Category: ARTMargins Online: Book Reviews

The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov, Birgit Beumers and Nancy Condee (Eds.), London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, 262 PP.

Alexander Sokurov is, by any standards, a highly original filmmaker, but one whose work is dark, disjointed, and often frustrating to view. The reasons for this are rooted only partially in the norms of auteur cinema that place a premium on making the medium itself difficult. In the case of Sokurov, this difficulty is intensified by a kind of anxiety of influence vis-à-vis his mentor Andrei Tarkovsky, whose vibrant, spiritualized cinematography would have been hard, if not impossible, to top. Sokurov reacted … Read more

Tomáš Glanc, The Russian Archipelago: Icons of Post-Soviet Culture, Prague: Revolver Revue, 2011, 353 PP.

Published in Prague some twenty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Tomáš Glanc’s The Russian Archipelago: Icons of Post-Soviet Culture is an idiosyncratic but highly readable and far-reaching survey of Russian cultural space from 1990 to 2010. The book proceeds from a 45-page contextualizing introduction and a brief explanation of (and apologia for) its unconventional format to a series of seventeen portraits of individual artists who have “distinctively influenced” Russian culture of the past two decades. Remarkably, the author’s collection of seventeen … Read more

Agata Jakubowska, Katarzyna Szotkowska-Beylin, eds., Lovely, human, true, heartfelt: the letters of Alina Szapocznikow and Ryszard Stanis?awski, 1948–1971 [“Museum Under Construction” series, no. 6], transl. Jennifer Croft, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2012, 380 PP.

Following the exhibitions Awkward Objects (Warsaw, 2009) and Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972 (Brussels, Los Angeles, New York, 2011-2012) the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw published the meticulously compiled Lovely, Human, True, Heartfelt: The Letters of Alina Szapocznikow and Ryszard Stanis?awski 1948-1971. The volume comprises letters, postcards and telegrams, accompanied by drawings and photographs of Szapocznikow. Only a few letters of … Read more

Queering Yerevan (eds.) Queered: What’s to be done with Xcentric art? Queering Yerevan Collective, 2011, Yerevan (Armenia), 336 pp.

The notion of identity, being it ethnic, religious, politic or sexual, marks a key feature of the public reality of post-communist transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Queer theory brings a radical political discourse that disrupts the comfortable public arena, employing the means of contemporary art and performativity throughout their actions. Queering Yerevan is a group of female artists, writers, performers, critics and translators active in Yerevan and in the Armenian diaspora. Their recently published book, Queered: What’s to be done … Read more

Notes from the Future of Art: Selected Writings by Jerzy Ludwiński, ed. Magdalena Ziółkowska, Eindhoven Rotterdam: Van Abbemuseum, Veenman Publishers, 2007, 240 pp.

After the great success of comprehensive translational enterprises, such as Between Worlds (2002) and Primary Documents (2002)See Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes 1910-1939, ed. T. O. Bensen É. Forgács (Cambridge: The MIT Press 2002); Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s, eds. L. Hoptman, T. Pospiszyl (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002)., the volume Notes from the Future of Art: Selected Writings … Read more

Ukryta dekada. Polska sztuka wideo 1985-1995 / The Hidden Decade: Polish Video Art 1985-1995, eds. Piotr Krajewski, Violetta Kutlubasis-Krajewska, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw 2010, 336 p.

Given the contributions of feminism or New Historicism, the statement that there is no such thing as complete and cohesive ‘”great narrative” appears to be a cliché. When writing a history, especially the first historical outline of an art field, one will inevitably get involved in the politics of inclusion and exclusion (the canon), and one will have to answer questions such as: who is speaking? and from where? Such questions evidently beset … Read more

Transitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009, Edit András (ed.), Budapest: Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art / ACAX, 2009

“Video,” writes the editor of the volume, Edit András, “was pretty much the medium of transition (…) it was the first liberal media of the period (…) the strand of visual arts that through its inherent characteristic, kept and reflected recent history to the utmost.”(Transitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009, Edit András (ed.), Budapest: Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art / ACAX, 2009, p. 226.) András’s volume Transitland. Video Art … Read more

Gender i transgressiya v vizualnykh iskusstvakh [Gender and Transgression in VisualCultures]. Almira Ustanova, Editor. Vilnius: European Humanities University, 2007. 217 pp.

This collection of essays, the second in a series entitled Visual and Cultural Explorations (Vizualnye i kulturnye issledovanie), is the product of a conference held at the European Humanities University in Vilnius during April 2003. The forum gathered scholars from Belarus, Lithuania, and England to theorize the terra incognita left uncovered in Russian language scholarly publications on gender representations in visual culture. In particular these authors, according to the introduction by Almira Ousmanova, set out to … Read more

Mos-Angeles Two. Vladimir Paperny. Moscow: NLO, 2009. 216 pp.

Vladimir Paperny’s new book Mos-Angeles Two is a retrospective, nostalgic compilation of writings from the author’s recent and distant past. Revealing personal and professional motivations, describing spaces and feelings both imaginary and real, the introspective approach of his book makes for a highly personal project. Paperny was raised and educated in Moscow and then settled in the U.S. with the “third wave.”  A skilled art historian and designer, he emigrated during the political epoch ironically called “the flourishing of the sundown” (rastsvet zakata), with its closed artistic dissident … Read more

East European Art 1650-1950. Jeremy Howard. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006., 258 pp.

“The aim here,” states Jeremy Howard in his introduction, “is a redefinition of what may be considered the art of eastern Europe.” Ambitious enough, one might think, but he goes on to proclaim that the book should “at least partially, deconstruct some of the prevailingnotions and myths of what comprises European art per se.”(Jeremy Howard, East European Art 1650-1950, (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1. Original emphasis retained.) Clearly, the author has set out to write a … Read more

PIOTR PIOTROWSKI, IN THE SHADOW OF YALTA. ART AND THE AVANT GARDE IN EASTERN EUROPE 1945-1989, LONDON: REAKTION BOOKS LTD., 2009. 498 PP.

In the Shadow of Yalta. Art and Avant-Garde in Eastern Europe 1945-1989, the long-awaited English translation of Piotr Piotrowski’s 2004 book, boasts of a well-chosen title not only for its descriptive qualities, but also because it refers to the rather dark and indistinct history of a particular portion of Eastern Europe: the area falling under the Soviet regime following the Yalta Agreement in 1945. Piotrowski begins his story in 1948, the year that Stalin tightened … Read more

MEL JORDAN AND MALCOLM MILES (EDS.), ART AND THEORY AFTER SOCIALISM. BRISTOL, (UK/CHICAGO, USA: INTELLECT BOOKS, 2008). 125 PP.

The cover image for Art and Theory After Socialism—a ramshackle hammer and sickle inscribed with the Russian word restoran (“restaurant”)—informs prospective readers know that the book’s primary focus will be on Eastern Europe. In fact, the essays it contains do touch on various points in the erstwhile Eastern bloc (East Germany, Serbia, Poland, and Armenia). As the book progresses, however, it becomes evident that the post-socialist landscape under consideration is an ideological rather than a geographical one. It is … Read more

BORIS GROYS, ART POWER. CAMBRIDGE: MIT PRESS, 2008. 224 PP.

“The notion of art,” Boris Groys writes near the start of Art Power, “is today almost synonymous with the notion of the art market.”(Boris Groys, Art Power (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 4.) In less dexterous hands, this argument could swiftly slip into hollow polemic. But Groys continues with something surprising: “to perceive the critique of commodification as the main or even unique goal of contemporary art is just to reaffirm the total power of the art market – even if this reaffirmation takes a form of … Read more

Timothy O. Benson (ed.), Central-European Avant-Gardes. Exchange and Transformation (1910-1930), (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). Timothy O. Benson, Éva Forgács (eds.): Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes (1910 – 1930), (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).

The project of Timothy O. Benson and his team, entitled Central-European Avant-Gardes, is great in two aspects: it is enormous in its content and utopian in its nature. The multi-dimensional volume is divided into two books. The first one includes articles, manifestos, essays, program considerations, and textual sources about the subject. The second volume is structured as a catalog of an exhibition, divided according to … Read more

Barbara Vanderlinden and Elena Filipovic, (eds.): The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe. MIT Press, 2006. 340 pp.

In every corner of the world, on a yearly, monthly, or by now almost weekly basis, new biennials are shooting up out of the ground like mushrooms. While the radius of their impact was at first limited to Europe and North America, the magnitude of global successor events should not be underestimated. In fact, it is precisely these events that simultaneously generate a local and international discursive climate. In the course of time it has … Read more

ARRIVALS > ART FROM THE NEW EUROPE. Suzanne Cotter, Andrew Nairne and Victoria Pomery (eds.) Oxford: Modern Art Oxford, Turner Contemporary, 2007.

This beautifully designed book contains the records of ten exhibitions organized over a period of two years by Modern Art Oxford, an established public gallery, and Turner Contemporary, a new cultural institution at Margate. Works by artists from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, as well as Malta and Cyprus, have been selected for exhibition as part of the exploration of the post-Wall “New Europe” segment of the European Union. With the appearance … Read more

Hans Günther and Sabine Hänsgen (eds.): Sovietskaia vlast i media. Sankt Peterburg: Akademicheskii proekt, 2006. 620 pp.

Sovietskaia vlast i media (Soviet Power and Media), a collection of articles edited by Hans Günther and Sabine Hänsgen, was published by Akademicheskii proekt in St. Petersburg in 2006. The publication was an outcome of an international conference of the same name, held within the framework of a research project on “The Political as a Space of Communication in History,” at Bielefeld University. The conference, as well as the subsequent publication, aimed at tracing the transformations of “the political” in … Read more

Tom Sandqvist. Dada East: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire. MIT Press, 2006.

Tom Sandqvist’s book, Dada East: the Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire, is an example of the growing Western interest in the Central and Eastern European avant-garde. This interest has at least two precedents worthy of notice: Steven Mansbach’s book, Modern Art in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to the Balkans ca. 1890-1939Stephen Mansbach, Modern Art in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to the Balkans ca. 1890-1939, (Cambridge University Press, 1997).  and an important exhibition organized by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Central European Avant-gardes: 1910-1930… Read more

Marina Grzinic, Guenther Heeg, Veronika Darian (eds.), Mind the Map! History Is Not Given! A Critical Anthology Based on the Symposium. Leipzig: Institute of Theater Studies, 2006.

Central Europe: What is it? The whole collection of the small nations between two powers, Russia and Germany. The eastern-most edge of the West…Is it true that the borders of Central Europe are impossible to trace in any exact, lasting way? It is indeed! Those nations have never been masters of either their own destinies or their borders. They have rarely been the subjects of history, almost always its objects. Their unity … Read more

IRWIN (eds). EAST ART MAP: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe. An Afterall Book: Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, 2006. – 527 p., with an appended map.

EAST ART MAP is an edition that sums up IRWIN’s more than 15-year-long experience in networking, institutional activity, curating, and artistic research in the problems of contemporary art and how this latter’s agendas are received, reproduced, interpreted, and revised in the vast post-socialist territory that for lack of a better name one refers to as Eastern Europe.

Contemporary art elsewhere discovered Eastern Europe after the … Read more

Boris Groys and Michael Hagemeister (Eds.), The New Humankind. Biopolitical Utopias in Russia at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.

Boris Groys and Michael Hagemeister (Eds.), At Zero Point. Positions of the Russian Avantgarde. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.

Boris Groys, Anne von der Heiden and Peter Weibel. (Eds), Back from the Future. Eastern European Cultures in the Age of Post-Communism. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.

These three books – two anthologies of poetical, philosophical and aesthetic-political texts written in Russia between 1906 and 1935, and the proceedings of a phenomenal conference held in Berlin (The Post-Communist … Read more