Klaus Zernack Colloquium 2026 #3

 

30/06/2026, 6pm

Zentrum für Historische Forschung

Majakowskiring 47
13156 Berlin

You can register here: info@cbh.pan.pl

 

The exhibition A New Begining. Modernism in the Second Polish Republic, which took place in Kraków at the turn of 2022/23 aimed to present the dynamics and original charakter of modernism in Poland in the interwar period, using various exhibits for this purpose like architecture, fabric designs, furniture and every day objects. After the first world war Poland regained independence and started to create innovative modernisation programmes. The exhibition dealed with the most importand aspects of both complex process such as building a new stage or social reforms - as well as everyday life changing under the influence of technological development facing the background of philosophical and globalist debates on the mechanisms of modernisation and their impact on European identity. Artists along with many reformers of the oter areas of human life, experiencig the acceleratig modernity, came to conclusion that art should take an active part in the great work of repairing the modern world and help to create it anew, but without repeating the mistakes of the past.

 

Piotr Juszkiewicz (b. 1959) is a historian of art, a professor at the Institute of Art History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has been a stipendiary of the Cambridge University, the Getty Grant Program, Rochester University, and Edinburgh University. He has lectured at the Universita ha-Ivrit in Jerusalem and Eesti Kunstiakadeemia in Tallinn. The areas of his scholarly interest are the art of Modernism in the 19th and 20th century, modern art, and art criticism in the 18th to 20th centuries. He has been the editor of numerous publications, including Melancholia Jacka Malczewskiego [Melancholy by Jacek Malczewski] (Poznań, 1998) and Perspektywy współczesnej historii sztuki (Poznań, 2009), as well as the author of the studies: Wolność i metafizyka. O tradycji artystycznej twórczości Marcela Duchampa [Freedom and Metaphysics. On the Artistic Tradition of Marcel Duchamp] (Poznań, 1995), Od rozkoszy historiozofii do gry w nic. Polska krytyka artystyczna czasu odwilży [From the Delights of Historiosophy to “a Game of Nothing”. Polish Art Criticism in the Period of Political Thaw] (Poznań, 2005) and Cień modernizmu [The Shadow of Modernism] (Poznań, 2013). In 2012–2015 he headed the research project on the topic of the Polish documentary film on art in the period 1945–1989. In 2021 he was the curator of the exhibition at the National Museum in Cracow entitled Nowy początek. Modernizm w II RP [A New Beginning. Modernism in the Second Republic of Poland]. Currently he is preparing another exhibition in the same museum: Nowoczesność reglamentowana. Modernizm w PRL [Rationed Modernity. Modernism in the People’s Republic of Poland].
            

Dorota Kownacka-Rogulska, art historian, linguist, assistant professor at the Institute of Art of  the Polish Academy of Sciences. Editor of the Biuletyn Historii Sztuki, At the Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin she is studying Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s pan-European writings and the Polish themes in his works.