Transcultural Weaving: Exiled Jewish Women Artists in the 20th-Century Americas

ongoing

At a time when the refugee and migration crisis is shaping European and international politics, and racism is increasingly reflected in hate speech, TransCultWom offers a historical and humanistic understanding of pressing global issues. As processes of migration are necessarily entangled in cultural encounters, this project looks at the role of women artists in exile not only to shed light on transcultural dynamics in art history, but also to provide a unique insight into gendered migration experiences. Based on the hypothesis that the exile of women artists in the 1930s had a profound and lasting impact on modern art that has only recently been recognized, TransCultWom proposes to examine the transcultural creative practices of women artists in the circumstances of exile. To do so, it will focus on the careers of three Jewish artists born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who had to flee Nazi Europe and start a new life in Latin America, where they became deeply interested in indigenous weaving. As Lene Schneider-Kainer (1885, Austria–1971, Bolivia), Olga Anhalzer-Fisch (1901, Hungary–1990, Ecuador), and Gisela Ephrussi de Bauer (1904, Austria–1985, Mexico) passed through several countries before reaching their final destination, their works and documentation are scattered, destroyed or forgotten in private collections. This project recovers and analyzes these neglected sources to reconstruct a genealogy of women artists that will contribute to a decentered and more inclusive art history, challenging the Eurocentric narrative of modernism. From an intersectional gender perspective, it will investigate the strategies of artists as cultural producers to subvert the patriarchal order. Taking a decolonial and transcultural approach, it will explore the artists' interest in local crafts and their production of textiles using indigenous techniques. Weaving the stories of women in exile will provide a complex and nuanced reading of cultural encounters.