The Remaking Of The Balkans In Contemporary Art Exhibitions

"Since the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic (b. 1946) has pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form, exploring her physical and emotional limits in some of the most iconic works in contemporary art. Her body is her primary subject and medium, and she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in her ongoing quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. As a vital member of the generation of pioneering performance artists that includes Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic created some of the most historic early performance pieces. Of these artists, she is the only one still making important durational works." "Abramovic features prominently in virtually every survey published on performance art, and her works are held in the permanent collections of many of the world's top museums, including the Musee Nationale d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In November 2005 at New York's Guggenheim Museum, Abramovic staged a landmark weeklong series of performances entitled Seven Easy Pieces. Her twelve-day 'living installation', The House with the Ocean View was on numerous critics' lists as the best exhibition of 2002, and she was awarded the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Biennale for her video installation/performance Balkan Baroque."--BOOK JACKET.

This project sets up to explore the role exhibitions play in writing art histories of East-Central and South-East Europe after 1989. In the past twenty years we have been witnessing the increased role of exhibition as an important art historical instrument. Not only exhibitions are very much part of the art historical discourse but the role of a curator and the curating itself provide very specific models of art historical knowledge. Curated art exhibitions present a new kind of research and in many cases put under question traditional methods of art history. In spatial organization they can confirm dominant narratives or suggest a completely new readings. «East European» art history after 1989 has much to do with exhibition making and the academic art history comes to terms with the role of the exhibition in shaping its course. When talking about «re-writing» or revision of art history in the past twenty years one cannot avoid several landmark exhibitions not only as a contribution but shaping processes. For instance, constitutive for East European art history could be considered the following exhibitions: Europa, Europa (Bonn 1994), Der Riss im Raum (Berlin 1994/95), Aspekte/Positionen - 50 Jahre Kunst aus Mitteleuropa 1949-1999 (Vienna 1999), After the Wall: Art and Culture in post-communist Europe (Stockholm 1999/2000), 2000+ARTEAST Collection, Ljubljana (Innsbruck 2000/2001), Ausgeträumt ... (Vienna 2001/2002), In Search of Balkania (Graz 2002), In the Gorges of the Balkan. A Report (Kassel 2003), Blood and Honey: the Future's in the Balkans (Vienna 2003), Kontakt ... aus der Sammlung der Erste Bank-Gruppe (Vienna 2006), Interrupted Histories (Ljubljana 2006), Cold War Modern. Design 1945-1970 (London 2008/2009), Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (Vienna 2009/2010), Promises of the Past. A Discontinuous History of Art in Former Eastern Europe (Paris 2010), on the eastern front ... (Budapest, Warsaw 2010), Erased Walls (Poznan 2011), Museum of Parallel Narratives (Barcelona, 2011), Ostalgia (New York, 2011), Museum of Affects, The Present and Presence (MSUM Ljubljana, 2011), RearviewMirror: New Art From Central and Eastern Europe (Toronto, Alberta, 2011-12), Spirits of Internationalism (Eindhoven, Antwerp, 2012), etc. Surely, many different exhibitions could be put on the list. Moreover, East European art has been exhibited in the global context (Global Conceptualism, New York 1999, Global Feminisms, New York, 2007) or within different biennials around the world (not only Venice Biennial and Documenta but Istanbul, Tirana, Prague and of course Manifesta). Crucial for this book project is mapping changes and transformations of the exhibition discourse via different kinds of curated exhibitions: inside and outside of museum/gallery space, in alternative spaces, within biennials or collaborative projects. The exhibition as a medium, a site of experiment or a platform of a paradigm shift is going to be examined and critically reflected. Not only exhibition formats, structures, models, concepts, genres or topics but different curatorial approaches and curatorial experiences will be the valuable part of this project.

Making Another World Possible offers a broad look at an array of socially engaged cultural practices that have become increasingly visible in the past decade, across diverse fields such as visual art, performance, theater, activism, architecture, urban planning, pedagogy, and ecology. Part I of the book introduces the reader to the field of socially engaged art and cultural practice, spanning the past ten years of dynamism and development. Part II presents a visually striking summary of key events from 1945 to the present, offering an expansive view of socially engaged art throughout history, and Part III offers an overview of the current state of the field, elucidating some of the key issues facing practitioners and communities. Finally, Part IV identifies ten global issues and, in turn, documents 100 key artistic projects from around the world to illustrate the various critical, aesthetic and political modes in which artists, cultural workers, and communities are responding to these issues from their specific local contexts. This is a much needed and timely archive that broadens and deepens the conversation on socially engaged art and culture. It includes commissioned essays from noted critics, practitioners, and theorists in the field, as well as key examples that allow insights into methodologies, contextualize the conditions of sites, and broaden the range of what constitutes an engaged culture. Of interest to a wide range of readers, from practitioners and scholars of performance to curators and historians, Making Another World Possible offers both breadth and depth, spanning history and individual works, to offer a unique insight into the field of socially engaged art.

A comprehensive analysis of the political and security implications for southeastern Europe - indeed for the whole of Europe - resulting from the collapse of communism. This second edition has been significantly revised to include an assessment of the consequences of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the ensuing war in Bosnia.

This pioneering and award-winning study provides the world with the first coherent narrative of Eastern European contributions to the modern art movement. Analyzing an enormous range of works, from art centers such as Prague, Warsaw and Budapest, (many published here for the first time), S.A. Mansbach shows that any understanding of Modernism is essentially incomplete without the full consideration of vital Eastern European creative output. He argues that Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism, along with other great modernist styles, were merged with deeply rooted, Eastern European visual traditions. The art that emerged was vital modernist art that expressed the most pressing concerns of the day, political as well as aesthetic. Mansbach examines the critical reaction of the contemporary artistic culture and political state. A major groundbreaking interpretation of Modernism, Modern Art in Eastern Europe completes any full assessment of twentieth-century art, as well as its history. Modern Art in Eastern Europe is the recipient of the 1997 C.I.N.O.A. Prize, awarded by La Confédération Internationale de Négociants en Oeuvres d'Art. The prize is awarded to defray the costs of publication in order to encourage publishers to produce maunscripts of particular merit and the works of younger art historians.

BRIDGE OF LIGHT Artistic Illumination from the Balkans In the east is it said, "between one person and another, there is only light." BRIDGE OF LIGHT, Artistic Illumination from the Balkans traces the important artistic connection between the United States and Bulgaria William Meredith first established decades ago when he served as US Poet Laureate. This bridge has become an important part of his legacy as a teacher, poet and friend to artists. But the bridge continues as a vital cultural institution into the present and beyond. The luminescence which developed among Bulgarian artists and American colleagues continues to radiate years later in the many exchange residencies between the Griffis Arts Center in New London, and the Orpheus Foundation in Sofia, the many art exhibitions in both countries, from Seattle to Washington, from Sofia to Moscow as well as the numerous original publications and translations that have come to light over the years by Bulgarian and American writers. BRIDGE OF LIGHT includes nearly 100 works of art by Bulgarian and American artists who have shared their talent over three decades in this retrospective at the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich Connecticut. During the two-month long exhibit (June 21, 2015 - August 28, 2015), the Meredith Foundation will launch the 2015 William Meredith Award for Poetry given posthumously to Andrew Oerke, a poet who published in Bulgaria and traveled the country extensively with his wife and fellow writer, Anitra Thorhaug. BRIDGE OF LIGHT enables us to take stock of the important work that has been created over the years and serves as a fitting tribute to our beloved famous local son, William Meredith and the many friends who have crossed the bridge he first established between our two countries both coming and going. After his death in 2007 friends came together to establish a foundation to continue his legacy through educational and artistic programs such as this exhibition: WWW.WilliamMeredithFoundation.org First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a letter joining Connecticut College in a celebration of William's 80th birthday in which she says, "The arts have always been a unifying force in our world, bringing people together across vast cultural, social, economic and geographical divisions. Through his work, William Meredith both enhances and strengthens the American spirit. As you honor Mr. Meredith, you celebrate the timeless power of poetry and poets as our American memory, our purveyors of insight and culture, and express the very heart of what connects us, plagues us, and makes us fully human."