Repositioning the East
January 30, 2016
It has been a good 25 years since “West” and “East” experienced a decisive shift in real political terms in Europe. And it has been nearly as long since the still-ongoing process of overcoming the narrow and restrictive notional corset of “art from the former Eastern Bloc” got underway. Articulating oneself in a more freely chosen, expanded context unaffected by the “Eastern art” label represents a special challenge of the transitional or threshold-order that has arisen since then. Initiated by Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation, which is focused on precisely this area, and in cooperation with springerin, the conversations will take a closer look at the changing parameters of perspectives on art from the former East. The series of publicly held conversations between renowned theorists and art historians deals with questions such as: What new narratives have stepped up since 1989 to supplant the old East-West paradigm? To what extent has the approach of global art historiography made regional markers obsolete? And can the oft-proposed notional framework of contemporary art serve to sensibly identify what is specific about art that is anchored in a given political geography? This series of “parallactic” discussions is intended to help investigate the positionality, context-dependency and changeability of all the issues in question.
After a first round of conversations between Andrzej Turowski, Ekaterina Degot, Cosmin Costinaş, Nataša Ilić and Peter Osborne in 2015, this series will be continued with the following speakers:
Rasha Salti in conversation with Branislav Dimitrijević
Anthony Yung in conversation with Keti Chukhrov
Marta Dziewańska in conversation with Boris Buden
The conversations will take place from 2–7pm.
Parallax Views is a cooperation between Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation and springerin – Hefte für Gegenwartskunst.
