Multiple realities : experimental art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s / with contributions by Ivana Bago, Dušan Barok, Anna Daučíková, Michał Grzegorzek, Libuše Jarcovjáková, Daniel Muzyczuk, Alexandra Pirici, Pavel S. Pyś, Karol Radziszewski, Kathleen Reinhardt, Natalia Sielewicz ; edited by Pavel S. Pyś.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Pyś, Pavel S., curator, editor, contributor.

Hernández Luege, William, curator.

Walker Art Center, organizer, host institution.

Phoenix Art Museum, host institution.

Vancouver Art Gallery, host institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts--Europe, Central--Experimental methods--Exhibitions.

Arts.

Arts--Europe, Eastern--Experimental methods--Exhibitions.

Arts and society--Europe, Central--History--20th century--Exhibitions.

Arts and society.

Arts and society--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century--Exhibitions.

Arts--Experimental methods.

Central Europe.

Eastern Europe.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs

History

Physical Description:

484 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits ; 29 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

New York, NY : D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, [2023]

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : Walker Art Center, [2023]

Summary:

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s offers a survey of experimental art made in six Central Eastern European nations during the 1960s to 1980s. Charting a generation of artists invested in experimentation, the Walker-organized exhibition features artworks rarely exhibited in the United States. Despite their geographical proximity, artists working during this time encountered different conditions for daily life and art-making, confronting varying degrees of control and pressure exerted by state authorities. Embracing conceptual or formal innovation and a spirit of adventurousness, Multiple Realities sheds light on ways that artists refused, circumvented, eluded, and subverted official systems, in the process creating works often riddled with wit, humor, or irony. Drawing on visual art, performance, music, and material culture, Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s brings together works by more than 100 artists from the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. While it presents select canonical figures from the region, the exhibition foregrounds lesser-known practitioners, particularly women artists, artist collectives, and those exploring embodiment through an LGBTQ+ lens.

Contents:

Multiple Realities: Navigating Experimental Art in Central Eastern Europe, 1960s-1980s / by Pavel S. Pyś

Section 1. Public and Private Spaces of Control / Lászlo Fehér [and fifteen others]

Persons and Objects Are to Be Removed from the Balcony: Artists Performing in Public and Private Spaces of Control during the Cold War / by Kathleen Reinhardt

Section 2. Dimensions of the Self / Jana Želibská [and thirty-six others]

Eternal Shapes: Weaving the Erotic into Cybernetics in 1970s Poland / by Natalia Sielewicz

Section 3. Being Together: Alternative Forms of the Social / Karol Radziszewski [and twenty-seven others]

Nothing but a Joke: Humor and Revolutionary Mourning in Eastern European Art / by Ivana Bago

Memory Is a Powerful Thing: A Roundtable Discussion on the Performative Nature of Queer Archives / with Anna Daučíková, Libuše Jarcovjákova, Alexandra Pirici, and Karol Radziszewski, moderated by Michał Grzegorzek

Section 4. Looking to Other Futures: Science, Technology, Utopia / Stano Filko [and twenty-two others]

Being Together: Alternative Forms of the Social / by Daniel Muzyczuk

Looking to the Future: Science, Technology, and Utopia / by Dušan Barok.

Notes:

Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, November 11, 2023-March 10, 2024; Phoenix Art Museum, April 17, 2024-September 29, 2024; and Vancouver Art Gallery, November 2, 2024-March 23, 2025.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781935963288

1935963287

OCLC:

1378200268