scholarly journals Revising Postsocialism

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Global And Local

This article reflects on the current explanatory value of concepts such as postsocialism and Eastern Europe by exploring how they are represented in contemporary art projects in Estonia. Through an overview of recent exhibitions in which I collaborated with local artists and curators, the research considers generational differences in relation to cultural discourses of the postsocialist experience. Methodologically, artists and curators were not simply my informants in the field, but makers of analytical knowledge themselves in their practice. Exhibitions were also approached as contact zones, whereby new cultural forms are simultaneously reflected and constructed. Critically, this inquiry gathers new ways of representing and conceptualising cultural changes in Estonia and novel perspectives of interpreting the relations to the Soviet past. The focus is put on art practice because of its capacity of bringing together global and local frames of reference simultaneously. The research also draws attention to the inbetweenness of the first post-Soviet generation (those born near the time of the breakup of the USSR); they are revising established cultural forms as well as historical representations through mixing practices, and therefore updating traditional ideas of identity and attachment to places.

Self-Institutionalizing as Political Agency: Contemporary Art Practice in Bucharest and Budapest

ARTMargins ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-73
Author(s):  
Izabel Galliera
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Institutional Critique ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Temporary Organizations

Reacting against politically monopolizing attempts at rewriting the socialist past in post-1989 Hungary and Romania, a diverse number of artists, curators, critics, activists and students have come together to form temporary organizations and institutions. Through a contextual reading and critical analysis of The Department for Art in Public Space (2009–2011) in Bucharest and DINAMO (2003–2006) and IMPEX (2006–2009) in Budapest, this article investigates what the author refers to as a “self-institutionalizing” and the ways in which this practice becomes a vehicle to rear politicized civil societies in post-cold war Central and Eastern Europe. The discussion of the two self-institutionalizing initiatives in Romania and Hungary seeks to contribute and complicate the official and institutionalized narrative of institutional critique rooted in a North American context.

scholarly journals Contemporary Art Practice and Indigenous Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Gerald McMaster
Keyword(s):  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Communal Sharing ◽  
Cultural Hero ◽  
The Way

AbstractIndigenous artists are introducing traditional knowledge practices to the contemporary art world. This article discusses the work of selected Indigenous artists and relays their contribution towards changing art discourses and understandings of Indigenous knowledge. Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau led the way by introducing ancient mythos; the gifted Carl Beam enlarged his oeuvre with ancient building practices; Peter Clair connected traditional Mi'kmaq craft and colonial influence in contemporary basketry; and Edward Poitras brought to life the cultural hero Coyote. More recently, Beau Dick has surprised international art audiences with his masks; Christi Belcourt’s studies of medicinal plants take on new meaning in paintings; Bonnie Devine creates stories around canoes and baskets; Adrian Stimson performs the trickster/ruse myth in the guise of a two-spirited character; and Lisa Myers’s work with the communal sharing of food typifies a younger generation of artists re-engaging with traditional knowledge.

scholarly journals Being-with: Access to Relation, Participation, and Togetherness in Contemporary Art

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Valberg
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Relational Practices ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Specific Setting

Being-with is an artistically based research project aimed at applying and studying participatory and relational practices within the arts as well as addressing the esthetical and ethical questions that such practices generate. The participants in Being-with – researchers and artists as well as children, parents, grandparents, siblings and other residents in the small town of Høvåg in Norway – gathered weekly for half a year to experience how aesthetic production may interact with social space and vice versa. The article reflects on what consequences such interaction may have for the conception of art, and its arenas and agendas … when we consider art not only as a reflection of our lives, but also as an agent shaping our lives and changing the social surroundings we are part of. The article relates discourses of aesthetics penned by continental philosophers over the last 50 years to a specific setting in a Nordic contemporary art practice.

The identity of the Kyrgyz: a historical and social study (Part 1)

2021 ◽  
pp. 380-389
Author(s):  
ŞENGÜL ÇEBİ İSRA
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Common Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Common Heritage ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

Identity is the expression of an individual's self-definition and self-positioning. It gives the answer to who a person is and what his worldview is. It is the definition of being and belonging. It is the explanation of what the individual is, both socially and psychologically. It is clear that identity, which is the focus of our research, is a concept related to belonging, what we have in common with some people and what differentiates a person from others. Based on this definition, it can be stated that identity is characterized by sharing certain things and, on the basis of these common points, a person is differentiated from other groups of people and approaches a group to which he feels belonging. In this understanding, identity is determined not by the norms that characterize the culture of a particular period, but by the existence of a community of people who share a common heritage, such as language and history: “… our identities reflect common historical experiences and common cultural codes that provide us as «a people» with stable, unchanging and permanent frames of reference and meaning under the changing distinctions and changes of our true history.» Accordingly, we can define the Kyrgyz identity through «a common culture, a common history and a kind of collective real identity shared by all members of the clan». However, the Kyrgyz identity accepts cultural identity as a reality belonging to both the future and the past. In this direction, the Kyrgyz identity is a positioning formed within the framework of historical and cultural discourses. In the light of this information, in this study, we will reveal the historical roots of the Kyrgyz identity.

What was Contemporary Art?

ARTMargins ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Octavian Esanu
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
New Type ◽  
Open Society Institute ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
Key Aspects

This article contributes to a recent debate around the question “What Is Contemporary Art?” It brings into discussion certain key aspects of the activities of the Soros Centers for Contemporary Art (SCCA)—a network of contemporary art centers established by the Open Society Institute in Eastern Europe during the 1990s. The author draws upon distinctions between this new type of art institution and the Union of Artists (the organizations which represented the interests of artists under socialism), highlighting distinct artistic, aesthetic and economic characteristics of each institutional model.

Representing, Performing and Mitigating Climate Change in Contemporary Art Practice

Leonardo ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Giannachi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Public

Over the last quarter-century, an increasing number of artists have been variously engaging the public in artworks addressing the anthropogenic phenomenon known as climate change. Focusing specifically on works developed in the fields of visual arts, performance and new media, and on a body of theory attempting to distinguish between terms such as nature, landscape, weather, climate and environment, this article aims to offer an exploration of how these works, by adopting, often concurrently, three strategies—representation, performance and mitigation—affect our understanding of our changing relationship to nature and climate.

scholarly journals It’s All in the Reading

Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Déirdre Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Book Production ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

It seems inherent in the nature of contemporary artist’s book production to continue to question the context for the genre in contemporary art practice, notwithstanding the medium’s potential for dissemination via mass production and an unquestionable advantage of portability for distribution. Artists, curators and editors operating in this sector look to create contexts for books in a variety of imaginative ways, through exhibition, commission, installations, performance and, of course as documentation. Broadening the discussion of the idea of the book within contemporary art practice, this paper examines the presence and role of book works within the context of the art biennale, in particular the Venice Art Biennale of which the 58th iteration (2019) is entitled ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’ and curated by Ralph Rugoff, with an overview of the independent International cultural offerings and the function of the ‘Book Pavilion’. Venetian museums and institutions continue to present vibrant diverse works within the arena of large-scale exhibitions, recognising the position that the book occupies in the history of the city. This year, the appearance for the first time, of ‘Book Biennale’, opens up a new and interesting dialogue, taking the measure of how the book is being promoted and its particular function for visual communication within the arts in Venice and beyond.

scholarly journals Bollywood Dreams? The Rise of the Asian Mela as a Global Cultural Phenomenon

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Smith ◽  
Elizabeth Carnegie
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Diasporic Identity ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Artistic Directors

This article will examine some of the complexities inherent in the development of Asian Mela festivals from small-scale community-based events in India, to national celebrations of Diasporic culture in Western countries. Like Caribbean Carnivals, Melas are becoming more popular as a global cultural tourism phenomenon and are increasingly being promoted to white and tourist audiences. This similarly engenders fears of cultural dilution, distortion, and ‘Othering’. The programming of Melas is apparently keeping pace with the exporting, re-packaging and hybridisation of other forms of Asian culture, such as cuisine, music, fashion, and cinema. But does this symbolise a Bollywood dream or just another post-colonial appropriation of indigenous or Disaporic cultures? Cultural protectionism is certainly a contentious issue within Diasporic communities, where inter-generational differences of opinion can lead to conflict and confusion. Identity construction is complex and worthy of further examination in the context of Melas, which traditionally served to celebrate ethnic community and folk cultures and identities, but are increasingly becoming a showcase for global and hybridised cultural forms. The article will examine these issues, as well as providing an analysis of the factors and mechanisms that are driving the development of Melas forward. This will include the role and vision of artistic directors of Melas, the contribution of ethnic communities to cultural continuity, and issues relating to audience and tourism development. A case study of the Edinburgh Mela will be presented, which exemplifies a number of the aforementioned issues, focusing in particular on national and Diasporic identity construction, and the tensions between popular and traditional cultural forms.

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