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This volume focuses on political and social expressions in contemporary art of Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. It explores the transformations that art in Ukraine and the Baltic states has undergone since their independence in 1991, discussing how the conflicts and challenges of the last three decades have impacted the reconsideration of identity and fostered resistance of culture against economic and political crises. It analyzes connections between the past and the present as seen by the artists in these countries and looks at their visions of the future. Contemporary Ukrainian art portrays various perspectives, addressing issues from controversial historical topics to the present...
Ukraine is at a historic crossroads, with the nations complex cultural identity at stake. Curator Alisa Lozhkina provides an authoritative overview of the countrys art, artists and movements from the dawn of Modernism to the Soviet period, to post-Soviet times and Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She discusses Ukrainian art and artists within historical and political contexts as well as showing how they have contributed to, and interacted with, Ukrainian culture and identity as the nation transformed from provincial status on the periphery of the Russian Empire, to a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, through to independence and the challenges of its most recent history. Arranged broadly chronologically and fully illustrated throughout, The Art of Ukraine offers a powerful opportunity to explore the rich and complex Ukrainian artistic tradition.
In the times when the Ukrainian art sphere was regulated by the Soviet institutions, local monumental and decorative arts existed at the frontier of the Party's propaganda and the artistic thirst to experiments. Nowadays, Ukrainian mosaics are wrested out of the architectural context of the country in both literal and metaphorical ways. The artworks are liquidated from the buildings they were specifically created for and indiscriminately despised as ideological pieces of no value. Furthermore, in legal terms mosaics are not defined as objects of art that makes them unguarded in the face of the decommunization process. Initially incepted as a guide, this book is an equally beneficial companio...
This book explores ideologies, conflicts and ideas that underpinned art historical writing in Ukraine in the 20th century. Disciplinary beginnings testify both to its deep connection to Krakow, Saint Petersburg and especially Vienna with its school of art history and originality of theoretical thought. Art history started as another imperial project in Ukraine, but ultimately transformed into the means of assertion of national identity. The volume looks closely at the continuity and ruptures in scholarship caused by the establishment of Soviet power and challenges a number of existing stereotypes like total isolation under Communist rule and strict adherence to a Marxist-Leninist methodology...
The book presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet monumental mosaics, outstanding artifacts of the cultural heritage of the era. Photographer Yevgen Nikiforov spent three years traveling all around Ukraine (including the presently occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts) in search of the most interesting art pieces of the 1950s-1980s within the context of Soviet Modernism. He covered 35,000 km of Ukrainian roads and visited 109 cities and villages to discover more than 1,000 surviving mosaics. The book includes approximately 200 unique photographs of monumental panels: officially sanctioned gigantic images of workers, farmers, astronauts and athletes of co...
In less than half a century, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia successfully defeated Fascist occupation, fended off dominating pressures from the Eastern and Western blocs, built a modern society on the ashes of war, created its own form of socialism, and led the formation of the Nonaligned Movement. This country's principles and its continued battles, fought against all odds, provided the basis for dynamic and exceptional forms of art. Drawing on archival materials, postcolonial theory, and Eastern European socialist studies, Nonaligned Modernism chronicles the emergence of late modernist artistic practices in Yugoslavia from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s. Situ...
Whilst Soviet modernist buildings in Georgia have enjoyed worldwide recognition for several decades, the art for architecture from that era - monumental decorative mosaics - still await discovery and appreciation from an international audience. Then, as now, these richly coloured mosaics were an independent, yet inextricable part of Georgia's architecture: they underlined a building's use, structured its façade, or merged into an elaborate whole. Today, however, many of these works, which were far more than just state propaganda, are under threat of destruction. For the first time, this volume documents these unique remnants of Soviet history alongside their precise locations. Using vivid photos and detailed texts, Nini Palavandishvili and Lena Prents guide the reader through a diverse selection of mosaics that distinguish themselves from those of the other Soviet Republics. By drawing attention to this artistic legacy of a bygone era, and in the process revealing its beauty and cultural significance, the authors highlight the importance of protecting and preserving it for the future.
An exploration of the history and significance of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland. The Palace of Culture and Science is a massive Stalinist skyscraper that was “gifted” to Warsaw by the Soviet Union in 1955. Framing the Palace’s visual, symbolic, and functional prominence in the everyday life of the Polish capital as a sort of obsession, locals joke that their city suffers from a “Palace of Culture complex.” Despite attempts to privatize it, the Palace remains municipally owned, and continues to play host to a variety of public institutions and services. The Parade Square, which surrounds the building, has resisted attempts to convert it into a money-making comm...
Delivered at the turn of the twentieth century, Riegl's groundbreaking lectures called for the Baroque period to be judged by its own rules and not merely as a period of decline.