CUAG – Panel discussion on world-class collection of European graphic design

CUAG invites you to join in a free public discussion of the exhibition Photomontage Between the Wars (1918-1939) with art historian Adrian Sudhalter and historian Jennifer Evans, moderated by Diana Nemiroff. The discussion takes place at CUAG on Saturday, 24 November 13, at 2:00 p.m. Paid parking ($2.00 flat rate) is available in all campus lots on Saturday.

The discussion will begin with an informal walk-through of the exhibition. Moderator Diana Nemiroff will then pose questions to the panelists on such topics as the emergence of photomontage as an artistic medium, the importance of photomontage in politics, social protest, advertising, and the marketplace, and the intersection of photomontage and film.

Photomontage Between the Wars (1918-1939) surveys the birth of the photomontage process as it developed in Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The exhibition is drawn from the Merrill C. Berman Collection in the United States, and features over 100 posters, books, magazines, and postcards by artists and graphic designers from 13 countries. The exhibition features the work of such iconic artists and designers as John Heartfield, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Jan Tschichold, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Paul Schuitema, and George Grosz. Berman’s world-class collection of graphic design and modernist art is considered equal to that of the Museum of Modern Art’s in New York.

Adrian Sudhalter is an art historian and curator with expertise in German art of the early twentieth century. Sudhalter was a member of the curatorial team for the exhibition Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, presented at MoMA in New York (2009), and contributed numerous essays to the accompanying catalogue. She also curated Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, New York, Paris, presented at MoMA in 2006, and Before Expressionism: Art in Germany circa 1903, presented at the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University (2003). Dr. Sudhalter is co-editor of and contributor to Dada in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, published by MoMA in 2008.

Jennifer Evans is Associate Professor of German History at Carleton University with interests in the history of sexuality and visual culture. She has written about queer history and photography, and has recently published Life Among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). She is the primary investigator on the Hate 2.0 project, which explores social media as a form of digital activism, and is co-editing Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe Since 1945 due out with Continuum UK in 2013. She is developing a new project that examines the role of erotic photography as a claim to desire, personhood, and sexual freedom during the Sexual Revolution.

This event is supported in part by the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.