ARTMargins

Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

Tagged: Eastern European art

ARTMargins Online: Book Reviews

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 by Tomáš Pospiszyl  ·

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 … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Articles

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 by Christopher Williams-Wynn ·

“Ende statt Wende”: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt’s Typewritings and the Critique of German Reunification

When checking the mail in either of the two Germanys in February 1990, one might have expected to find the usual mixture of bills and junk, as well as personal correspondence and official letters. More unusually, the mailbox might have contained an SOS message: “This is a cry for help!” Written as a plea for support, notably in English, this short text called on individuals to write to the parliamentary bodies of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and decried the destruction of “social circumstances and rights” in the GDR. This distress signal had been … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Articles / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Alina Șerban ·

In and Out of the Box: Leaps in East/East Dialogues Through the Transnational Activities of Constantin Flondor

A short glance at the East/East dialogues within the timeline of Romanian art of the 1970s and 1980s allows us to identify existing (in)formal cross-border exchanges which foregrounded geopolitical alliances and sporadically connected Romanian artists with like-minded spirits. In the artistic context of the 1970s and 1980s, the state institutions were responsible for foreign cultural agreements and the organization of research trips and touring exhibitions, as well as establishing cultural cooperation with other socialist countries. The assumption that traveling within the Bloc was possible without much difficulty does not always hold true since opportunities were mostly accessible to artists and … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Articles / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Zsuzsa László ·

Dictionaries of Friendship: Transnational Artistic Dialogues in First Person Plural

In 1978, Nick Waterlow, the artistic director of the third Sydney Biennale, “European Dialogue,” visited Budapest and agreed with the Hungarian art historian, László Beke that he would put together an informative exhibition of documents and original works covering the activities of several Hungarian artists. Beke, who was by then an internationally renowned advocate of East European Conceptualisms accepted this task but avoided the burdensome role of a national consultant by involving artists not only from Hungary but also from four other socialist countries. As he stated in the catalogue, he did not attempt to make an objective representation of … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Articles

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 by ARTMargins Online Editorial Collective ·

László Beke (1944–2022): A Collective Obituary

László Beke, the Hungarian curator and art historian who from the late 1960s became one of the key catalysts of art networks and cross-border collaborations within and beyond Eastern Europe‚ died on January 31 of this year. He published articles, compiled publications, lectured, curated projects and exhibitions on various aspects of progressive art, including Conceptualism, photography, semiotics, Fluxus, Dada, and the post-contemporary (referring to the situation after the era of contemporary art), and, most importantly, pursued his utopian commitment to East European art. Between 1969 and 1986 he was a research fellow at the Research Institute for Art History of … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Book Reviews

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 by Cristian Nae ·

Central and Eastern European Art since 1950

Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Central and Eastern European Art since 1950 (London: Thames and Hudson, 2020), 232 pp.

When Piotr Piotrowski published his now-famous art historical surveys In the Shadow of Yalta. Art and the Avant-Garde in Eastern Europe 1945-1989 and Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, the art of the region was only superficially known to broader audiences. It was mostly presented in group or solo exhibitions, and via several monographic studies, and it never acquired the kind of celebrity that ”non-conformist” art from the former Soviet Union enjoyed.  In line with other theorists focused on post-colonial … Read more