Book Presentation: Rethinking Modern Austrian Art Beyond the Metropolis
Lecture by Julia Secklehner, followed by a conversation between the author and Stefanie Kitzberger and Eva Klimpel. Event in the framework of the exhibition 'Textile Transfers'
Expositur Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7 = VZA7
Begin: 6 pm
Location: University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, A-1030 Vienna, Seminar Room 20, 5th floor
Drawing upon her monograph Rethinking Modern Austrian Art Beyond the Metropolis (Routledge, 2025), Julia Secklehner explores the role of regional cultures in modern art and visual culture in Central Europe from 1918 to 1938. By introducing paintings, photographs, and illustrated magazines in relation to themes such as tourism, social activism, and rural exoticism, it offers a fresh perspective on Central European art and visual culture. It particularly highlights Austria, a country often neglected in broader histories of modernism in Central Europe after 1918, where the countryside gained considerable visibility as part of modern culture between the wars. Examples from Czechoslovakia and Hungary also play a crucial comparative role and challenge the fragmented national histories of modernism in the region. Overall, Rethinking Modern Austrian Art Beyond the Metropolis questions the assumption that modern art and visual culture were solely at home in urban spaces and argues that it is vital to consider the countryside's role as an agent of renewal and emancipation to construct more nuanced histories of modernism.
Dr. Julia Secklehner is an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at Constructor University in Bremen (2024–25), where she researches networks of modernist women photographers in Central Europe. She is otherwise based at Masaryk University in Brno, working as a postdoctoral researcher on the project “Beyond the Village: Folk Cultures as Agents of Modernity, 1918–1945,” which is funded by the Czech National Grant Agency. Julia completed her PhD in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2018. Her monograph, Rethinking Modern Austrian Art Beyond the Metropolis (Routledge, 2025), received the Masaryk University Scientist Award in 2024.
