Arthistorical methodologies

Top 10 artists grouped by country + Cross-genre/country/timeperiod essays

East Art Map: Contemporary Art And Eastern Europe (eds. Irwin)

• Irwin group chose 22 selectors from 17 countries, each was asked to select 10 artists/groups from their country (active in the period from 1950s until now) and write cca 1-page entries on each of them
• website released in 2004 [1]
• website structured into MAP (17 countries by 5 periods) and MOVEMENTS. periods: 1945-57, 1958-70, 1971-83, 1984-96, 1997-2004. movements: retroavantgarde (8 artists), moscow conceptualism (6 artists), anonymous authorship (11 artists), sots-art (2 artists). country not included: Moldova. users of the website are invited to propose other relevant artists/groups and these are listed as Suggested additions
• book released in 2006
• book structured into 2 parts: Selected Artworks and Events and Essays. First includes 23 texts covering 18 countries (2x Croatia, 3x Russia, 2x Serbia and Montenegro, 2x Slovenia), the second includes 19 cross-genre and/or cross-country and/or cross-timeperiod essays.

Top programmatic and sociopolitical texts in a country grouped by time-period

Czech Art 1938-1989. Programmes, critical texts, documents. [Czech] (ed. Ševčík, Morganová, Dušková)

• 1997 - academic research centre at Academy of Arts in Prague (VVP AVU) founded -> began to research documents and text material which have been storing in searchable bibliography database -> in 2000 launched online and included database of books, catalogues, and articles in magazines, anthologies, samizdats [2]
• then idea of strictly selective anthology of fundamental programmatic texts of Czech art after WW II.
• research sponsored by Ministery of education and Ministery of culture
• soon found out it is too few of them -- and many important historical streams would be left out => idea of a broader historical and theoretical developments in Czech art, including not only programmatic texts, but also critical texts, essays, historical political documents (in order to contextualise the times)
• 500 texts in narrower selection, out of which 200 were chosen for the book (each accompanied by one/two-paragraph annotation with sociopolitical/historical context)
• book released in 2001, accompanied by online database [3]
• book structured into 5 chapters: 1938-47 (liberal times), 1948-56 (february coup, reorganisation of fine artists union), 1957-63 (political and cultural relaxation), 1964-69 (new mgmt of fine artists union, liberalisation), 1970-89 (normalisation); plus chronology of major events in Czech art

Essays by art genre in a country

Alternative Culture. The Story of Czech Society 1945-1989 [Czech] (ed. Alan)

• end of 1996 ~ first ideas -> evolved into series of documentaries (dir P.Slavík) -> need of a broader sociologicla and arthistorical project
• 1997 - working group established
• 1999 - received the grant (Grant Agency of CZ)
• from 1997 debates in team via seminars (coordinated by Naďa Dvorská) -> refusal of chronological approach -> key themes according to cultural fields
• then biographical sociological research -- group of trained researchers (led by E.Stehlíková) takes biographical interviews + also interviews from Film & Sociology Foundation are used
• then analysis by cultural theoreticians and historians, and by sociologists
• 4 problematic areas => and solutions
  • had to ignore understanding of culture in contemporary sociological/anthropological theories, and subjects of cultural studies (sociocultural and esthetical parameters of everyday, like fashion, living, fun, celebrations, urbanism, applied design) -- these would include eg. escape into the private space, so called second living, self-supplying, self-help => thus only intellectual/artistic activities and sociopolitical context are included
  • historical memory - issues of reinterpretation and reconstruction of events, activities and works (positive view of alternative scene; non-locality/ordinarity of phenomena)
  • society vs culture -- it is not possible to include both views at the same time => thus focus on relations of society and art
  • what is alternative culture? => defined as conscious diversion fromthe governing cultural streams, pushed through and supported by totalitarian regime by its power; includes underground/dissident/illegal/forbidden/parallel/independent/unofficial/semiofficial culture
• book released in 2001, accompanied by CD compilation
• structure of the book: 13 texts by 13 authors on music (3), fine arts (2), theatre (2), literature (1), film (1), photography (1), philosophy (1), and on alternative culture as a sociological topic (1)

Top documents grouped in thematic cross-country/genre chapters in a roughly chronological order

Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Easterns and Central European Art Since the 1950s (eds. Hoptman and Pospiszyl)

• 2 editors, 2 assistents of editors (Majlena Braun, Clay Tarica), 9 consultants
• concentration on art and theory, especially on theory
• important issue of perception of CEE art in the West: inspired by Edward Said's text Oriental Other about 19th century's Europe, it was later expanded by Igor Zabel, Nada Beroš, Piotr Piotrowski
• refused covering the retrospective regional assesments, monographs, arthistorical chronologies, retrospective situational analyses => but instead chose landmark texts, that labeled movements, challenged received ideas, changed the way art was made and thought about by international writers at their communities and nationally ~ focus on primary source material
• book released in 2002
• book structure: refused treating each region separately, BUT worked in thematic chapters at roughly chronological order. 6 chapters, each includes 6-10 documents and 1-2 page annotation. Chapters: secret life in people's culture, pioneers and their manifestos, conceptual art, body art, retroavantgarde, freedom and nationalism.
• critique: disproportions between single countries (only 1 essay to Hungarian art, while almost 1/2 of book to Soviet and Polish art); predominance of attitudes emerging from avant-garde and experimental practices; presentation of art that is resigned to traditional media, such as painting or sculpture (editors' apparent preference for conceptualism and performance art)

To-do

Between worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-gardes, 1910-1930 (eds. Benson and Forgács)

• includes hundreds of documents, almost all of them translated into English for the first time; landmark texts by the major writers, editors, artists, magazines, and movements of Central Europe.

Central European Avant-Gardes. Exchange and Transformation, 1910–1930 (ed. Benson)

• narrative: arranged around events and situations rather than by linear, art historical categories
• structure: features hundreds of color plates and reproductions of documents; discussions of movements from Artificialism to Zenitism; essays on figures, publications, and exhibitions; and shorter "city views" of Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Cracow, Dessau, Ljubljana, £ódz, Poznań, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Weimar, and Zagreb.