During the Cold War the exchange of artistic ideas and products united Europe's avant-garde in a most remarkable way. Despite the Iron Curtain and national and political borders there existed a constant flow of artists, artworks, artistic ideas and practices. The geographic borders of these exchanges have yet to be clearly defined. How were networks, centers, peripheries, scales, and distances constructed? How did (neo)avant-garde tendencies relate with officially sanctioned socialist realism? By discussing artworks, studying the writings on art, observing artistic evolution and artists' strategies, as well as the influence of political authorities, art dealers and art critics, the essays in Art beyond Borders compose a transnational history of arts in the Soviet satellite countries in the post war period.
This paper will examine the expanded role Contemporary art has assumed in rebranding Paris, France's flagship capital, as a cutting edge, technological, innovative and competitive global city. Paris has effectively incorporated contemporary art into the fabric of the whole city with exhibitions such as those originating at the Grand Palais spreading to venues throughout the inner and outer 'quartier'. France has used arts and culture to claim supremacy in the world whether colonial or local for centuries with Paris the ultimate 'brand'. Post WWII Paris however, saw this brand diminished and claims to artistic supremacy replaced by New York. In an effort to regain some relevancy Paris, and by extension France, began the process of re-branding concordant with political, economic and technological advancement through the fervent promotion of contemporary art. Contemporary Paris through contemporary art aspires to a transnational and post-national site of spectacle; a leading locus for art to be consumed. Paris's mass contemporary art consumption era began in 1972 with De Gaulle's efforts to replace military and imperial power with cultural dominance (though the recent concurrent inaugurations of outposts for the French military and the Louvre in Abu Dhabi may suggest a 'rapprochement' of the domains), inaugurating a litany of new contemporary exhibitions, art fairs, monuments and museums. Furthermore, with the redefinition of contemporary French art from an art produced by French artists to art produced in the "territory of France", this universalizing re-branding of contemporary art attempts to validate Paris's claim to global cultural supremacy. I discuss particular events such as the art fair FIAC, La Force de L' Art and Monumenta to illustrate the use of Contemporary art to shape and brand contemporary Paris.
This essay looks at modern Italian art circulating in the United States in the interwar period. Prior to the canonization of recent decades of Italy's artistic scene through MoMA's 1949 show Twentieth-Century Italian Art, the Carnegie International exhibitions of paintings in Pittsburgh were the premier stage in America for Italian artists seeking the spotlight. Moreover, the Italian government actively sought to promote its own positive image as a patron state in world fairs, and through art gallery exhibitions. Drawing mostly on primary sources, this essay explores how the identity of modern Italian art was negotiated in the critical discourses and in the interplay between Italian and American promoters. While in Italy much of the criticism boasted a self-assuring "untranslatable" character of national art through the centuries, and was obsessed by the chauvinistic ambition of regaining cultural primacy, especially against the French, the returns for those various artists and patrons who ventured to conquer the American art scene were meager. Rather than successfully affirming the modern Italian school, they remained largely entangled in a shadow zone, between the glaring prestige of French modernism and the glory of the old masters (paradoxically enough, the only Italian "retrospective" approved by MoMA before 1949). Some Italian modernists, such as Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio de Chirico, and Massimo Campigli, continued to be perceived as French, while the inherent duality and ambiguity in the critical discourse undergirding the Novecento and the more expressionist younger generation – which struggled to conflate Italianism and modernity, traditionalism and vanguardism – made the marketing of an Italian school more difficult. Therefore, despite some temporary critical success and sales, for example for Felice Carena, Ferruccio Ferrazzi, and Felice Casorati, the language of the Italian Novecento was largely "lost in translation."
History, Use Value, and the Contemporary Work or Labour of Art examines the relationships between our current conception of contemporary art practice as work or labour and situates this within a historical discourse of work or labour as Use Value (re-Marx, Das Kapital, vol.1, 1867) or, more specifically, the idea that art, as a form of non-alienated labour, can act as both an aesthetic and ethical rebuff to the physical and mental alienation and fractalization of insturmentalized labour under our present conditions of neo-liberal globalization. As such the essay seeks to re—examine the relationship of aesthetics to politics in Rancière's notion of a 'meta-politics of aesthetics' and to offer alternative ways of thinking through and beyond this binarism through a re-reading of ethical labour in Marx and Hegel's proposition of the 'Unhappy Consciousness' in 'The Phenomenology of Sprit' (1807). The book What's the Use? Consteallations of Art, History, and Knowledge: A Critical Reader, also contains articles by international writers John Ruskin, Adrian Rifkin, Georges Didi-Huberman, George Yúdice and artists Tania Bruguera and Liam Gillick.
The visual arts (like music and literature) have been immeasurably enriched by the contributions of artists from every land. In every nation, there is a unique story of cross-fertilization and cultural contributions by the immigrant imagination, coming from every direction of the globe. This paper will introduce historical and recent refugee art by examining imagery created by outcasts, usually in refugee camps which, by their political definition, are meant to have no history, no permanence and (like their residents), no future. These travellers, like their imagery, is meant to be forgotten.
What role might art exert in light of the challenges posed by climate change, resource depletion, and the diverse political and cultural crises our societies face in the twenty-first century? The hypothesis guiding this book is born of Félix Guattari's claim that in confronting the multi-faceted problems of our global political economy we need to develop a more complex analysis of nature, culture and technology, shifting from catastrophic, end-of-the world narratives to productive, generative, trans-species alliances for the sake of the sustainability of life on the planet. Because capitalism is no longer understood merely as a mode of production but as a system of semiotization, homogenization, and of transmission of forms of power over goods, labour and individuals, only the emergence of other relational subjective formations would be able to counteract the fixation of desire towards capital and its diverse crystallizations of power. New social practices, new aesthetic practices and new practices of the self in relation to the other are summoned to undertake an ethical-political reinvention of life. As Guattari argues, it is about reappropiating universes of value and paving the way for the emergence of processes of singularization involving a mutating subjectivity, a mutating socius, and a mutating environment. This book is engaged in thinking about the conjunction of the ecological turn in contemporary art and the attention given to matter in recent humanist scholarship as a way of exploring how new configurations of the world suggest new ways of being and acting in that world. Contributors investigate the means by which art can act as an existential catalysist, providing ways of changing our modes of relation beyond traditional modes of representation and, in doing so, instituting transformation.
In the 1930s, when the world-renowned Medieval and Renaissance art scholar Erwin Panofsky became acquainted with the New York contemporary art scene, he was challenged with the most difficult dilemma for art historians. How could Panofsky, who was firmly entrenched in the kunstwissenschaftliche study of art, use his historical methods for the scholarly research of contemporary art? Can art historians deal with the art objects of their own time? This urgent and still current question of how to think about "contemporaneity" in relation to art history is the main topic of this paper, which departs from Panofsky's 1934 review of a book on modern art. In his review of James Johnson Sweeny's book Plastic Redirections in 20th Century Painting, Panofsky's praise for Sweeney's scholarly "distance" from contemporary art developments in Europe is backed by a claim for America's cultural distance, rather than a (historical) removal in time. Taking a closer look at Panofsky's conflation of historical/temporal distance with geographical/cultural distance, this paper demonstrates a politically situated discourse on contemporaneity, in which Panofsky proposes the act of writing about the contemporary as a redemptive act, albeit, as this paper will demonstrate, without being able to follow his own scientific method.
Today we are witnessing the emergence of antagonism, a dimension intrinsically bound to the human beings, which results from the expression of specific power relations composing social hegemonies, that inevitably want to prevail over each other. Furthermore, the system of symbols produced by the dominant hegemony to maintain the control, has pervaded all sides of the human sphere, creating its own aesthetic. According to Chantal Mouffe (2013), the antagonist dimension could be solved, or better yet sublimated, through its conversion to agonism, which is realized through discussion and confrontation among peers. In this context, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse how contemporary art practices might operate as effective counter-hegemonic processes, taking into account the particularity inherent in ethics (Badiou, 2001) and the political dimension to which art is intrinsically bound (Rancière, 2004). After a first theoretical backbone, which presents an analysis of participatory art and deepens the concept of agonistic approach, I consider the practice of three artists, Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), Paweł Althamer (1967) and Tania Bruguera (1968), whose works are challenging the viewer in a counter-hegemonic manner, to answer the main question of this dissertation: how should the artists engage the viewer through their artistic practices and actions? It will be seen that the work of these artists seems to tell that the artistic practice should not be superior to the spectator, neither an explicit complaint. It should question the system, being a subtle trigger for the beholder, inducing a reaction, a dialogue, an autonomous reflection.
According to Hannah Arendt, a free and public space is an essential condition for democracy. She presents this free and public space as a space between us, where different voices are expressed and are being heard (Arendt, 2012). In order to maintain a democratic social model, the school system needs to facilitate these open spaces where students can acquire knowledge, develop skills and values they need to become active democratic citizens, as well as giving practical training in exercising them. This article gives an insight on how these competences can be learned in an art museum through dialogue. The argumentation in the article relies upon the research of art mediation at Kunstnernes Hus. The research includes qualitative examinations of a specific case where high school-students encountered artworks by Vanessa Baird. ; Democracy education, which is a fundamental part of the Norwegian school model, has in recent years become especially significant in national and international political climates, which have been characterised by an increased polarisation. As seen through the lens of Hannah Arendt's political theory conceived in the wake of World War II and affected by the anxiety of totalitarianism, excessive polarisation of political debates leads to the disappearance of a free public space where different voices can be expressed and heard. According to Arendt, a free and public space is an essential condition for democracy to exist. In order to maintain a democratic social model, the school system needs to facilitate these open spaces for dialogue, where students can acquire knowledge, develop the skills and values they need to become active democratic citizens and receive practical training in exercising them. This article aims to explore how an art institution can become a genuine open and public space, where students' encounters with contemporary art can contribute to democracy education. The argumentation is based on research from a case study at Kunstnernes Hus, where students from an upper-secondary school encountered artworks by Vanessa Baird.
This book illustrates the history of the Gypsy/Roma issue in the wider context of Hungarian national history, relying on state policy documents. The volume questions dominant discourse on the Roma and critically examines earlier knowledge of the Roma in Hungary. The authors track events and narratives from the historical turning point of 1945 to the present. The effects of continuities in policies toward Gypsies (e.g., continuing marginalization) are presented and interpreted, as are the results of changes in political institutions and processes. Written from an equality and human rights perspective, this book reinterprets the history of the power and social science discourse that constructed and defined the Roma.
As the Internet created borderless and free society, its effects concluded with the expansion of networks that enabled new forms of interaction and communication. Also via this new form of communication, artists obtained another form of interactivity, by which the quasi-liberated artists have included ?tactics? to interact from within an institution or merely using public space, or cyberspace under the development of ?New Media Art?. While both photography and video receded as sole mediums, instead with the aid of this exciting new communication tool new modes of representation have emerged through the mixture of different mediums. So artists? standpoint has changed from being an artist that only produces an art object to be on display at an institution to being an artist that seeks to generate a question mark by provoking the audience?s experience or knowledge and by engaging in dominant political and economical order. The coining of the term Tactical Media corresponds with the development of new media tools. Tactical Media artists use genealogies of new media art and carry their discourse to another level of interaction, intervention and disruption. By studying Tactical Media practices in contemporary art in Turkey that engage in different media outlets in order to create a critique rather than an opposition, this thesis aims to recognize the new media tools, artistic intentions and tactics of representation emergent in contemporary art in Turkey. ; Internetin sınırsız ve özgür toplumu yaratması, iletişim ağlarının küresel olarak genişlemesine neden oldu. Bu sayede özgürleşen sanatçılar bu yeni iletişim platformunu kullanarak, kurumlar bünyesinde, kamusal alanda veya sanal alemde Yeni Media Sanatı adı altında taktikler kullanmaya başladılar. Sanatçının duruşu müzede sergilenmek üzere sanat objesi tasarlayan kişi olmaktan çıkmış, yerine dominant politik ve ekonomik düzene dahil olan, izleyicinin deneyim ve bilgisini dürtmeye yönelik sorular üreten kişi olmuştur. Taktiksel Medya teriminin ortaya çıkması yeni medya araçlarının doğuşu ve gelişimine denk gelmektedir. Taktiksel Medya sanatçıları, yeni medya sanatının tamamını kullanarak kendi tartışmalarını müdahale, bozulma ve etkileşim gibi farklı kavramlarla birleştirmişlerdir. Bu tez, Türkiye Çağdaş Sanat'ında var olan ve farklı medya araçlarını kullanıp genel geçer düzeni eleştirmeyi hedefleyen Taktiksel Medya pratiklerini inceleyerek, Türkiye'de yükselmekte olan yeni medya araçlarını, temsil taktiklerini ve sanatçı insiyatiflerini araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır.
Since art is a world-recognized platform for the representation and interpretation of social processes, in this paper we take an original approach and use the opportunities offered by art-based research in order to analyze the development of new narratives about the migration phenomena. Particularly, we apply a selected review of the main work of several contemporary artists whose interest is strongly focused on the economic, social and political issues related to migrations. Moreover, the paper explores the possibilities and obstacles offered by art for the dissemination of related research. In this regard, we believe that our paper contributes by enhancing the important relationship between art and social phenomena, like migrations. This relation includes, at least, two shared areas: first, the understanding that art is a space for the representation of various social processes traditionally addressed by social science. For instance, although political science scientists, economists, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, geographers, etc. have extensively dedicated their work to study the migration phenomena, it is less recognized the large work of artist on migrations. Accordingly, artists are accustomed to transdisciplinary intellectual work and creativity and therefore, the discourse of art on the migrations phenomena brings a fresh perspective and is welcome. Second, one of the differences between scientific research and artistic research is that in the latter, the decisions on how to dispose the elements that participate in the research and even the protocol itself is decided previously by rationalistic hypothesis and method. However, in artistic research, a final result is not as relevant, but rather the importance of the research lies in the process itself. The process approach leads each artist sets their own rules of action and this does not have to be justified beforehand. In this sense, our aim is not to replace the scientific discourse but to rescue the artistic approach as complementary and take advantage of its seductive, emotional, creative and formative potential.
The following dissertation will focus on the social role of art curators within our society along with the evolution of the concept of "Museum" since the beginning of the 20th century. This research paper is based on my experience as an art curator and production assistant for the company Cinq Etoiles Production on exhibitions such as Pernod Ricard's art campaign MINDSET, Médecins du Monde's Mise Au Poing exhibition or Vichy Portrait(s). This internship gave me insights into the organization of a cultural and artistic show, its mission and the skills and the resources required to conduct it successfully. Indeed, evolving in the field of exhibitions' organization and especially photography made me reflect upon the way people "use" museums and exhibitions and to what extend Art is essential for society. More than presenting the work of artists for their aesthetical values, an exhibition can raise awareness about issues, open debates on different subjects and enables us to project ourselves forwards. Besides, museums serve as vectors of knowledge about our history, or culture and other values and identities. Therefore, I began to realize that the most important changes in society were due to artists and intellectuals who promoted open-mindedness, multiculturalism, and alternative thinking. I wanted to understand how museums that were long reserved for a small fraction of our society became able to address larger audience and educate the public opinion. We will see during this research that just like any significant evolution of society, the democratization of art and culture under all its forms had to overcome many obstacles over the decades. We will also reflect upon the concept of "Museums" as art laboratory and places of social interactions, why it should be politically-engaged and how to involve the community in the process to achieve change within our society.
The historiographical article looks at "1945" as a turning point, inquiring whether the end of both the Second World War and National Socialism also implied a radical break for art history in Germany. In evaluating both contemporary perspectives (like Herbert von Einem's opening lecture of the First German Art Historians Meeting in 1948) and recent historiographical studies, the paper questions the concept of "Stunde Null" or "hour zero," and intends to challenge the established paradigm of rupture and discontinuity. Arguing for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the transformation processes in the postwar situation, three major reasons are identified why simplistic categorizations often prevail: (1) a very narrow definition of the art historian in the history of art history, (2) the disjunction between the humanities and the larger political context, which allow the individual to imagine himself/herself untainted and uncompromised by ideology, and (3) the high degree of continuity, in particular if compared to the radical changes that took place in 1933. The article thus resumes that the idea of "turning points" deserves further differentiation, and calls for the integration of the political dimension into historiography. Essentially, the challenge remains to distinguish between factual processes, false or fraudulent labelling, and symbolic gestures.
The ones who can call themselves contemporary are only those who do not allow themselves to be blinded by the lights of the century, and so manage to get a glimpse of the shadows in those lights, of their intimate obscurity." Giorgio Agamben With the death of the notion of nationalism and the decay in the belief in democracy through parliamentary and political representation; and with the calls for reform of the tainted nationalist Arab regimes amidst the recent disconcerting upheavals in the Arab world, Palestinians strive to build their national state and shape its political and cultural identity. This essay investigates how contemporary art practices have dealt with the political shift from the liberation movement to the post-Oslo schizophrenic reality. It investigates "the political" in art practices between a persisting Israeli colonialism, on one hand, and a neoliberal postcolonial state-building project on the other. Nonetheless, the text will not explain the historical shifts in forms, styles, markets, aesthetics and finances; rather it will suggest some rough divisions that help to categories the "the political" in contemporary art practices within the author's familiar knowledge and networks. These abstract divisions do not suggest that artists are confined to only one of these categories in their practices rather than moving between them within the history of their art production
