This volume offers a comprehensive perspective on the relationship between the art scene and agencies of the state in countries of the region, throughout four consecutive yet highly diverse historical periods: from the period of state integration after World War I, through the communist era post 1945 and the time of political transformation after 1989, to the present-day globalisation (including counter-reactions to westernisation and cultural homogenisation).
With twenty-three theoretically and/or empirically oriented articles by authors from sixteen countries (East Central Europe and beyond, including the United States and Australia), the book discusses interconnections between state policies and artistic institutions, trends and the art market from diverse research perspectives. The contributors explore subjects such as the impact of war on the formation of national identities, the role of artists in image-building for the new national states emerging after 1918, the impact of political systems on artists’ attitudes, the discourses of art history, museum studies, monument conservation and exhibition practices.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural politics, cultural history, and East Central European studies and history.
Author(s): Agnieszka Chmielewska, Irena Kossowska, Marcin Lachowski
Series: Routledge Research in Art History
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 316
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Illustrations
Contributors
Introduction
Why East Central Europe?
Cultural Distinctiveness
Art Exhibitions and Idioms of Identity in East Central Europe
Diversified Artistic Landscape and the Debates on Art in East Central Europe
Discursive Blind Spots
Notes
References
Part I: Cultural Specificity of East Central Europe
1. History Too Fast
A Case in Point: Hungary
In Hindsight: Historic Episodes
In the Concrete, and in General
State Malfunction in Central and Eastern Europe
References
2. Universal or National? Making Art on the European Periphery
Global Inequality of Cultures
The World Republic of Letters
National Literary Space on the Periphery
Casanova and Visual Arts: The Polish Case
Conclusion
Notes
References
3. The Concept of Eastern Art and Self-Historicisation: The Slovenian Case
Notes
References
Part II: Nation- and State-Building Processes
4. Performing Everyday Activity, Creating Eternal: Ukrainian Art on the Fronts of the First World War
Notes
References
5. Civil War - Communist Upheaval - Attack of the White Slaughterers? The Civil Wars of 1917-1922 in Finnish and Soviet Karelian Literature
Historical Outline
The Civil Wars of Finland and Karelia in Literature: Literary Eye-Witnesses of the Finnish Civil War
Literary Comments on the Karelian Civil War
Depictions of the Civil Wars in the Following Decades
Conclusion: Rhetoric and Ideology - Belles-Lettres and Politics
Notes
References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
6. The Archipenko Brothers: Discussions about National Art
Notes
References
Part III: Aestheticisation of Politics - Ideologisation of Aesthetics
7. In/Tolerance to Visual Anti-Semitism in Czechoslovakia 1918-1948
Notes
References
8. Art History and State Reconstruction in Greece in the 1950s and Early 1960s
Introduction
State Reconstruction in Greece in the Aftermath of World War II
The Art-Historical Discourse between Ethnocentrism and Europeanism
Notes
References
9. Contesting Legitimacy: From the Photo Club to Fine Art Subjective Documentary—Andrejs Grants. Latvia: Changing and Unchanging Reality
Hope and anticipation: artistic and political
Rehabilitation of Latvianness
Borderland images
Portraits
Carnival images: the comic, the grotesque and ambivalence
Magic Realism: universal and particular
The threshold
Uncanny images
Zen images
Conclusion
Notes
References
10. "Poles Forming Their National Flag": Artistic Reflections on the Transformation of the Political System in Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe
The Question of the Universal Nature Of The Transformation Experience
Native Icons of the Transformation and Their Distinctiveness
Towards a Re-Constructive National Allegory
Art in Times of Post-Transformation
Notes
References
Part IV: Art Exhibitions as Political Instrument
11. Western Modern Art Exhibitions in the USSR in 1930s-1950s
The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
The State Museum of the Modern Western Art
The International Bureau of Revolutionary Artists
The Art Affairs Committee
References
12. "The Lenin of Soviet Art Has Not Yet Been Born": Nascent Socialist Realism in Warsaw of 1933
Soviet Art in Warsaw
Thematic Canon
A Search for a "Socialist Style of Proletarian Art"
Ideologisation of Aesthetics
Notes
References
13. From Hanoi and Havana to Paris and New York: Czecho-Slovak Cultural-Diplomatic Exhibitions during the Cold War
Exotic Communist Vietnam and the Exhibition of "Czechoslovak Visual Art" in Hanoi, 1956
The Iron Curtain Lifted: "L'art Ancien en Tchécoslovaquie" in Paris, 1957
Revolution, Guns and Art: "El Arte Eslovaco Contemporáneo" in Havana, 1964
The Prague Spring and Exhibitions of National Modern Art in Western Europe
Cultural Diplomacy and "Modern Treasures from the National Gallery in Prague" in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1988
Concluding Remarks
References
14. 1956. Old Masters and the Ephemeral Borders
European Art, a Controversial Label
Dismantling Some Myths
History and Geography in Flux
Notes
References
15. Somewhere Something
Notes
References
16. Dreams and Nightmares: Nationalism in Art Exhibitions from Socialist Romania 1974-1989
National Communism during Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime
Song of Romania
Ethno-Nationalism and Archaism: Dacia on Display
Commemorative Exhibitions
"I am the State": Homage Art Exhibitions
Ethnographic Art Exhibitions
Conclusive remarks
Notes
References
17. Local/Global Latvian Art at the Venice Biennale
Notes
References
18. "Grey in Colour" - Observations on the Reconstruction of Modernity
Notes
References
Part V: Architecture as Vehicle for State Cultural Policy
19. Cities in Interbellum Lithuanian Republic (1918-1940)
Notes
References
20. About Two Gems in the Stadtkrone of Kaunas, the Provisional Capital of Interwar Lithuania
Several Key Facts about the City of Kaunas
Symbolic Buildings in the Cityscape of Interwar Kaunas
The Church of the Resurrection
The Palace of the State in Kaunas
Traces of the Expanding War in the History of the Palace of the State Competition
Conclusions
Notes
References
21. An Elite Place for the Masses: Prague Castle and its Role in the Legitimisation of Socialist Rule in Czechoslovakia (1948-1968)
Notes
References
22. One Ideology, Two Visions: Ecclesiastical Buildings and State Identity in the Socialist Capital During the Post-War Rebuilding Decades 1945-1975, East Berlin and Warsaw
Introduction
East Berlin: Capital of the German Democratic Republic
Warsaw: Reconstructing the Polish Capital
Conclusion
Notes
References
23. Monument Preservation during Socialism: Restorations and Reconstructions of Hungarian Roman Catholic Churches in the 1960-70s
1 Historic Survey after World War II
2 Changing Circumstances around the 1960s
Cooperative Negotiations between the State and the Roman Catholic Church
Institutional Reorganization of the National Monument Preservation Authorities
New Recommendations and Principles
3 Value-Centred Preservation Planning Methodology - Case Studies
4 Summary
Acknowledgement
Notes
References
Index
