Art in Hungary 1956-1980

Art in Hungary 1956-1980
Author: Edit Sasvari
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0500239789

A detailed study of contemporary art in Hungary from the period immediately following the Revolution of 1956 through 1980— a troubled yet fascinating period in the history of the country Hungary is a fascinating example in the study of art and politics. Artists of the neo-avant-garde found themselves in an increasingly isolated position, caught between the ruling communist authorities, who condemned their art as a product of capitalist cultural imperialism, and a predominantly conservative public, which rejected it as a foreign creation alien to the spirit of national culture. Interestingly, the international significance of the art produced in Hungary from the Revolution through the late twentieth century has come to the fore in recent years, noticeably through acquisitions and displays by the world’s leading galleries. This in-depth volume, the product of a major international research effort, commits to understanding Hungarian contemporary art of the 1960s and 1970s— a time of oppressive communist rule in the aftermath of the failed revolution of 1956— in the context of the conditions in which it was created.

The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism

The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism
Author: Katalin Cseh-Varga
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2022-10-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1350211605

The emergence and the activities of a second public sphere in the areas of Soviet influence were intricately linked to the performative and intermedial production and usage of alternative spaces. Applying a multitude of perspectives and networked topography, The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism investigates artistic strategies of spaces – namely those of the artist's studio, exhibitions, installations, clubs, apartments, cellars, event halls, and chapels – all of which existed parallel to or were interwoven with the regulated public sphere in Hungary from the beginning of the 1960s to the era immediately following the Kádár regime. This book captures and discusses the exclusionary and inclusionary mechanisms inscribed into public spheres behind the Iron Curtain in all their paradoxes through the looking glass of an artist generation that was controversially labelled “neo-”, and later, “post-avant-garde”. Cross-referencing the international tendencies in the marginal art worlds that existed between and beyond the Cold War reality of Blocs, The Hungarian Avant-Garde demonstrates how mostly non-conformist artists in Hungary, and by extension the spaces they created, reacted to the conflicting, contradictory nature of public spheres in the post-totalitarian condition.

Hungarian Art

Hungarian Art
Author: Éva Forgács
Publisher: Doppelhouse Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-01-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780997003413

Insightful essays and rarely-seen images tracing, from birth to maturation, several generations of Hungarian modernism, from the avant-garde to neo-avant-garde. This wide-ranging collection by va Forg cs, a leading scholar of Modernism, corrects long-standing misconceptions about Hungarian art while examining the social milieu and work of dozens of important Hungarian artists, including L szl Moholy-Nagy and Lajos Kass k. This book paints a fascinating image of twentieth-century Budapest as a microcosm of the social and political turmoil raging across twentieth-century Europe.

Art History in a Global Context

Art History in a Global Context
Author: Ann Albritton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1119127815

Presents a clear and comprehensive introduction to the evolving discipline of global art studies This volume examines how art historians, critics, and artists revisit art from ancient times through to the early modern period as well as the ways in which contemporary objects are approached through the lens of global contact, exchange, networks, and trade routes. It assists students who actively seek to understand "global art history" and the discipline beyond the founding Western canons. The first section of Art History in a Global Context: Methods, Themes and Approaches explores how themes related to globalization are framing the creation, circulation, reception, and study of art today. The second section examines how curators, scholars, artists, and critics have challenged the Eurocentric canon through works of art, writings, exhibitions, biennials, large-scale conferences, and the formation of global networks. The third section is designed to help students look forward by exploring how art history in a global context is beginning to extend beyond the contemporary condition to understand the meaning, conditions, and impacts of exchange across borders and among artists in earlier periods. Presents a historiography of global art histories in academic, museological, and exhibition projects Written by a collection of authors from different linguistic, cultural, geographic, generational, and disciplinary perspectives Aids students in understanding "global art history" and the discipline beyond the founding Western canons Provides a set of case studies to bring to life methodologies being employed in the field Features contributors from the program of the Getty Foundation and the College Art Association International Committee's project Art History in a Global Context is an ideal choice for upper-level undergraduate and entry level graduate art students. It can also be used as a teaching tool, or as models for case studies in different formats.

Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism

Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism
Author: Kata Bohus
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9633866820

Reined into the service of the Cold War confrontation, antifascist ideology overshadowed the narrative about the Holocaust in the communist states of Eastern Europe. This led to the Western notion that in the Soviet Bloc there was a systematic suppression of the memory of the mass murder of European Jews. Going beyond disputing the mistaken opposition between “communist falsification” of history and the “repressed authentic” interpretation of the Jewish catastrophe, this work presents and analyzes the ways as the Holocaust was conceptualized in the Soviet-ruled parts of Europe. The authors provide various interpretations of the relationship between antifascism and Holocaust memory in the communist countries, arguing that the predominance of an antifascist agenda and the acknowledgment of the Jewish catastrophe were far from mutually exclusive. The interactions included acts of negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Detailed case studies describe how both individuals and institutions were able to use anti-fascism as a framework to test and widen the boundaries for discussion of the Nazi genocide. The studies build on the new historiography of communism, focusing on everyday life and individual agency, revealing the formation of a great variety of concrete, local memory practices.

East Central Europe and Communism

East Central Europe and Communism
Author: Sabrina P. Ramet
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2023-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000877124

The communists of East Central Europe came to power promising to bring about genuine equality, paying special attention to achieving gender equality, to build up industry and create prosperous societies, and to use music, art, and literature to promote socialist ideals. Instead, they never succeeded in filling more than a third of their legislatures with women and were unable to make significant headway against entrenched patriarchal views; they considered it necessary (with the sole exception of Albania) to rely heavily on credits to build up their economies, eventually driving them into bankruptcy; and the effort to instrumentalize the arts ran aground in most of the region already by 1956, and, in Yugoslavia, by 1949. Communism was all about planning, control, and politicization. Except for Yugoslavia after 1949, the communists sought to plan and control not only politics and the economy, but also the media and information, religious organizations, culture, and the promotion of women, which they understood in the first place as involving putting women to work. Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Robert K. Merton on functionalist theory, this book shows how communist policies were repeatedly undermined by unintended consequences and outright dysfunctions.

Central and Eastern European Art

Central and Eastern European Art
Author: Maja Fowkes
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Limited
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-08-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780500775349

In this path-breaking new history, Maja and Reuben Fowkes introduce outstanding artworks and major figures from across central and eastern Europe to reveal the movements, theories and styles that have shaped artistic practice since 1950. They emphasize the particularly rich and varied art scenes of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, extending their gaze at intervals to East Germany, Romania, the Baltic states and the rest of the Balkans. While politics in the region have been marked by unstable geography and dramatic transitions, artists have forged a path of persistent experiment and innovation. This generously illustrated overview explores the richness of their singular contribution to recent art history. Tracing art-historical changes from the short-lived unison of the socialist realist period to the incredible diversity of art in the post-communist era, the authors examine the repercussions of political events on artistic life notably the uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the collapse of the communist bloc. But their primary interest is in the experimental art of the neo-avant-garde that resisted official agendas and engaged with global currents such as performance art, video, multimedia and net art.

Art in the Making

Art in the Making
Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-06-21
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0500239339

The first book to address the significance of the materials and methods used to make contemporary artworks Today, artists are able to create using multiple methods of production—from painting to digital technologies to crowdsourcing—some of which would have been unheard of just a few decades ago. Yet, even as our means of making art become more extraordinary and diverse, they are almost never addressed in their specificity. While critics and viewers tend to focus on the finished products we see in museums and galleries, authors Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson argue that the materials and processes behind the scenes used to make artworks are also vital to current considerations of authorship and to understanding the economic and social contexts from which art emerges. This wide-ranging exploration of different methods and media in art since the 1950s includes nine chapters that focus on individual processes of making: Painting, Woodworking, Building, Performing, Tooling Up, Cashing In, Fabricating, Digitizing, and Crowdsourcing. Detailed examples are interwoven with the discussion, including visuals that reveal the intricacies of techniques and materials. Artists featured include Ai Weiwei, Alice Aycock, Isa Genzken, Los Carpinteros, Paul Pfeiffer, Doris Salcedo, Santiago Sierra, and Rachel Whiteread.

Zofia Kulik

Zofia Kulik
Author: Agata Jakubowska
Publisher: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2020-07-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 8364177672

Zofia Kulik’s rich artistic career has a dual nature. Between 1970 and 1987, she worked alongside Przemysław Kwiek as a member of the duo KwieKulik, after which she began to develop a successful individual career. While KwieKulik’s work has been well established as central to the East European neo-avant-garde art lexicon of the 1970’s and ’80s, Kulik’s solo work has yet to be examined in depth. The first publication devoted solely to her work, this monograph analyzes the themes of her rich and complex oeuvre, addressing the (post)communist condition, artistic labor, intermediality, and the conditions of working as a female artist. The book forms a portrait of Kulik as an artist whose work is both deeply focused and rich in variations that reflect the socio-political shifts in her native Poland. With contributions from leading art historians, including Edit András, Angela Dimitrakaki, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Suzana Milevska, and Tomasz Załuski.