Cobra short session (CAA, New York, 11-14 Feb 15)

New York City, Feb 11–14, 2015 Deadline: May 9, 2014

Karen Kurczynski

The Cobra Movement: New Perspectives

Short Session sponsored by Epcaf, the European Postwar and Forum College Art Association Annual Conference, February, 2015, New York City

Session Chair: Karen Kurczynski, Assistant Professor of , University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Please send a CV and 300-word proposal for a 15-minute paper to: [email protected]

There has been a recent surge of interest in the postwar European Cobra movement and its organizing members such as , Constant, Carl-Henning Pedersen, and (cele- brated by a Centennial of his birth in in 2014). This panel invites art-historical and inter- disciplinary contributions on the movement, which operated from 1948 to 1951, and/or the later independent or collaborative work of the artists and writers involved, including: Appel, Constant, Jorn, Pedersen, , Else Alfelt, Jean-Michel Atlan, Ejler Bille, Eugène Brands, Cons- tant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Aldo Van Eyck, Sonja Ferlov, , , Shin- kichi Tajiri, and Theo Wolvecamp. Questions to be addressed may include: how did collectivism take form in Cobra and how does it relate to recent political-artistic collaborations in contempo- rary art? What is the role of and/or non-western, children’s, and in Cobra? What parallels and tensions exist between Cobra and contemporaneous movements such as Lyri- cal Abstraction and Abstract ? How do we account for Cobra's particular combina- tion of personal expression, political critique, and collective production? What role does the legacy of Cobra play in later movements such as the Situationist International, Neo-Expressionism and the East Village art scene in the 1980s, or the revival of gestural painting today? Is there a post-- colonial dimension to Cobra? Is there a gender critique or merely a reversion to classic sexist atti- tudes? What is the role of folk art and/or myth within Cobra? What is the relationship of image and text, or painting and map, in the work of artists like Alechinsky and Dotremont? What critical perspectives on postwar architecture are introduced by the work of Jorn, Van Eyck, and Constant (later famous for his "New Babylon" project)? In short, the panel seeks new scholarship that analyzes the movement and its legacy critically, considering the artists involved from the perspective of their participation in the larger collective.

Epcaf (European Postwar and Contemporary Art Forum): EPCAF is a network of international scho- lars committed to the study of the visual arts in Europe after 1945. By exchanging information and ideas across the Atlantic, the forum is advancing the field and expanding its members’ knowledge

1/2 ArtHist.net and understanding of the and criticism and its different national methodologies. EPCAF has two components: a group discussion that allows members to share research projects and other information; and a website, where the infor- mation is archived and made searchable. In order to advance scholarship in the field, the forum is building a database of resources, produces and distributes a monthly Circulaire, organizes panels, and supports publications. https://sites.google.com/site/epcafcentral/

Presenters must be a member of Epcaf, but CAA membership is not necessary to present in this panel. Epcaf membership is free. To join, please send an email to [email protected].

A limited number of travel fellowships are available from CAA for scholars whose papers have been accepted. See: http://www.collegeart.org/travelgrants/

Reference: CFP: Cobra short session (CAA, New York, 11-14 Feb 15). In: ArtHist.net, Apr 28, 2014 (accessed Sep 27, 2021), .

2/2