Art East Central
Editorial
Counter-Narratives of East Central Europe
Matthew Rampley
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
When this journal was launched, it was stated that it would be focused on the period from 1800 to the present. No sooner was that stated than the journal broke its own rule, by including a round-table discussion ‘Globalizing Early Modern Central and Eastern European Art,’ which addresses the issues related to the historiography of art in east central Europe before 1800. However, we felt that the calibre of the discussion, and the importance of the issues it raised, made its inclusion in Art East Central a logical decision.
Article
Globalizing Early Modern Central and Eastern European Art: A Discussion Forum
Robyn Radway, Tomasz Grusiecki, Robert Born, Suzanna Ivanič, Ruth Sargent Noyes, Olenka Pevny
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
The following roundtable is the result of a conversation between six scholars who met in the summer of 2021 to share their views on the challenges and opportunities associated with tracing and popularizing central and eastern Europe’s global and transcultural histories with a focus on early modern art and material culture. The topics addressed include the long tradition of studying art from a global perspective in the region, groups of objects ripe for reinterpretation, preferred methodologies, and the unique contributions scholars of the region are poised to make to the global turn.
Article
Beyond National Style: The Innovative Thinking and Designs of the Architect Ion Mincu (1852–1912)
Cosmin Minea
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
This article offers a critical reading of the works and thinking of the celebrated Romanian architect Ion Mincu (1852–1912) in relation to the broader cultural and political context of the new nation-state. It investigates the literature on him up until the present day to trace the formation of his image as ‘creator’ of the Romanian (also known as Neo-Romanian or National) architectural style before presenting Mincu’s range of artistic interests, innovative ideas and designs.
Article
Four Essays on Modern Architecture
Virgil Bierbauer (1893–1956)
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
Virgil Bierbauer is known as perhaps the foremost champion of international modernism in architecture writing in Hungary between the wars. He was editor of the journal Tér és Forma (Space and Form) in the 1920s and 1930, which he used as a platform for disseminating awareness of debates and practices in contemporary architecture not only in Hungary but elsewhere in Europe and North America. This group of four es¬says by Bierbauer from Tér és Forma has been translated into English to address this deficit of awareness.
Article
Five Essays on Women’s Art and Perception in Interwar Austria
Hans Ankwicz-Kleehoven (1883–1962), Wolfgang Born (1893–1949), Liane Zimbler (1892–1987)
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
The essays translated in this collection are representative of debates and views about women in art in Austria in the 1920s and 1930s. The texts are reviews of exhibitions of work by women artists, as well as discussions of ideas of design and gender by women critics.
Book review
A Colourful Atlas of Artistic Practice
A Review of: Karoline Majewska-Güde, Ewa Partum’s Artistic Practice: An Atlas of Continuity in Different Locations, Bielefeld: transcript, 2021. 336 pp. ISBN 978-3-8376-5524-7.
Petra Lexová
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
This critical monograph on the Polish-born conceptual and feminist artist Ewa Partum (1946 – ) written by the researcher, curator, and art critic Karolina Majewska-Güde, is an extensive exploration of Partum’s practice. The book critically analyses and evaluates her writings as well her artworks and approaches her work in different contexts and the different conditions she worked under. Ewa Partum was a pioneer of feminist art in central Europe and also the leading female exponent of conceptual art.
Book review
Navigating Czech Art History after the Second World War
A Review of: Milena Bartlová, Dějiny českých dějin umění 1945–1969(The History of Czech Art History 1945–1969), Prague: UMPRUM, 2021. 552 pp. ISBN 978-80-88308-11-9.
Marta Filipová
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
How does one write the history of art history? And who is it that writes art history in different political, social and historic contexts, and the art history of what? These are some of the main questions posed by Milena Bartlová in a highly self-reflective book, Dějiny českých dějin umění 1945–1969.
Book review
Estonians, Germans and their Heritage
A Review of: Kristina Jõekalda, German Monuments in the Baltic Heimat? A Historiography of Heritage in the ‘Long Nineteenth Century’ (Tallinn: Estonian Academy of Art, 2020). Paperback / PDF 365 pp. ISBN 978-9949-594-99-3 (print); ISBN 978-9916-619-00-1 (pdf).
Matthew Rampley
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
The subject of this book is the place of Germans in Estonia or, rather, the story of how the German-speaking inhabitants of modern-day Estonia developed a sense of local identity and artistic heritage during the nineteenth century, and how the art and architecture of the region developed into a field of study.
Book review
Red Army Monuments in Poland from Creation to Destruction
A Review of: Dominika Czarnecka, ‘Monuments in Gratitude’ to the Red Army in Communist and Post-Communist Poland, trans. Julita Mastalerz. Paris / Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2021. 724 pp. ISBN 978-2-343-22941-6.
Mischa Gabowitsch
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
Dominika Czarnecka’s voluminous book about monuments in gratitude to the Red Army in Poland stands out both in its scope and in the level of historical detail she lays out. Other compendia tend to proceed phenomenologically, starting from extant monuments in their present-day shape. Czarnecka relies on a plethora of Polish archival sources, in addition to published materials, to present a meticulous account of the construction and subsequent uses of the most prominent type of Red Army monument found in Poland.
Book review
A Review of: Beate Störtkuhl and Rafał Makała, eds, Not Just Bauhaus. Networks of Modernity in Central Europe, Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2020.
Julia Secklehner
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
The edited volume Not Just Bauhaus offers a reconsideration of the Bauhas and its myths. It challenges the primary position usually given to the Bauhaus in creating modernist architecture in central Europe and shifts attention to the broader networks of architectural modernity in the region and its connections to other parts of the world.
Book review
Archiving Performances as a Dissident Practice
A Review of: Corinna Kühn, Medialisierte Körper. Performances und Aktionen der Neoavantgarden Ostmitteleuropas in den 1970er Jahren, Cologne: Böhlau, 2020. 324 pp. ISBN 978-3-412-51422-8.
Christian Drobe
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
Focusing on one Czech artist, a Hungarian, a Romanian and two artists / groups from Poland, this publication provides a well-composed and multi-layered picture of artistic practices in central Europe during the 1970s. Kühn’s book rests on a complex theoretical framework that draws from figures such as Erving Goffmann, Erika Fischer-Lichte or recent ideas on praxeology.
Book review
A Review of: Mária Árvai and Dániel Véri, A nagy könyvlopás: Francia könyvkiállítás a vasfüggöny mögött / The Great Book Theft: French Book Exhibition behind the Iron Curtain, Szentendre: Ferenczy Museum Center, 2020. pp. 200. ISBN 978-615-5860-16-4.
Nóra Veszprémi
Art East Central N° 02 / 2022
On 24 October 1959 an exhibition of new French books opened at the Műcsarnok (Arts Hall) in Budapest. By the time the exhibition closed two weeks later, most of the books on display had been stolen by the visitors. The exhibition The Great Book Theft organised between 20 September 2019 and 1 March 2020 at the Ferenczy Museum Centre in Szentendre explored the event.
ISSN 2695-1428 (online)
