Post-socialist art

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Post-socialist art or post-communist art is a term used in analysis of art arriving from post-socialist (post-communist) countries taken as different in their nature from Western, Postmodern art.

Crucial elements of Post-socialist art include:

  1. Due to a lack of market, such art was Modernist in a sense of being non-commercial, [1] but also;
  2. Due to this lack of market, authorship was weakened. Authorship allowed working under pseudonyms, anonymously or even collectively. [2] Finally;
  3. Post-socialist art often referred to an inner history of art, such as Russian Avant-garde artists Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky.

Socialist art began opening to Western markets in the eighties, introducing Slovenian collective IRWIN, Belgrade Malevich (aka Goran Djordjevic) and artists that Peter Weibel would name "Retro-avant-garde." In the nineties, a second wave was followed by mass-funded political versions. Much of this art was financed by George Soros. This led critics such as Miško Šuvaković to draw comparisons to Socialist realism, coining the term "Soros Realism" to refer to the movement.

Bibliography

References

  1. Prokhorov, Alexander; Groys, Boris; Hollein, Max (2005-07-01). "Traumfabrik Kommunismus: Die Visuelle Kultur der Stalinzeit / Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era". The Slavic and East European Journal. 49 (2): 334. doi:10.2307/20058282. ISSN   0037-6752.
  2. Mohar, Miran; Vogelnik, Borut; Savski, Andrej; Irwin; Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, eds. (2006). East art map: contemporary art and Eastern Europe. An Afterall Book. London: Afterall. ISBN   978-1-84638-022-8.