W. Adorno) – questions also frequently addressed in the critique of W.G. Sebald’s work.
The interdisciplinary focus of my research includes central discourses such as memory, history/historicity and void/absence. Based on these concepts, works by Anna Artaker, Maria Eichhorn and Arno Gisinger will be analyzed. The paper also brings into focus the relationship between institutions and artists. Do they work on behalf of the institution to research its own history, or are their projects independently executed? How can these works be contextualized in terms of (post) conceptual art and institutional critique? Do they employ a form of aesthetic of the archive – an aesthetic also used by Sebald? And finally, in which ways is language relevant in these artistic practices?

Veronika Rudorfer, born 1989 in Vienna, lives and works in Vienna. She studied art history at the universities of Hamburg and Vienna and completed her master’s degree in 2012 at the University of Vienna summa cum laude. An extended version of master thesis Das Palais Ephrussi in Wien (The Ephrussi Palace in Vienna) was published in 2015 by Böhlau Verlag (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar). Since 2017 she has been working as curator for modern and contemporary art at the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna. She curated the exhibitions Daguerre’s Soup (2019 – together with the artist Christian Kosmas Mayer), Images of Women? (2019), Michaela Frühwirth. per-form, earthward (2018) and Other Spaces (2017) as well as numerous freelance exhibition projects. Since March 2019, she has been working on her dissertation supervised by Prof. Sabeth Buchmann at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She regularly publishes essays and reviews in Austrian art magazines such as EIKON and Springerin.

Anna Seidl
Mapping Out Memory: W.G. Sebald Cartography as Iconography

W.G. Sebald’s work contains a number of images, including not only a large corpus of photographs, but also cartographic images like maps, tables, plans, diagrams, and labyrinths. The complete oeuvre counts 15 of such cartographic images, which, become iconographic in relation to the text. In doing so, they have a variety of different effects on the reader, which will be discussed and systematized using some case studies.
Against this background, I propose that Sebald’s specific practice of embedding cartographic images into the tissue of the text is closely connected with his ideas concerning processes of memory, and in particular, his interest in alternative historiographies, which enable a privileged personal entry to the past. Within discourse about the function of cartography for literature, maps are predominantly read in one of two ways (Dünne/Schlögel): either as historical artifacts of a geographically mediated world order, or for their poetic or iconographic dimension. Both models count for Sebald´s writings, wherein he uses cartographic features especially in order to evoke identificatory effects with historical places and their imaginary past.
In dialogue with Michel de Certeau’s theoretical treatises on space/place (carte/parcours), I raise two central questions concerning Sebald’s use of cartography: What is the iconographic implication of the cartographic image, and why is it important for Sebald’s memory project, linking space, imagination, and processes of remembrance?

Dr. Anna Seidl, former principal dancer at the Dutch National Ballet,  is assistant professor at the department of Cultural Analysis and German Language and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. Her research encompasses a wide area of cultural studies, recently revolving around topics such as the body in film, dance and ageism, dance on screen and new developments in the performing arts. The special quality of her research lies in the fruitful combination of her expertise in the field of artistic practice and scientific and analytical reflection.