Fair folk : Vernacular art and the narratives of modernism at international exhibitions
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Dating back to the 1891 Jubilee exhibition in Prague and the exhibit Czech Village House, vernacular art has retained a key place in national and international exhibitions that showcased Czech culture. After Czechoslovakia was created as an independent state in 1918, its participation in international exhibitions became crucial for promoting its new identity of a modern and democratic country. Folk art always played an important part in the Czechoslovak national pavilions, but its inclusion in the interwar period was somewhat reframed when compared with the pre-war emphasis on folk art as a repository of national identity. First, folk art gained a new role as a proof of a joint ethnic and national identity that Czechs and Slovaks shared. Second, it was used to create a deliberate contrast with the contemporary art and design displays which made references to the modernist progress of the new state. Analysing a selection of folk art exhibits at events such as the two Parisian expositions of 1925 and 1937, the Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago of 1933, and the two world’s fairs in 1939 that took place in New York and San Francisco, I ask broader questions about the relationship between vernacular art and modernism in the interwar period and their place in Czechoslovak identity that was put on display. |
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