Overview

In this bold book Klara Kemp-Welch offers a compelling account of the way that artists in Central Europe embraced alternative forms of action-based practice, just as their dissident counterparts were formulating alternative models of politics - in particular an `antipolitics' of self organization. Spanning a period punctuated by landmark events - the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the invasion of Czechoslavakia in 1968 and the birth of the Polish Solidarity movement - while presenting powerful new readings of six key artists, Antipolitics in Central European Art anchors art historical analysis to a robust historical framework. Its rich illustrations reveal how those artists struggled to enjoy freedom of expression and reclaim public space inside a political system where both seemed impossible.

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9781784533144

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This excellent book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a fuller understanding of the art and culture of the 'other' Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, so long marginalized by Cold War optics, and for those interested in the chameleon strategies of artistic opposition. Susan E. Reid, Professor of Russian Visual Culture and Director of the Centre for Visual Studies, University of Sheffield (UK) There are histories that are risky to rescue. The required factography was rarely gathered in time and is thus largely contaminated (however innocently) by the ahistorical. Luckily, that is not the case here. Klara Kemp-Welch's book is illuminating and thoroughly written. Dr. Victor Tupitsyn, Emeritus Professor, Pace University, Westchester, New York (US) Moving through a series of poignant case studies drawn from Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Hungarian contexts, this text explores the ways artists invented an experimental culture of everyday life, an aesthetic space of exception from within the deadening and immersive system of the totalitarian communist state's controls and repressions. This is a remarkable art history, concisely developed and engagingly analyzed. TJ Demos, Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art, University College London, University of London (UK). The relationship between art and politics is the linchpin of the differences dividing those interested in art from what was formerly known as Eastern Europe. As the first study of its kind to address this issue specifically, rather than tangentially or merely casually, this book is indispensable. Sven Spieker,Professor,University of California, Santa Barbara

Author Information

KLARA KEMP-WELCH is Lecturer in Twentieth Century Modernism at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

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