Klara Kemp-Welch is a scholar of modern and contemporary art with a specialism in Eastern European art and international relations. She was educated at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and University College London. Having largely focused on cultural dissidence of the 1960s and 1970s for the first part of her career, and then moved on to transnational and transregional methodologies in pan-European Modernism and networking Eastern Europe and Latin America, most recently, she has turned her attention to contemporary art, with a focus on documentary and video-based practices and questions of labour migration, minority experiences, human rights and border politics. She is currently completing a monograph entitled Free Movement? Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe through the Lens of Contemporary Art, structured in three parts: 1. Labour Migration 2. Displacement 3. Border Politics. She has presented papers and published several essays and articles relating to this new material, including in Jakub Gawkowski (ed.) Die Sonne nie swieci tak jak slonce, exh. cat. (Szczecin: Trafostacja Sztuki, 2021), Thinking Art 2. Materialisms, labours, forms, Peter Osborne (ed.), CRMEP, 2020 and Third Text vol. 34 (July 2020).
She is the author of two monographs. offered the first networked survey of the experimental zeitgeist in Eastern European art, examined through personal encounters and collaborative exchanges, using archival material gathered in twelve countries to counter Cold War narratives of Eastern-bloc isolation. The Art Journal reviewer described it as a ‘companiable guide through the complex transnational art worlds of Eastern Europe’ which ‘brilliantly investigates local primary materials within an international artworld setting’. A reviewer of her earlier monograph, wrote that ‘Kemp-Welch’s contributions as a scholar who persistently engages the complex intersections of art and politics in the former East… will… spark productive debates while setting a high bar for anyone who wants to weave together theoretical insights, sociopolitical contexts, transnational geographies, and wide-ranging erudition in and beyond the visual arts’.
She is co-editor of A Reader in East-Central-European Modernism, 1918-1956 (ĢƵ Books Online, 2019) comprising 27 essays, the first survey of secondary literature on East-Central European art, and of a special issue of which pioneered cross-regional research in these two previously under-researched fields. Her work has contributed to establishing the ĢƵ Institute as a centre for the study of East-European art, Latin American art, and Cold War art, integrating East and West-European perspectives, redressing Cold War-era historical biases in the discipline and foregrounding transnational approaches. She promotes methodological innovation and curricular diversity, emphasising art history’s entanglements with global affairs and social justice, reinvigorating the Institute’s long-standing engagement with the social history of art.
Current PhD Supervision
Hannah Healey, Artists for Democracy 1974-1977: International Solidarity in Britain (2022–)
Smaranda Ciubotaru,Threads of Subversion in Romanian Textile Art of the Ceaușescu Era 1965-1989 (2023–)
Rada Georgieva, ‘Parallel Cultures’: Mail Art Magazines and Samizdat Editions from Eastern Europe and Latin America 1970-95 (2023–)
Past PhD Supervision
Alice David, Cultures of Resistance: Graphic Art and the Avant-Garde in 1970s’ Latin America (2024)
Ana-Gabriela Rodriguez, Puerto Rican Graphic Arts and the Cold War: Bridging Workshops and Crossing Borders, 1950- 1970, (2024)
Katia Denysova, Fragmented Identities: Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in Ukraine’s Early 20th Century Art, (2024)
Anya Smirnova, Net Art East: Postsocialist Artists and New Media 1989- 1999, (2024)
Wiktor Komorowski, The Reversed Power of the Image: Exhibitions of Graphic Art in Eastern Europe during the Cold War (2023)
Chelsea Pierce, The Gorgona Paradigm: Private Art Practice in Socialist Yugoslavia (2022)
Sofia Gurevich,The Form and Content of the early Soviet Book: A study through the country’s publishing industry institutions of the 1920s and 1930s(2020)
Svitlana Biedarieva,Challenging the Urban Legacies of the Olympics: Mexico City1968-1994and Moscow1980-1991 (2019)
Claudia Zini,Bosnia and Herzegovina: Contemporary Art from a Post-Conflict Society(2019)
Malgorzata Misniakiewicz,(Art) Solidarity – An International Project: Polish Mail Art Exchanges with Eastern Europe(2018)
Julia Maria Secklehner,“Czechs” vs. “Austrians” National Identity in Caricature1918-193(2018)
Marko Ilic,For a ‘Self-Managing’ Art: The ‘New Art’ Seen through Yugoslavia’s Student Cultural Centres(2016)
Research interests
Klara Kemp-Welch’s current research is on representations of migration, mobility and war in contemporary documentary and participatory art. She also writes on international relations and experimental art of the 1960s-80s. In both cases her focus is repositioning Central and Eastern European art and life within the global field.
Publications
Authored Books
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: MIT Press, 2019), 480pp.
(New York and London: I.B. Tauris / Bloomsbury, 2014 hardcover; 2017 paperback), 325pp.
Edited Book
Beata Hock, Klara Kemp-Welch and Jonathan Owen, A Reader in East-Central-European Modernism 1918-1956 (London: ĢƵ Books Online, 2019), 436pp.
Edited Special Issue
Cristina Freire and Klara Kemp-Welch (eds), ARTMargins 2 (June-October 2012), 220pp.
Peer-reviewed articles and chapters in academic journals and edited volumes
Art History, Vol 45, Issue 5, special issue Vivian Li (ed.) Red Networks: Post-War Art Exchange (Nov. 2022), 1126-1147.
Thinking Art 2. Materialisms, labours, forms, Peter Osborne (ed.), CRMEP, 2020.
Third Text vol. 34 (July 2020).
Art History & Criticism 3, 2007, 136-144 [Reprinted as ‘Endre Tot’s Joys and Zeros’, Arta 20-21 (2016)].
Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture 8 (2005/2006), 45-65.
Non-refereed articles and chapters in academic journals and edited volumes
‘Alexander Archipenko’s Objects of Desire and the Politics of the Void’ inArchipenko. Les années américaines (Paris: Galerie Le Minotaure, 2025).
‘Black Rain: Kateřina Vincourová’s Reparative Interventions’ in Julia Bailey (ed), Kateřina Vincourová: Skin Care, exh. cat. forthcoming (Prague: Galerie Rudolfinum, 2025).
‘Into the Vortex: Edita Schubert’s Anxious Visions of the early 1980s’ in David Crowley (ed.), Edita Schubert (Zernez: Muzeum Susch; Berlin and Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2025).
in Agata Jakubowska and Minoka Zsikla (eds), Ilona Keseru: Flow, (Susch: Muzeum Susch, 2024), 61-72.
in David Feher (ed),Gábor Attalai,exh. cat. (Veszprem: House of Arts Veszprem, 2024), 116-128.
at the 1971 Paris Biennial, in Elitza Dulguerova (ed.), La Biennale internataionale des jeunes artistes. Paris (1959-1985), Paris: editions de l’INHA / Dijon, Les Presses du reel), 2023.
‘Painting Blindly: Gili Mocanu and the Circus of Appearance’ in Dan Popescu (ed.), GM. (Bucharest: H’art: Editura Velant, 2021).
in Jakub Gawkowski (ed.) Die Sonne nie swieci tak jak slonce, exh. cat. (Szczecin: Trafostacja Sztuki, 2021).
in Raphael Gross mit Lars Bang Larsen, Dorlis Blume, Alexia Pooth et al. (eds), documenta. Politik und Kunst, exh. cat. (Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museum, 2021), pp. 208-216.
e-flux ♯ 98 (March 2019).
, in Juliet Bingham (ed.), Dora Maurer, exh. cat. (London: Tate, 2019), 10-15.
in Roxana Marcoci, Ana Janevski and Ksenya Nouril (eds), Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Anthology (New York: MoMA, 2018), 19-21.
in Edit Sasvari (ed.), Art in Hungary 1956-1980. Doublespeak and Beyond (London: Thames and Hudson, 2018), 273-291.
in Galeria Foksal 1966-2016 (Warsaw: Galeria Foskal, 2016), 68-80.
MoMA Post, 2015.
in Alina Serban (ed.), Ion Grigorescu. The Man with a Single Camera (Berlin and New York: Sternberg Press, 2013), 158-184. (Translated into Romanian and reprinted in Arta 14-15, 2016, 52-58).
in Jordan McKenzie, exh. cat. (London: Arts Council of England; York: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2014).
in Bozena Czubak (ed.), NET. The Art of Dialogue / NET. Sztuka Dialogu (Warsaw: Fundacja Profil, 2013), 46-56.
in Lukasz Ronduda and Georg Schollhammer (eds), KwieKulik (Vienna: JPR Ringier, March 2013), 515-517.
in Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius (ed.) An Impossible Journey: The Art and Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor (London: Black Dog Publishers, 2011), 140-147.
in Gabriela Switek (ed.), Avant-garde in the Bloc (Warsaw: Fundacja Galerii Foksal; Vienna, JPR Ringier, 2010), 294-317.
in Margaret Iversen, (ed.), Chance. Documents of Contemporary Art Series (London: Whitechapel Gallery; Cambridge Mass. and London: MIT Press, 2010), 147-149.
in Mel Jordon and Malcolm Miles (eds), Art Theory and Post-Socialism (Bristol UK and Portland USA: Intellect Books, 2008), 21-31.
in Stefan Constantinescu. An Infinite Blue, exh. cat. (London: GALERIE8, 2011), 43-56.
in Jerzy Bereś: Sztuka zgina życie / Art Bends Life, exh. cat. (Kraków: Bunkier Sztuki, 2007), 23-31; 35-53
in Jerzy Bereś: Sztuka zgina życie / Art Bends Life, exh. cat. (Kraków: Bunkier Sztuki, 2007), 35-53
Short works
Critique d’art, 60|2023, 115-127.
‘Géza Perneczky’s “Concepts like Commentary” (1971)’, in Barbora Ropkova (ed.), The Kunsthalle Praha Collection. 50 Highlights (Prague: Kunsthalle Praha), 2023.
in Ilona Keseru (London: Stephen Friendman Gallery, 2022).
‘Studio Visit’ in Igor Bloch (ed.), Beachgoers (Warsaw: Drukarnia Akapit, 2018).
ArtReview (May 2017).
‘KwieKulik’s Monument without a Passport (1978)’ in Critique and Crisis. European Cultural Discourses since 1945. XXX Council of Europe Exhibition, electronic exh. cat. (Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museum, 2012).
‘S.O.S. Socialist Occupation of the Subject’, in Lukasz Ronduda, Alex Farquharson, and Barbara Piwowarska (eds), Star City. The Future under Communism (Warsaw: MAMMAL Foundation; Nottingham Contemporary; transit.at, 2011), 70-80.
Ludlow 38 broadsheet, New York: Goethe Institute, November 2009 (also published as ‘Paradoxial Dissidence’ in Tobi Maier (ed.), Július Koller & Jiří Kovanda (New York: Ludlow 38, 2009).
Review Articles
,ArtMargins online (June 2024).
Art Journal 35. 2. 2012, 298-301.
Artmargins online (February 2010).
Third Text, Vol. 23, Issue 6 (November 2009).
Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, no. 10, London: University College London, 2008.
Reviews of Single Academic Books
note de lecture, Critique d’Art(December 2024).
note de lecture, Critique d’Art(November 2022).
note de lecture, Critique d’Art(June 2022).
note de lecture, Critique d’Art(June 2022).
review, Critique d’Art(June 2021).
review, Critique d’Art (November 2019).
‘Tomaš Pospiszyl, An Associative Art History. Comparative Studies of Neo-Avant Gardes in a Bipolar World (Prague, JRP Ringier; Les Presses du Reel, 2017)’, review, UMĚNÍ ART (6 LXVII 2019), 600-603.
review, Art Review Asia (April 2018)
‘Pavlína Morganová, Czech Action Art: Happenings, Actions, Events, Land Art, Body Art and Performance Art Behind the Iron Curtain (Prague: Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2014)’, review, UMĚNÍ ART (5 LXII, 2015), 417-420.
review, ArtMargins (April 2016).
review, Artmargins (January 2011).
Exhibition Reviews
The Burlington Magazine, CLVII (Sept 2015), 644-646.
‘54th Venice Biennale, various venues, Venice’, Art Monthly #348 (July-August 2011).
‘Hito Steyerl. In Free Fall. Chisenhale Gallery, DzԻDz’, Art Monthly #342 (Dec. 2010- Jan. 2011).
Enclave 2 (November 2010).
‘Touched. Liverpool Biennial. International Festival of Contemporary Art, Liverpool’, Art Monthly #341 (Nov. 2010).
‘History of Art, The. Curators’ Series #3. Mihnea Mircan, David Roberts Art Foundation, DzԻDz’, Art Monthly #337 (June 2010).
‘Angela de la Cruz: After / Anna Maria Maiolino: Continuous. Camden Arts Centre, DzԻDz’, Art Monthly #336 (May 2010).
‘Journeys with No Return. A Foundation, DzԻDz’, Art Monthly #335 (April 2010).
‘KwieKulik. Form is a Fact of Society. Galeria Awangarda, BWA Wroclaw’, Art Monthly #334 (March 2010).
OBJECT 10 (2007)
