Wisler, Michaela (2022). Freedom of Religious Art in Mongolia. From Past Soviet Restrictions to Present Entangled Art (Unpublished). In: EASR 2022: Religions and States of Freedom. 27.06-01.07.2022.
Freedom of artistic – especially religious artistic expression – is highly valued in a lot of democratic societies and is a standard to most of us from Western (and Eastern and Southern) countries. But there were always – and still are – societies and circumstances where religious artistic freedom is questioned. In contemporary Western societies Churches and/or other religious institutions and groups are often intervening when artists are depicting critical religious motives, but the fundamental idea of artistic freedom remains.
It is a different situation in countries where the basic freedom of artistic expression is not valued, like in dictatorships and countries with autocratic leadership, but also socialist countries in the 20th century were very much restrictive with the idea of artistic freedom. Mongolia was one of these countries; during the socialist period from 1924-1990 artists were harshly narrowed down in what they can and are not allowed to express. Only certain themes and styles were allowed to be practiced, like communist propaganda and socialist realism. Early on artists developed an opposite-style, the Mongol Zurag, which consisted of traditional Thangka images and scenes of the daily lives of Mongolian people. Mongol Zurag was an entangled art style as it composed motives and styles from Asian societies and included techniques from Western artists, like Chagall. This art style was the predecessor of today’s Mongolian artists, on which my PhD-project is focusing. For this paper I will ask the question of how much the past influenced the artists and art scene of contemporary Mongolia. A special focus will lie on female artists and their relationship to religion and if there are any generational differences between older and younger artists concerning their art and religion.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Speech) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute for the Science of Religion |
UniBE Contributor: |
Wisler, Michaela |
Subjects: |
200 Religion 200 Religion > 290 Other religions 700 Arts |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Ionia Merve Katharina Tauern |
Date Deposited: |
21 Mar 2023 11:00 |
Last Modified: |
21 Mar 2023 23:27 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/180105 |
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