Soros Centers for Contemporary Art

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The SCCA was an autonomous regional program of the Open Society Institute (OSI). The network was established in Eastern Europe during the early nineties by the American philanthropist, stock investor, and political activist George Soros. The SCCA was an institutional mechanism of the post-socialist transition or normalization, and its primary role was the modernization of the artistic discourse in the former socialist countries and the republics of the former USSR. The Soros centers sprouted from a small program called Soros Foundation Fine Arts Documentation Center which was established in 1985 in the Budapest Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle), as part of a cooperation between the Műcsarnok and Soros Foundation Hungary. In the early nineties, under the directorship of Suzanne Mészöly, this program was renamed “Soros Center for Contemporary Art” and following Soros’ suggestion it was implement it other Eastern European countries. In 1992, in addition to the already existent SCCA Budapest, the OSI opened five more offices in Bratislava, Moscow, Prague, Tallinn and Warsaw; in 1993, there were established offices in Bucharest, Riga, Vilnius, Kiev, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Sofia. From 1994 to 1999 more centers were opened in St. Petersburg, Belgrade, Chișinău, Sarajevo, Odessa, Almaty increasing their number to 19. (Source)

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