Overview

With Art in a Disrupted World, art historian Agata Pietrasik presents a study of artistic practices that emerged in Poland during and after World War II. Pietrasik highlights examples of artworks by a number of Polish-born artists that were created in concentration camps and ghettos, in exile, and during the years of social, political, and cultural disintegration immediately following the war. She draws attention to the ethics of artistic practice as a method of fighting to preserve one’s own humanity amid even the most dehumanizing circumstances. Breaking out of entrenched historical timelines and traditional forms of narration, this book brings together drawings, paintings, architectural designs, and exhibitions, as well as literary and theatrical works created in this time period, to tell the story of Polish life in wartime. ​Employing an accessible, essayistic style, Pietrasik offers a new look at life in the ten years following the outbreak of World War II and features artists—including Marian Bogusz, Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz, and Józef Szajna—whose work has not yet found substantial audiences in the English-speaking world. Her reading of the art and artists of this period strives to capture their autonomous artistic language and poses critical questions about the ability of traditional art history writing to properly accommodate artworks created in direct response to traumatic experiences.  

Full Product Details

Author:   Agata Pietrasik
Publisher:   Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
Imprint:   Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
Dimensions:   Width: 16.00cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 24.30cm
Weight:   0.600kg
ISBN:  

9788364177750

ISBN 10:   8364177753
Pages:   292
Publication Date:   22 July 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements A Note on Translation Introduction Chapter 1 Instances of Material Resistance: Portraiture in the Concentration Camps Material Resistance Drawing Faces The Face and Facelessness in the Portraits of Xawery Dunikowski Gestures of Resistance: Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz’s Sketchbook The (Self-)portraits of Józef Szajna Chapter 2 The Dialectics of Ruins and Rubble in Postwar Representations of Warsaw Ruins and Rubble Warsaw Accuses: Ruins On Display Affective Chronicles of a Place and Time In a Heap of Rubble Chapter 3 Homelessness, Homecoming, and the “Joy of New Constructions” The Destruction of Houses and the Politics of Homelessness Imagining Homes for the Homeless Art as a Home for All Programmatic Lack of Program Modernism Against Itself (Un)doing Modernism From Friction to Faction Social Fabric and the Canvas Surface Bibliography List of Works Index

Reviews

Makes a far-reaching contribution to the twentieth-century European art history. * Critique d'Art *

Author Information

Agata Pietrasik is a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art.  

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