The ERC project “Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (METROMOD)”, based at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich since 2017, focuses on six metropolitan destinations for refugee European artists between 1900 and 1950: New York, Buenos Aires, London, Istanbul, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Shanghai were important arrival cities or transit points for artists in the field of modern visual arts and architecture. The methods of the project combine urban study with art history and exile studies: the aim is to build a conceptual triangle of Migration, Modernism and Metropolis to investigate how modern art changed in interrelation with local metropolitan cultures and artists. METROMOD will contribute to a paradigm shift in writing modernist art history as a decentered history of global interconnections, spurred by migratory movements and with emphasis on instability, flux, contacts and networks. The results of the project are communicated by conferences, digital panels, two edited volumes, six digital walks and an archive of artistic and intellectual exile in the six METROMOD cities.
METROMOD thus shares many approaches and content-related interests with the We Refugees Archive. The two projects are in exchange about their content, among other things through guest contributions and joint workshops.