Julian Adoff | University of Illinois at Chicago (original) (raw)

Publications by Julian Adoff

Routledge Companion to Marxism(s) in Art History, 2025

Utilizing the paintings of Hungarian/Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941), I seek to questio... more Utilizing the paintings of Hungarian/Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941), I seek to question and deconstruct the reading of nationalist allegories by calling for the need to move beyond the rooted nature of our understanding of the national, and its relation to the development of the canon. Benjamin Buchloh writes that it is political oppression that transforms “symbolic modes of concrete anticipation into allegorical modes of internalized retrospection.” Walter Benjamin’s version of allegory, created during the rise of fascism, calls attention to this through his attention to the melancholy surrounding political oppression and prohibition. Almost in direct contrast to this, Jameson’s theory of “third world” allegory, concludes that all literary texts produced in the third world are allegories for the political struggle for independence in a totalizing, politicized manner. Jameson’s theory leads to an instrumentalized, singular reading of these texts, of which Benjamin would be very weary of. Can a reformulation of Benjamin’s theory that considers the combined nature of Marxist and theological/kabbalistic thought, as Handelman and others highlight, open seemingly solidified (and instrumentalized) interpretations of nationalist art, allowing for more nuanced readings?

Discursive Impulse, 2019

The alluring, sensuous femme fatales that adorn Czech artist Alfons Maria Mucha’s (1860-1939) ima... more The alluring, sensuous femme fatales that adorn Czech artist Alfons Maria Mucha’s (1860-1939) images have played the central role in much of the scholarship surrounding his work—especially after the art nouveau revival in the late 1960s. After decades of obscurity, artists in San Francisco began appropriating Mucha’s femme fatales for use in their prints associated with the psychedelic movement. Not coincidentally, the psychedelic movement was accompanied by a changing landscape in feminist movements, potentially mirroring the cultural shifts that transformed ideas of femininity during the Belle Époque (the period of western history from 1871-1914). One can see this changing style of femininity depicted in the work of art nouveau artists such as Mucha, carried over to ephemeral works from the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. Within the many narratives of Mucha's practice explored in Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty (there are many presented in this catalog for a retrospective styled exhibition) I will focus here on the coverage of the culture of changing femininity during Mucha's lifetime within the book, look at who contributed to these changes in culture, discuss examples of the artistic depictions of this changing culture, and so on; hopefully commenting on Mucha's place within these discussions in the process. I will also incorporate the writings of Griselda Pollock, Linda Nochlin, and others within the feminist art history discourse to comment on this narrative thread of the catalog as well as the writings within.

The exhibition, “Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty,” took place in multiple locations across the United Kingdom. The curators decided to connect Mucha's work and Paris life to British and Scottish artistic movements—both through inclusion of works from British museum collections and commission of Great-Britain-focused essays for inclusion in the catalog. The essays offered great accounts of the Pre-Raphaelite school, with their male dominated and controlled depictions of women, as well as an account of the Glasgow School, where they valued equal access to arts education for women—evident in the fact that the major artists in the school, collectively referred to as “The Four” were comprised of two sisters and their eventual spouses. Plates from these stylistic movements and others from the larger British arts are included with plates surveying Mucha’s practice. Through this expanded reading of the catalog, I will place Mucha's practice, and depiction of women, somewhere in the middle of a spectrum of equal representation; with the Glasgow School at one end (the most equal for the time) and the Pre-Raphaelites at the other (the least equal).

Book Reviews by Julian Adoff

Art East Central, 2024

A review of: Shevelenko, Irina. Russian Archaism: Nationalism and the Quest for a Modernist Aest... more A review of:

Shevelenko, Irina. Russian Archaism: Nationalism and the Quest for a Modernist Aesthetic. 1st ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Northern Illinois University Press, 2024. xii, 279 p. ISBN 978-1-5017-7634-2; ISBN 978-1-5017-7636-6.

Slavic & East European Journal (SEEJ), 2020

Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher. Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European Multico... more Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher. Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of Nationalism. New Perspectives on Central and Eastern European Studies, Vol. 1. New York: Berghahn Books, 2019. ISBN 978-1789201475. 416 pp., $135 (hardcover).

Art Discourse, 2018

Review of Ann Hamilton's "habitus' exhibition in Portland, OR -- a part of the 2018 Converge 45 p... more Review of Ann Hamilton's "habitus' exhibition in Portland, OR -- a part of the 2018 Converge 45 programming.

Conference Papers by Julian Adoff

Junior Scholars Workshop in Russian, Polish, and East European Jewish Culture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021

The recent rediscovery of the Jewish/Polish painter Maurycy Gottlieb’s 1874 Self-Portrait in Poli... more The recent rediscovery of the Jewish/Polish painter Maurycy Gottlieb’s 1874 Self-Portrait in Polish Nobleman's Dress, long assumed to be lost, depicts the painter as a participant of the 1863 January Uprising. The rediscovery and donation of the portrait to the POLIN Museum in Warsaw points to new aspects of Gottlieb’s aesthetic project that have also been buried for more than half a century, along with the canvas. Maurycy Gottlieb created numerous paintings that depicted the complicated identity of Jews living in Austrian-controlled Galicia in the nineteenth century. Gottlieb most likely had little formal Jewish education, but he still chose to depict traditional Jewish ritual settings, often the synagogue, in his paintings. Gottlieb’s secular upbringing, which culminated in his tutelage under the most accomplished Polish nationalist painter Jan Matejko, paired with an interest in depicting modern Jewish life, resulted in a hybridized, transnational definition of both Jewishness and Polishness. By depicting scenes with traditional settings and experimenting with self-portraiture in which Gottlieb transformed himself by turning into a Polish nobleman, a resistance fighter, or a European socialite, or further accentuated his Jewish roots by emphasizing Semitic features in his self-portraits, I believe that Gottlieb was participating in the emerging conversation around Jewish nationalism taking place in late 19 -century Galicia. I claim that by experimenting with visual identity, Gottlieb interrogated and explored the role visual representation played in the formation of identity, and he arrived, even in the short period of his artistic productivity, at a radically transnational definition of Jewish/Polish identity that also challenged the traditional idea of diaspora as exile or golus. Gottlieb was working in the wake of and under the influence of the Jewish Haskalah, and as such his experiments in the painterly representation of complex or hybrid identities and transnationalism contain elements of the thought of proto-Zionist Moses Hess, of the Romanticism of the Modern Jewish Renaissance, and of the Polish Nationalism of Matejko. These experiments created a new interpretation–and set of visual representations–of what it meant to be Polish, Jewish, European, and Other, all at once. This narrative that runs counter to political Zionism’s attachment to a return to Eretz Yisrael offers fertile ground for a new methodology with which to approach visual culture of Central and Eastern Europe at the intersection of Jewish art and nationalism.

Art History With(in) Crisis: “Communovirus” and Class Conflict, College Art Association, 2021

“Oh, [there is] plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope—but not for us.” - Franz Kafka to Max ... more “Oh, [there is] plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope—but not for us.”
- Franz Kafka to Max Brod

Sigmund Freud’s work on mourning and melancholia (1856- 1939) transformed the study of melancholia from its medieval perception as a consequence of imbalanced humors, and into a condition of the mind. These psychoanalytic studies situate melancholia within the individual psyche, which reacts to external pressure by retreating into itself, where it then becomes trapped. Escape becomes impossible. Working concurrently with Freud, the Czech artist Alfons Maria Mucha (1860-1939) and Polish artist Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929) created paintings that allow us to either confirm Freud’s notions of melancholia or question his findings. The two Slavic artists created artworks responding to the precarious national situations of their people, celebrated their eventual freedom after WWI, and then saw their hard-fought freedom come under fire as WWII drew closer. In the face of war, oppression, and threats from abroad, Malczewski and Mucha’s artworks engaged with melancholia in distinct ways. The unresolvable tension between the secular and the theological typified both artists’ relationship with melancholia. In this paper, I intend to show that Malczewski’s paintings can be defined by the Freudian, psychoanalytic version of melancholia. Conversely, Mucha’s intense study of mysticism and theology ultimately resulted in a worldview that denied the Freudian variant of melancholia. By contrasting Malczewski and Mucha’s versions of melancholia along the secular-theological divide, I intend of analyze Mucha’s struggle with melancholia through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s (1892-1940) understanding of the term, which combines the hopelessness of melancholia with the potential for a later redemption. This mixture of hopelessness and redemption offers a constructive model for artists responding to societal rupture.

Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies, 2020

The close friendship of Debora Vogel (Dvoyre Fogel, 1900-1942), the Jewish poet and philosopher f... more The close friendship of Debora Vogel (Dvoyre Fogel, 1900-1942), the Jewish poet and philosopher from Lwów and Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), the Jewish writer and artist from Drahobycz, resulted in both writers engaging in a series of writing experiments where they attempted to translate a chosen visual art style in the form of the written word. Vogel’s writings became a poetic translation of the visual style of avant-garde Cubist and Constructivist art. In her translations, she sought to depict what she called a “Legend of the Age” that became deeply Futurist in its sense of fatalism as human and machine meld into one. In this paper, I argue that Vogel was engaging in a practice of montage that was not dissimilar to the radical photomontages of Weimar artist John Heartfield. Vogel’s literary methods can be unpacked in relation to Heartfield’s desire to create “sutured” montage with the intention of sparking his viewer into action. After introducing Heartfield’s photomontages, and the concepts of suture and revolutionary beauty, I turn to a reading of Vogel’s literary works. I will look closely at two of her poems, “Mannequins” and “Soldiers March On,” drawing out these connections to montage, futurism, and Constructivism. Vogel’s philosophical essays “The Genealogy of the Photomontage and its Potential” and “Literary Montage (An Introduction)” will aid in this read of her poems, where she defined her artistic influences and declared that she hoped to write a form of montage. Two of her other essays, “A Few Thoughts on Today’s Intelligentsia” and “Human Exotics,” shed light on Vogel’s internal struggles as a Jew and a Marxist, and help to explain why her “Legend of the Age” became a legend of fatalism and confusion.

Responding to the language differences surrounding exhibitions and scholarship of John Heartfield... more Responding to the language differences surrounding exhibitions and scholarship of John Heartfield and George Lois’ similar practices, I argue that the theoretical terminology behind the concepts of “high art” and “low art” have become irrelevant to the broader study of art and visual culture. Utilizing Sabine Kriebel’s concept of suture, I provide a close reading of the methodologies of visual content creators who worked across the shallow high/low divide — and have identified a common language that links John Heartfield and George Lois in unprecedented ways. In this presentation, I argue that it is only when such outmoded classifications are removed that the deeper context behind their images can be studied. In the case of Heartfield and Lois, once we excise the taxonomy, we can see a shared language of practice and cultural provocation within their work. In addition, we can pinpoint influential connections that can transform contemporary discussions of content creators across the high/low divide.

Thesis by Julian Adoff

MFA Thesis Installation Wandering, collecting: traversing the spiral of history is a physical ma... more MFA Thesis Installation

Wandering, collecting: traversing the spiral of history is a physical manifestation of my research into critical theory’s ties to Jewish mysticism. This text-based installation is comprised of 10 perfect bound books and 5 vinyl concrete poems that call attention to the secularization of the mystical, mythic past. This installation takes the form of a dream city built of texts, their locations dictated by their location in my memory palace. Mysticism redefined Jewish practices when sages, mystics, and kabbalists challenged the universal authority of the written words of Jewish law. Through a process of secularization, critical theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida have called upon mystic practices when they have used their theory to challenge the growing presence of authoritarianism and question the way the world around them functioned.

I embody the flâneur (which was itself central to Jewish theorists’ understanding of the world) and the wanderer as I “walk” in and between the texts, searching for connections. My process is that of literary montage. As I wander each text, I search for phrases that can enter into a constellation with the rest of my research. I then create a space for these texts to inhabit. Words are central to this work, for mysticism tells us that letters hold power. I harness this power by magnifying texts from books into large vinyl poetry. Mythic in size, these poems channel the emotive qualities within, ready to be consumed by the viewer.

This project is not complete, and may never be. As with Benjamin, I am suffocated by the impossibility of my endeavor, for though there are hints of progress, there are no solutions, no singular thesis statement that can be “proven” when you try to merge the mystical and the theoretical. Even with this, I am drawn to wander, to collect text and treat it as form; to open up words and explore the past. This dream-city will keep growing. I will continue to wander its streets and alleyways, hoping that one day, all the work leads to a single product, a single book from the many.

MA Thesis: The typical study of art nouveau during the fin-de-siecle has been presented as an i... more MA Thesis:

The typical study of art nouveau during the fin-de-siecle has been presented as an international, Pan-European movement, one that differed in name from place to place, but not in ideals. Very seldom does this scholarship extend further to investigate the political, theoretical, and ideological concerns of the artists. This thesis looks at the Czech artist Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), a central figure in art nouveau, and redefine his work; to uncover the political, nationalist allegories hidden within. While Mucha’s work was thought to belong to (and defined) the Parisian school of l’art nouveau, in reality, Mucha’s identity as a Czech artist brings his work closer to the Czech Secesse—the Bohemian version of the Austrian Sezessionsstil—which drew on the same practices of symbolism that Mucha employed. In order to realign le style Mucha with secessionism, I have relied on reading Mucha’s posters and paintings through the lens of ethno-symbolism and nationalism, which he often used to further his nationalist messianist views for the ideal future of a Slavic state. This national messianist lens has brought Mucha’s work into close conversation with the literature that came out of the Czech National Revival during the first half of the nineteenth century. Mucha's work defined as a nationalist endeavor embodies secessionism through a dual identity; secession from an established art academy and secession from an imperial regime.

Drafts by Julian Adoff

George Lois’ “Women (With a Vengeance)” and “My Reluctant Pinups” covers can be studied through a... more George Lois’ “Women (With a Vengeance)” and “My Reluctant Pinups” covers can be studied through a staged interaction with feminist studies as works that aimed to question the traditional notions of the pinup in alignment with Griselda Pollock’s definition of feminist art. He acted to “subvert the normal ways in which we view art” While Lois himself was never that explicit with the goals of these covers, we can still look at what we see, and what he did write as an act of subversion of the traditional male gaze. This act of staged interaction can been quite similar to Linda Nochlin’s accounts of her early work in creating a feminist art history, of “looking at old themes in new ways.” Reforming and revitalizing history is how we can both move forward in time and restore the untold past. Nochlin remembered that she, and other “liberated women, were actually intervening in the historical process and changing history itself.”

The rise of Communism and Fascism in the first half of the twentieth century led academics to fea... more The rise of Communism and Fascism in the first half of the twentieth century led academics to fear the use of mechanically reproduced art for political gain. This created a seducible population that could become pliable to a politician’s will. In Europe and the United States, cultural critic Walter Benjamin and art critic Clement Greenberg each theorized that mechanically reproduced art, or ephemeral kitsch objects, could become tools of these authoritarian governments. In order to stop this aestheticization of politics, Benjamin calls for the removal of artwork that does not contain aura while Greenberg heightens the importance of the Avant-Garde artist. As a result, designers and commercial artists who create ephemera often find themselves in opposition to the work of the Avant-Garde artist, who is often motivated by "art pour l'art", or art for art's sake. Jacques Rancière uses his position as a structural Marxist to questions the suppression of mechanically reproduced objects and Critical Theory Historian Martin Jay charts the history of the political aesthetic, ultimately concluding that Benjamin’s dismal view of the aestheticization of politics is not accurate. I intend to challenge the efficacy of aura and kitsch and reassess them as tools for suppression of ephemera. The discourse has been unnaturally biased in the use of theory based in fear that has ultimately led to the suppression of ephemeral works. Through the study of Martin French and Reza Abedini in order to develop a methodological approach, followed by an iconographic examination of Alfons Mucha’s ephemeral art objects I hope to discover the motivations, strategies and elements of his practice and underline how he utilized the system of the aestheticization of politics to disseminate his own narratives and created work that defied Benjamin’s dismal views of ephemera as tools of fascism.

In 1998, Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term Relational Aesthetics in order to describe and context... more In 1998, Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term Relational Aesthetics in order to describe and contextualize artwork that relies on socially activated art. Bourriaud and Claire Bishop set their focus of Relational Aesthetics on the activity itself, but pay little attention to the objects used and the space they are in. This material is equally as important when studying the discourse of relational aesthetics and to do that, I have elected to combine this discourse with the study of archival art. Critic Hal Foster identifies the Archival Impulse as a means to discuss the trend of artists using historical objects in the realm of installation. In this act of making history present, the archival artist is animating the archival document from something that is a simple record of a past time and place to a loaded art object that can be used to engage a social discourse. The presentness of displaces or forgotten historical information cannot be looked at as a static object, but one that requires a social interaction from the viewer, or group of viewers. This animation of the archival object for social means leads one to connect the ideas of Foster to those of Bourriaud and Bishop through the combination of these two discourses. I would conclude that the collective Group Material, who created archival installations with the desire to bring about critical social conversations, can be discussed under the umbrella of relational aesthetics as their work. Based on Group Material’s statements, they sought for their work to spark social interactions amongst the viewer in order to bring about a drive for social change. Could we not hypothesize that the social interactions that resulted from the staging of one of their installations was the center of their art practice, and without it their collection is simply a record of time, an unactivated historical record? Through engaging in their work with the ideas of Bourriaud, Bishop, and Foster in mind, the practice of Group Material gains a purpose that was unseen before.

Through the study of my own Lithographic print and the writings and practices of Edvard Munch, I... more Through the study of my own Lithographic print and the writings and practices of Edvard Munch, I look to understand the Painter-Printmaker’s ideology in relation to critical theorists of the 1930s and 1940s. In essence, I wish to see how the practice of being an artistic printmaker can be at odds with the thoughts and writings of Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction where he argues that mechanically reproduced art leads to a loss of aura - and as a result, fascism. I conclude with a spectrum of my own making in order to solve these questions with commercial art at one end and fine art at the other. In the middle is the Painter-Printmaker with elements of each.

During the 1890s, Europe saw a multitude of artistic changes all rooted in the ideas of modernity... more During the 1890s, Europe saw a multitude of artistic changes all rooted in the ideas of modernity. Some of these changes found themselves tied together in the Pan-European classification of Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau style can be defined through a study of Alfons Maria Mucha (1860-1939), paying specific attention to his various cultural art influences (Japanese, Near East, Byzantine, Czech folk tradition) that gave his work a deeper level than mere decoration and his crossover between a designer, painter, sculptor, and craftsman. By identifying Mucha as the ‘Master of Art Nouveau’ we can correct the assumption of the first Art Nouveau revival of the 1960s that this style was solely ornamental and instead give credibility to the claim that Art Nouveau contains deep symbolic and aesthetic expression.