Rewriting Transtion. Art History Facing the Epistemology of „Postsocialist Contemporary”

issue 10/2024

editor: Jakub Banasiak

 

Recent debates on the transregional, global or even planetary art histories (Fowkes/Fowkes 2020; Hock, Allas 2018; Kempe/Fowkes/Fowkes/Dmitrieva 2023; Piotrowski 2018) have also influenced reflection on the art and theory of post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe. Earlier narratives, which more or less naturalized the political (liberalism) and economic (neoliberalism) nature of post-communist transition, have been replaced by more nuanced yet comprehensive studies. Issues such as capitalist modernization (Esanu 2020), the globalization of the art field (Buchholz 2022), the status of artistic labour after socialism (Praznik 2021), neoliberal extractivism (Fowkes/Fowkes 2021), the impact of political and economic transition on art (András 2009; Radomska 2018; Isto 2020), or the memory of communism in art after 1989 (Szczerski 2019) have been thoroughly analyzed. Individual topics related to art and theory after 1989 have been collected in an anthology published by New York’s MoMA (Janevski/Marcoci/Nouril 2018). Furthermore, reflection on transition is also undertaken in relation to institutional changes in individual former Eastern Bloc countries (Banasiak 2020; Lazea 2015; Łabowicz-Dymanus 2016; Nagy 2023; Vassileva 2015).

In this context, the publication of Octavian Esanu’s The Postsocialist Contemporary in 2021 marks a significant contribution to the field. The title category refers to the new epistemic framework that shaped the perception of art in the post-communist era. Esanu’s undeniable contribution is to show that the ideology of transition – the aforementioned blend of liberalism and neoliberalism – had an overwhelming impact not only on art institutions and cultural politics, but also on art history written after 1989. In other words, the canon developed at the time, focused on various „issues” and „personal micro-politics of gender, sexuality, identity, eco-feminism, and so on” (Esanu 2021: 83), was as much a symptom of transformation as its function. Its goal was to accelerate social modernization in the spirit of a so-called open society. The values that underpinned it – such as rationalism, secularism, or individualism – were therefore also the values of art history. Consequently, art history after 1989 can be described as „transitological” (Buden 2009).

The 10th issue of „Place” follows this path. Our objective is to undertake a critical revision of all possible conceptualisations of „post-socialist contemporary,” as well as those phenomena, attitudes and processes that did not fit into its epistemic framework.

Sample issues/topics:

• history of art history and art criticism
• geopolitics of knowledge
• US cultural imperialism
• spirituality in art
• critical revision of the caesura of 1989
• exhibition history
• institutional history
• art market in the late socialist period
• artists and creative unions in the face of neoliberal deforms
• labour and unemployment under neoliberalism
• class aspects of the „postsocialist contemporary”
• a critical look at the liberal identity politics

We are also interested in artistic research and visual materials, including artists’ archives and other private archives.

Please submit abstracts to: jakub.​banasiak@​asp.​waw.​pl
Author guidelines: http://​miejsce​.asp​.waw​.pl/​w​y​m​o​gi/
The issue will be published on this website in the first quarter of 2025.