{"product_id":"the-postsocialist-contemporary-the-institutionalization-of-artistic-practice-in-eastern-europe-after-1989-hardcover","title":"The Postsocialist Contemporary: The Institutionalization of Artistic Practice in Eastern Europe After 1989 - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eOctavian Esanu\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe postsocialist contemporary joins a growing body of scholarship debating the definition and nature of contemporary art. It comes to these debates from a historicist perspective, taking as its point of departure one particular art programme, initiated in Eastern Europe by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. First implemented in Hungary, the Soros Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) expanded to another eighteen ex-socialist countries throughout the 1990s. Its mission was to build a western 'open society' by means of art. This book discusses how network managers and artists participated in the construction of this new social order by studying the programme's rise, evolution, impact and broader ideological and political consequences. Rather than recounting a history, its engages critically with 'contemporary art' as the aesthetic paradigm of late-capitalist market democracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe postsocialist contemporary \u003c\/i\u003euses a historical perspective of Eastern Europe to intervene in a wider conversation about \"contemporary art.\" It revolves around a concrete case in which a program for contemporary art was assembled on the debris of the Berlin Wall by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Soros Centers for Contemporary Art (SCCA) was a network of twenty art centers active during the 1990s in Eastern Europe. The book argues that this program played an important role in the actualization of the paradigm of \"contemporary art\" in the former bloc. Its main goal, however, is not to recreate the narrative but to use this Soros-funded art infrastructure as a critical point of inquiry for engaging with key forms that occurred in art during the transition to capitalism. The implementation of Western art institutional models by Soros and other players prompted a radical departure in the region: a departure from an art that (officially at least) provided symbolic empowerment to the masses towards one that affirms the interests, needs, desires, and \"freedom\" of the private individual acting within the boundaries of the bourgeois civil society and the market. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book considers the \"postsocialist contemporary\" in a broader context of late twentieth-century political, economic, and cultural processes of (neo) liberalization, promoting and encouraging more critical historical materialist examinations of \"contemporary art\"' - the dominant aesthetic paradigm of late-capitalist market democracy.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eOctavian Esanu is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Curator of AUB Art Galleries\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.69 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 23, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47965624631544,"sku":"9781526158000","price":195.78,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0698\/5629\/7208\/files\/aj9V4U-1719781526158000.webp?v=1783584831","url":"https:\/\/barneysbooksellers.com\/products\/the-postsocialist-contemporary-the-institutionalization-of-artistic-practice-in-eastern-europe-after-1989-hardcover","provider":"Barney's Book Sellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}