Maja and Reuben Fowkes are London-based curators, critics and art historians specialised in East European art history and contemporary art and ecology.
They are authors of ''Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950 (World of Art)'', published by Thames & Hudson in March 2020, the "first ever comprehensive, transnational survey of the major movements and practitioners of recent art from Central and Eastern Europe."
They are co-directors of the
Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art The Institute for Contemporary Art is a transnational research centre focused on East European art and ecology and operates across the fields of art history, contemporary art and ecological thought. The institute collaborates with universities and ...
, a centre for transnational research into East European art and ecology that operates across the disciplinary boundaries of art history, contemporary art and ecological thought.
They head the Post-socialist Art Centre (PACT) at the Institute of Advanced Studies,
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
.
They are founding members of the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative (EAH) at Central European University.
Art and ecology
Their extensive publications in the field of art and ecology are archived on Translocal Institute.
They have curated symposia and artist talks at the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, including on the Biopolitics of the Plasticene exploring artistic interventions in a plasticised world, and a discussion event on the Turbulent Geohistories of Sugar.
They are curators of the Experimental Reading Room, designed to create a space to interact, experiment, learn and dream our way to a new orientation towards ecological awareness in contemporary art and society and has been held in venues in Budapest, Vienna, Glasgow, Miami and London.
Their Danube River School brought together artists, writers, environmental historians and anthropologists for a series of symposiums, exhibitions and excursions into wilderness and resulted in the publication ''River Ecologies: Contemporary Art and Environmental Humanities on the Danube'' (2015).
Their work within the field of environmental art history has included a chapter entitled 'Cracks in the Planet: Geo-ecological Matter in East European Art,' in ''Extending the Dialogue'' and an article on 'The Primeval Cosmic River and its Ecological Realities: On the curatorial project Danube River School (2013-2015),' in the journal ''Geohumanities''.
Interviews about their recent publications and work on the issue of art in the
Anthropocene
The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.
, neither the International Commissi ...
appeared on Mezosfera and the Anthropocene Index.
Their contribution to the edited volume ''Curating Subjects III – Curating Research'' (2014) was a chapter on ‘Renewing the Curatorial Refrain: Sustainable Research in Contemporary Art.’
Their Danube River School project between 2013 and 2015 brought together artists, writers, environmental historians and anthropologists for a series of symposiums, exhibitions and excursions into wilderness and resulted in the publication ''River Ecologies: Contemporary Art and Environmental Humanities on the Danube'' (2015),
They are contributors to the ''Post-Human Glossary'' (2016).
They have lectured widely on art and ecology including at
Modern Art Oxford
Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...
,
Aarhus Kunstbygning
Kunsthal Aarhus is a contemporary arts centre located at the heart of the city of Aarhus in Denmark.
The institution initiates, commissions, produces and presents art at an international level to local, regional, and international audiences. Kuns ...
,
De Appel
De Appel is a contemporary arts centre, located in Amsterdam. Since it was founded in 1975 by , the goal of De Appel is to function as a stage for research and presentation of visual arts. Exhibitions, publications and discursive events are the m ...
, Pav Turino, Bratislava Art Academy,
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
, and Museum Sztuki Lodz.
East European art
A major focus of their work is on researching East European art since 1945 and contemporary East European art.
They are co-directors of the Getty Foundation Connecting Art Histories funded international programme Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History based at the Post-socialist Art Centre (PACT, UCL.
They are co-authors of the Thames & Hudson World of Art series book on ''Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950'', the first of its kind to survey the art of the region from the Second World War till today.
Maja Fowkes is the author of ''The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism'' (2015).
Their publications on East European art include two special issues of
Third Text
''Third Text'' is a leading peer-reviewed academic journal covering art in a global context. After founder and editor Rasheed Araeen's earlier art magazine ''Black Phoenix'', which started in 1978 and published only three issues, ''Third Text'' ...
, the first on 'Socialist Eastern Europe' (2009), the second on ‘Actually Existing Artworlds under Socialism’ (2018).
Their performative lecture Points East: An Artworld, a City and a Continent in Transformation, held at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Glasgow in November 2019 restaged a seminal meeting of critics, artists and art historians at Glasgow’s Third Eye Centre in December 1990.
Their article 'Placing Bookmarks: The Institutionalisation and De-Institutionalisation of Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde and Contemporary Art' on the role of collectors, global museums and art historians in forming art historical narratives appeared in ''Tate Papers'' in 2016.
They have lectured widely on East European art, including at:
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...
annual conference, Washington 2016,
MoMA
Moma may refer to:
People
* Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist
* Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician
* Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher
Places
; Ang ...
New York within the framework of the C-MAP programme (2016), KUMU Art Museum Tallinn (2015), CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw (2015), Former West conference, BAK Utrecht (2014), AICA 46th International Congress, Kosice and Bratislava (2013) and the Clark Institute conference on 'Art History on the Disciplinary Map in East-Central Europe' (2010).
A video interview with Maja and Reuben Fowkes appeared on the MoMA online platform ''Posts: Notes on Modern and Contemporary Art around the World'' in 2016.
Exhibitions
Their curated exhibitions include ''Revolution is not a Garden Party'', which dealt with the legacy of the 1956 Revolution for contemporary art and was held at Trafo Gallery Budapest, Norwich Gallery and Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb in 2006-7. The second part of their revolution trilogy is ''Revolution I Love You: 1968 in Art, Politics and Philosophy'' which was shown at the Centre for Contemporary Art Thessaloniki in summer 2008, as well as Trafo Gallery Budapest and International Project Space Birmingham. ''Revolutionary Decadence: Foreign Artists in Budapest'' ''since 1989'' completed the trilogy and was shown at Kiscell Museum Budapest in November 2009.
In 2010 and 2011 they curated the exhibition ''Loophole to Happiness'' that explored the freedom-enhancing loopholes that exist on the margins of social systems from East European communism to global capitalism, taking the inventive strategies of worker resistance under socialism as the starting point for contemporary attempts to imagine exceptions and find escape routes from today’s neo-liberal capitalist order. Held at Trafo Gallery Budapest, Museum Sztuki Lodz, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art Prague and AMT Project Bratislava, the exhibition also resulted in a samizdat publication.
Their exhibition ''Like a Bird: Avian Ecologies in Contemporary Art'' examined complex questions around the changing human relationship to the natural world, the channelling of environmental awareness and its political dimensions and was shown at Trafo Gallery Budapest and
tranzit.ro in Bucharest in 2014.
The group show #underthestars at Knoll Gallery Vienna in 2014 was realised as part of Curated_By_Vienna and investigated ecological alternatives to the tragic figure of the immaterial worker who spends too much time in bed, replying to emails, creating social media clips, interacting virtually, but not going anywhere.
In 2014 and 2015 they curated the solo exhibitions of Csaba Nemes at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, and
MOCAK, Krakow.
In 2015-6 their exhibition ‘Walking without Footprints’ was held at tranzit.sk in Bratislava, addressing walking as a strategy to rethink our relationship to the natural environment.
See also
*
Sustainable art Sustainable art is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy.
Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wide ...
*
Ecological art
Ecological art is an art genre and artistic practice that seeks to preserve, remediate and/or vitalize the life forms, resources and ecology of Earth. Ecological art practitioners do this by applying the principles of ecosystems to living species a ...
*
Contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...
*
Art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
*
Ecological humanities
The environmental humanities (also ecological humanities) is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades, in particular environmental li ...
References
External links
Translocal Institute for Contemporary ArtPostsocialist Art Centre (PACT), University College London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowkes, Maja and Reuben
British art curators