Horizontal Art History and Beyond: Revisiting Peripheral Critical Practices
Agata Jakubowska and Magdalena Radomska, eds., Horizontal Art History and Beyond: Revisiting Peripheral Critical Practices (New York and London: Routledge, 2023), 223 pp.
Piotr Piotrowski (1952–2015) continues to be regarded as one of the most significant figures in the art history of modern and contemporary art in Eastern Europe. Piotrowski’s work has not only influenced his Polish colleagues. His international activities and translations of his texts have ensured that he remains one of the few art historians from Eastern Europe known to experts beyond the borders of the region. His book In the Shadow of Yalta, published in English in 2009, represents an unparalleled attempt at a transnational perspective on post-war art in Eastern Europe, while simultaneously exemplifying his theoretical tenets.(Piotr Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe 1945–1989 (London: Reaktion Books, 2009).)
In contrast to numerous Eastern European art historians and curators, Piotrowski ultimately ceased to believe that it was feasible to rectify the marginalization of Eastern European art by the redistribution of attention. He realized that the only viable solution is to change the overarching paradigm of global art history. The result of Piotrowski’s reflections became the theory of horizontal art history. At its core is the conviction that it is necessary to abandon vertical hierarchies and canons and to find a new way of considering artistic production from cultural centers and peripheries on an equal footing. He proposed to examine individual works of art in their own geographical and cultural contexts first, and only then ponder their relationship.
Piotrowski’s oeuvre remains to exert a profound and enduring influence a decade after his death, even though horizontal art history can be regarded as a mere outline of theory. Piotrowski introduced its conception in several articles, the essential part of which was a critique of the current state of art historical research. His other texts concentrated on the situation of Eastern European art, and the horizontal history of art can thus be considered a proposition that still needs to be refined and tested. And art history in Eastern Europe—and not only in this region—has indeed repeatedly returned to it. This is demonstrated by the current volume entitled Horizontal Art History and Beyond: Revisiting Peripheral Critical Practices, edited by Agata Jakubowska and Magdalena Radomska.
Both editors were close colleagues of Piotrowski and can be considered leading promoters of his legacy. Piotrowski supervised Jakubowska’s dissertation and both worked together at the University of Poznań. At the same university, Radomska is the current director of the Piotr Piotrowski Center for Research on East-Central European Art. The volume under review is not the first book on Piotrowski edited by both. There is a collection of essays prepared by them, After Piotr Piotrowski: Art, Democracy and Friendship, which deals more generally with Piotrowski’s legacy.(Agata Jakubowska and Magdalena Radomska, eds., After Piotr Piotrowski: Art, Democracy and Friendship, (Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University Press, 2019).) A special issue of the Czech journal Umění/Art may also be considered a precursor to the present book, asking how horizontal art history contributed to a shift in our understanding of central European modernism.(Umění/Art LXIX, no. 2 (2021).)
Horizontal Art History and Beyond: Revisiting Peripheral Critical Practices comprises seventeen essays by a diverse group of authors who engage with the concept of horizontal art history from a range of perspectives. The contributors include Piotrowski’s colleagues as well as critics and art historians from Eastern Europe and other regions of the globe. When they present their take on Horizontal Art History, many share an observation formulated by Dan Karlhom in his chapter titled “From Horizontal Art History to Lateral Art Studies”: Piotrowski’s concept represents a diagnosis of the current situation rather than a proposed course of action. In order to effect systemic change and a reorientation of world art history, it is necessary to move beyond the critical analysis of the status quo and to pursue a more constructive strategy. And this is exactly what most writers in the book do.
The volume is of considerable length and is structured into four sections, each of which is defined by a specific theme. The first section examines the social and political implications of Piotrowski’s contributions, while the subsequent one presents case studies that illustrate the application of Piotrowski’s theory in diverse geographical and thematic contexts. The third section comprises a critical examination and an updated conceptualization of the notion of horizontal art history. The final section offers an analysis of potential alternatives to this theory. Due to the extensive number of authors contributing to this volume, it is not feasible to provide a detailed analysis of each individual text. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to identify and discuss the most noteworthy contributions from each section.
The text by Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius, which opens the book, occupies a position between a methodological treatise and a memoir written by a former collaborator. The text builds a connection between the theory of horizontal art history and Piotrowski’s concept of the critical museum, which was operationalized during his tenure as head of the National Museum in Warsaw. While one has to acknowledge the commendable efforts that Piotrowski made in this conservative institution in a relatively short period of time, it is important to recognize that his fight to transform a traditional museum into a social forum does not represent an “entirely new model” of museum work, as Murawska-Muthesius claims in the opening lines. Instead, it can be seen as historically significant in Eastern Europe, bravely reflecting tendencies that have emerged in global museological theory and practice since the 1980s. Furthermore, Murawska-Muthesius links Piotrowski’s work at the National Museum with the decision of the international museum organization ICOM to revise its definition of the museum. After considerable debate, the definition was changed in 2022 to emphasize the importance of inclusion, diversity, and critical dialogue. This represents the pinnacle of the aforementioned tendencies of the New Museology movement, which, at the very least, provide a rationale for Piotrowski’s seemingly self-destructive endeavor. He arrived at the Polish National Museum with a radical proposal to challenge all established assumptions regarding classical museological practice in post-socialist countries. This plan was more akin to an artistic intervention than to a feasible educational strategy.(See more at “Piotr Piotrowski About His Resignation from the Polish National Museum,” ArtMargins Online, December 26, 2010, https://artmargins.com/piotr-piotrowski-resignation-polish-national-museum/.)
Jakubowska’s text represents the most profound and thought-provoking contribution to the section of case studies on horizontal art history. It addresses the relationship between horizontal art history and feminist art history. As Jakubowska points out, the contributions of women to the field of art have been persistently and systematically overlooked by Western art history. Feminist art history has sought to challenge existing art historical canons already since the 1970s, exploring the potential for a paradigmatic shift informed by gendered perspective. Aware of this connection, Piotrowski aligned himself with feminist theory, proclaiming his concept of horizontal art history a universal tool for artistic emancipation, including the emancipation of women in art. Jakubowska notes that Piotrowski’s own writing exhibits inconsistency in its treatment of women artists. He observed the presence of women artists primarily in works that addressed the human body, a subject matter that is stereotypically associated with femininity. In other areas of art, he paid only minimal attention to the works of women artists. Jakubowska therefore characterizes Piotrowski’s relationship to feminism as “awkward.” Concurrently, the author presents an illuminating examination of how Western theory’s modes of hegemony prevail. According to Jakubowska, Eastern Europe has been colonized by the Western notion of feminism, marginalizing or replacing local traditions in this field. The tradition of women’s art that emerged in the context of state socialism has to be rediscovered since it represents an alternative path to artistic emancipation that can enrich this discourse on a global scale.
The section devoted to the contradictions of Piotrowski’s method includes the essay, “Internal Contradictions of Horizontal Art History” by Maja and Reuben Fowkes. They undertake a critical examination of several themes associated with Piotrowski’s work. The authors of the recently published book Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950 surprisingly pose the question of whether a transnational history of Eastern European art is still a necessity today.(Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950, World of Art, (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 2020).) They suggest that it may be called into question as a result of the shift from the binary view of the Cold War. As a key issue with Piotrowski’s theory and practice they identify his belief that political events are the primary drivers of artistic production in Eastern Europe. According to them, such an approach fails to consider the technological, general cultural, or purely aesthetic factors that also significantly exerted an influence on the history of art in the region. Jakubowska’s aforementioned contribution offers a compelling response to this objection. The political dimension of Eastern European art after 1989 can be seen, among other things, in its critical approach to the Western idea of the political, and it can have—paradoxically from the perspective of 1989 spirit—the dimension of defending the social gains of state socialism.
It is possible that Jérôme Bazin’s text, “Cultural Backwardness and Economic Backwardness: How Can Horizontal Art History Tackle Socioeconomic Issues?” from the same part of the book will be perceived as quite controversial in Eastern Europe. The author attempts to reframe the concept of backwardness from an ideological construct to a reality with which the global peripheries are acutely confronted. He queries why the term has been deemed inappropriate or even unfair in the context of art history in recent decades, yet continues to be used in economics without causing offense. And he is trying to adapt it to art after all. I believe that Bazin intended his text as a provocation that was to lead to an enriching debate (such as, for example, the concept of provincializing the centers). A similar gesture would have required Bazin to be more precise in wording and, above all, more thoughtful with references to Eastern European cultural realities and its current theoretical reflections. The results are more arrogant than productive.
Let us see some examples. Bazin proposes that alternative polarities, such as richness-poverty or concentration-dispersion, may prove more fruitful than the conventional center-periphery axis. While centers offer a greater concentration of professional and artistic opportunities, they are also characterized by a tendency towards conformity. Bazin illustrates this by a letter from the Slovak artist Alex Mlynárčík to the French critic Raoul-Jean Moulin, in which the artist laments the unappealing appearance of the art world of the 1970s in Venice, Kassel, and Paris. On this basis, Bazin believes that the centers had no influence on Mlynárčik and that he rather enjoyed a genuinely creative “dispersion” in his native country. Nevertheless, such a random crumb of personal mythology cannot be regarded as a valid point of reference as Bazin himself admits in the end.
Bazin challenges horizontal art history as a theory that gives value to art that in other contexts has no value: he understands it as a tool of egalitarian valorization. Moreover, Bazin disturbingly draws a parallel between the issues raised by Piotrowski’s horizontal art history and the debates within the Central Committee of the USSR Artists’ Union regarding the status of so-called amateur artists in the 1970s. Can these artists be considered comparable to real, professional artists? Such a comparison is derogatory and says more about who used it than about Piotrowski. Does Bazin consider himself to be the one who can define true art? Bazin seems to truly believe in the objectivity of artistic backwardness, i.e. the “natural” order of the vertical arrangement of world cultural production.
In the concluding section of the book, the Swiss art historian Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel presents a particularly inspiring alternative to horizontal art history, in her chapter, “Why Horizontal Art History Cannot Escape Computation.” She is cognizant of the potential pitfall of its emphasis on local context, which could result in a shift away from international narratives towards a proliferation of individual case studies. Such an approach carries the risk of fostering an agnostic mindset that could potentially lead to the disintegration of the discipline into a multitude of relativized particulars. Therefore, she deems this approach practically unrealistic. She highlights that modern art in particular presents a distinct and widely recognized narrative based on development and innovation, on centers and peripheries. In the absence of such a framework, global modern art will inevitably disintegrate into disparate fragments. According to her, the relationship between the center and the periphery is an inherent aspect of modern artistic discourse and does not necessarily imply domination. Conversely, it is evident that even postcolonial art history generates its own hierarchies and canons, which are not universally applicable to the vast array of overlooked artistic works from around the globe.
Joyeux-Prunel argues that local case studies alone do not provide enough potential to generalize their findings. Their interpretation is contingent upon the existence of a general theory or hypothesis that provides a framework for their analysis. However, she asserts that horizontal art history lacks such a framework. Moreover, she demonstrates that such approaches can result in what she terms “methodological nationalism,” which employs art history as a vehicle for nationalist agendas. She presents us with a compelling argument that the concept of horizontal art history could be made more generalizable by incorporating the methods of the digital humanities. Online databases allow researchers to apply computational practices that facilitate the development of global art history in a way that is both generalizable and free from the stereotypes of art geopolitics. To illustrate this, she references her published works on the history of avant-garde art, which have underscored the significance of the peripheries in the formation of modernity.
The occasion of the tenth anniversary of Piotrowski’s passing offers an opportunity to reflect on how the field of horizontal art history has changed over the last decade. The worldwide resistance to universalist art histories has intensified and in fact, did turn the existing paradigm towards what was once considered peripheral. Eastern Europe has long since ceased attempting to demonstrate the similarities between its art and that of the West. Instead, it has focused on the distinctive characteristics of its art, including the rehabilitation of the culture of state socialism. Piotrowski’s critical yet not dismissive stance towards postcolonial theories as a methodology applicable to the study of art in Eastern Europe has proven to be highly prescient. What was previously regarded as an unconventional or even exotic source of inspiration has since become mainstream within the academic community in Eastern Europe.
Horizontal Art History and Beyond, in its multifaceted nature, can be regarded as a paradoxical, yet successful testament to Piotrowski’s oeuvre. While the majority of contributors align with the concept of horizontal art history to various degrees, nearly all of them offer some form of critique, addition, or suggestion for improvement. The volume clearly displays that Piotrowski was not the first nor the last to challenge the dominance of Western art history. A similar approach has already been articulated in recent decades within postcolonial studies and feminist art history. In his chapter “Allegories of Orientation,” Terry Smith lists no fewer than a dozen attempts to reorient art history from a vertical to a horizontal system, including his own from 1974. Furthermore, he reiterates the most prevalent critique levied against Piotrowski. “If we are seeking a unifying concept to encapsulate the most fruitful approach to the writing of histories of modern and contemporary art, it is evident that the principal limitation of Piotrowski’s proposal concerning horizontality is its broad scope.” (p. 179) I must respectfully disagree with this assertion. The originality and appeal of Piotrowski’s proposal lie exactly in this broad scope and openness. It is not a practical tool; yet it is a metaphorical device that proved highly effective. As the individual contributions in the book demonstrate, the concepts presented by Piotrowski are accessible to any interested party and can be employed in contemporary endeavors to construct a global art history.
