<p class="p1">Due to the expansion of open storage, from August 3 Garage Library will no longer be located in the Seasons of the Year pavilion. The new location and opening date will be announced later.</p>

Please note

<p class="p1">Due to&nbsp;the expansion of&nbsp;open storage, from August 3 Garage Library will no&nbsp;longer be&nbsp;located in&nbsp;the Seasons of&nbsp;the Year pavilion. The new location and opening date will be&nbsp;announced later.</p>

7-9 years 

10-14 years 

15-17 years 

0-6 years 

Architecture

Photo

Journalism

Psychology

Music

Family

Stream

Series

Seminars, Workshops and Training

Lectures & Talks

Concerts & Performances

Film Screenings

Exhibitions

Courses

Tours

Concerts & performances

Conferences

Exhibitions & projects

News

Interview

Talks

Lecture cycles

Conferences and seminars

Book presentations

Art Guide

Garage publishing program

Sponsors, patrons, and partners

Information partners

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Artguide Editions

Garage International Publishing Program

Library events

Books in english

Garage Screen

Russian

English

Bilingual (russian/english)

Film programs

GARAGE Club

Programs for exhibitions

Events

Garage Live

Garage Dance

Academic program

Grants

Field research

Patronship

Garage Studios

Mosaic Music

GARAGE Student

Garage.txt

Film festival

Film distribution

Sign language

Mental disabilities

Migration

Audio description

Tactile models

Accessibility guide

Physical accessibility

GARAGE Individual

Digital accessibility

Diversity

Events at Garage

Garage publishing program and Strelka Press 

Text

Audio

Video

Feature

Guide

GARAGE Individual +1

Research laboratories

Artistic research

Translation to russian sign language

Subtitles

Adapted tours

Quiet room

Translation to uzbek, tajik, and kyrgyz

GARAGE Premium

“We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams”

Space 1520

Contemporary Critical Thought

Directors’ series

The Garage Journal

GARAGE Circle

Temporality

Disability

Affect

Overcoming

Body

Timelessness

Non-normative body

GARAGE Collectors Circle  

Experience of the other

Otherness

Developmental disabilities

Mental health

Trauma

Personal experience

Neural networks

Language

7-11 years

Plain language

Garage Café

The computer class schedule

Mediation

Oleg Baranov Going Down

Podcasts

Shelf of the Month. Theatrе

Publishing program page

Series of meetings with residents

Open call

Shelf of the Month. Cinema

Shelf of the Month. Modern Dance

Projects <i>Oral History</i> and <i>Oral History 2.0</i>

Visitors in a wheelchair

garage-txt

Open storage

Research Laboratory: I Am a Parcel, You Are a Stamp

VOKS kinema Research Laboratory

Avant-Garde Center Laboratory for the Study of Soviet Art Series

LISI_TsA

Region reviews

Artist reviews

Thematic reviews

Exhibition reviews

Archive in St. Petersburg

8-14

Publishing program multipage

Public programs

Free

Registration required

Free for exhibition ticket holders

Paid

Booking required

Booking via phone or email is required

Booking on reception is required

Off-site projects

Architecture and design

Supervision

Museology

Philosophy

Economy

Cinematography

Critical biography

Memoirs and diaries

For Garage card holders

Exhibition catalogues

Research

For children

GARAGE + Ad Marginem

GARAGE PRO

Minima

Paperback

Hardcover

Hardcover with dust jacket

Book Selection

Professional programs

Video review

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press. GARAGE PRO Series

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press. Minima Series

City tours

Exhibition tours

Seminars, workshops & training

Lectures & talks

Contact&nbsp;Us

Hours

GARAGE Card

Today at Garage

Youtube

Telegram

Mailing list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get the latest news from Garage

Press Mailing List

To join our press mailing list, please include your email address in the field

key:subscription

Film screenings in the Museum auditorium

GARAGE SCREEN

The first public contemporary art library in Russia

Library

Podcast about contemporary non-fiction from the Publishing Department at Garage

Lessons in World Artistic Culture Podcast

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection was founded in 2024 and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, video, objects, and installations created by Russian artists since 1980

Collection

Your support is vital. Play your part in the development of Garage

Garage Endowment Fund

Display on Links between Art and Mass Culture in the Late Soviet Era

Art on the 1980s Wavelength

<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable">
<p class="text__small"><strong>Overview by Maryana Karysheva, Valery Ledenev, and Anastasia Tishunina</strong></p>
</header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<p class="text__lead" data-tpl-selection="">Providing context for Yin Xiuzhen&rsquo;s <a href="/en/exhibition/yin-xiuzhen-slow-release" target="_blank">Slow Release</a>&mdash;currently on show in Garage Atrium&mdash;Garage Research team have prepared an overview of publications on Chinese contemporary art.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_%D0%98%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE.jpg" alt="" width="491" height="640" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Искусство №6 / 2011 [Iskusstvo №6 / 2011]</h2>
<p data-tpl-selection="">In 2011, Russian art magazine <em>Iskusstvo</em> devoted an entire issue to the rapidly developing art scene of China&mdash;the country that had opened up to the outside world as recently as in the 1990s. The issue contains articles on artists such as Yang Fudong, Cai Guo-Qiang, Zhang Huan and Ai Weiwei, as well as a feature on general developments in Chinese art since the Cultural Revolution by scholar and critic Gao Minglu. Gao discusses styles and movements as well as the specificity of the Chinese art scene, conditioned by China&rsquo;s non-involvement in the international modernist movement, its close ties with the Soviet Union and its traditionalism. Valery Podoroga compares the Chinese notion of the void to the Western concept of nothingness, while Philip Hoffman, writing for the Market section, shares his predictions on the potential growth of the Chinese contemporary art market. M. K.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_Yishu.jpg" alt="" width="2058" height="3476" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art / June 2007</h2>
<p data-tpl-selection="">Canadian publication <em>Yishu</em> is the largest Western periodical focused on contemporary art from China. It has published several articles on Yin Xiuzhen, whose installation <em>Slow Release</em> is currently exhibited at Garage. In the March 2005 issue, critic and academic Peggy Wang offers an analysis of Yin Xiuzhen&rsquo;s <em>Ruined City (1996)</em>, <em>Peking Opera (2000)</em> and <em>Portable Cities (started in 2001)</em>&mdash;three projects that explore the phenomenon of urbanization. &ldquo;In her works, the independent identities of the &lsquo;city&rsquo; and the &lsquo;individual&rsquo; fluctuate as much as the relationship between two&rdquo;, she points out. &ldquo;In fact, it is in Yin Xiuzhen&rsquo;s works that we are made to realize that each has the potential to both displace itself and be displaced by the other. Applying as much to the site as to the self, the notion of displacement can be understood as the process of taking and/or the state of being out of context&rdquo;. A small article in the June 2005 issue is devoted to Y<em>in Xiuzhen&rsquo;s Fashion Terrorism (2004-2005)</em>, and an analysis of her Arsenal: <em>Weapons (2007)</em> made for the Chinese Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale follows in the January 2007 issue.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_art%20and%20cultural%20policy%20in%20china.jpg" alt="" width="1963" height="2465" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Art and Cultural Policy in China: A Conversation between Ai Weiwei, Uli Sigg and Yung Ho Chang, moderated by Peter Pakesch</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">Wien, New York: Springer, 2009. 132 pp.</p>
<p>In the conversation, documented in this publication, Ai Weiwei, Uli Sigg, Yung Ho Chang, and curator Peter Pakesch discuss their personal artistic careers, as well as general aspects of contemporaneity, touching on a range of subjects including Chinese and European histories, Confucianism, communism, democracy, architecture, urban planning in Shanghai and Beijing, computer technology and</p>
<p>China&rsquo;s transition from Marxist to Capitalist ideology, which Ai Weiwei, as the artist admits, still finds incredible. The core theme of the conversation is the interaction between Chinese and other cultures. Yun Ho Chan analyzes the connections between China and the West through the example of his own family. His father&mdash;also an architect&mdash;has never left China and has a very sketchy knowledge of other cultures, while Yun Ho Chan himself works in the USA and deeply regrets not having studied Chinese culture and art. The conversation is published in English and German. A. T.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_%D0%9C%D1%8B-%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%20%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%89%D0%B5%D0%B5.jpg" alt="" width="2457" height="3460" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">We Are Your Future: Special Project - 2nd Moscow Biennale 2007</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">Moscow: Art Star Books, 2007. 156 pp.</p>
<p>The catalogue of the 2007 exhibition <em>We Are Your Future</em> features Chinese and Latin American artists concerned with issues of identity and internationalism.</p>
<p>Works in the Chinese component of the catalogue include wooden installations shaped like the map of China and a Han Dynasty vase with a Coca-Cola logo by Ai Weiwei; paintings by Fang Lijun and Li Songsong; and Jin Feng&rsquo;s performances exploring the perception of one&rsquo;s own body. Several works feature Mao and discuss the role of the cult of personality in the history of China.</p>
<p>A considerable part of the catalogue is devoted to interviews with artists who participated in the exhibition. The one that might be of special interest to the Russian reader is that with Huang Yan, who discusses parallels between Russian and Chinese histories in the twentieth century, and the ways in which Russian culture has influenced art in China. A. T.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_american%20and%20chinese%20cinema.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="599" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">American and Chinese-Language Cinemas: Examining Cultural Flows</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">New York, London: Routledge, 2015. 232 pp.</p>
<p>This collection of essays published in the series <em>Routledge Advances in Film Studies</em>, looks at the interaction between the cinema industries in China and America. A study in culture going beyond the world of cinema, this publication will be of interest to the general reader as well as to film professionals and academics. Critics frequently describe the international influence of America, exercised through Hollywood, as a form of cultural imperialism. However, this unidirectional model of interaction fails to account for the counter-flows of Chinese-language films into the American film market or the influence of Chinese filmmakers and film stars in Hollywood.</p>
<p>Essays in this collection provide a historical perspective on the subject, focusing on phenomena as diverse as Shanghai remakes of American pictures since 1911, postwar cinema in Hong Kong, and the dynamics between the Chinese and American film markets throughout the past few decades.</p>
<p>A separate chapter is devoted to the story of Anna May Wong&mdash;the first Chinese-born actress to have become successful in Hollywood. A. T.</p>
</article>
</section>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

Publications on Chinese Contemporary Art

<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable">
<p class="text__small"><strong>Overview by Ilmira Bolotyan, Maryana Karysheva, Valery Ledenev, Maria Shmatko and Yury Yurkin</strong></p>
</header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<p class="text__lead" data-tpl-selection="">Garage&rsquo;s first <a href="http://triennial.garagemca.org/en" target="_blank">Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art</a> features works by over 200 artists from forty Russian cities and towns. In this overview Garage Research presents a selection of books on contemporary art in Russian regions.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_Vladivostok.jpg" alt="" width="2770" height="3281" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin"><span class="s4">Край бунтарей. Современное искусство Владивостока 1960-2010-е. [The Land of&nbsp;</span><span class="s4">Rebels. Contemporary Art in Vladivostok</span><span class="s4">]</span></h2>
<p class="s5 text__muted text__small"><span class="s4">М.: Maier Publishing, 2016. &mdash; 144 с.</span></p>
<p class="s5">This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, which took place in Zarya Center for Contemporary Art in Vladivostok in 2015&ndash;2016. The exhibition featured works by twenty-three artists that are still little known outside Primorsky Krai.<br /> <br />In their review of the &lsquo;underground&rsquo; art of the region, curators Alisa Bagdonayte and Vera Glazkova chose to focus on conceptualist works, inscribing them into the broader context of Russian contemporary art. The catalogue contains several articles, each offering a particular perspective on the projects included in the exhibition.<br /> <br />In her <em>The 1960s and 1970s: Nonconformism or the Underground</em>, historian Natalya Levdanskaya points out that due to the region&rsquo;s location its cultural scene was secluded from what was going on in the rest of the country and lacked natural conditions for the emergence of a &lsquo;different&rsquo; art. Despite certain similarities in their experimental practices, nonconformist artists of Primorsky Krai and Vladivostok failed to unite and organize any group exhibitions. Contemporary art in the region emerged with the formation of art groups like Vladivostok, Shtil, and Triada, and the opening of independent galleries such as Arka Gallery and Arteage. However, most artists were aiming to show their works in the neighboring countries&mdash;China, Korea and Japan&mdash;and often remained invisible within Russia.<br /> <br />Arseny Shteyner&rsquo;s <em>The Near Far East</em> is a discussion of whether the current developments in contemporary art can be well described and understood at the moment they are happening, while Yulia Liderman&rsquo;s <em>Document of the Revolution (Curator&rsquo;s Notes)</em>, on the contrary, outlines a possible methodology for such analysis through the reconstruction of contexts behind particular works.<br />Apart from the local &lsquo;underground&rsquo; artists who already have a name, curators have selected works by several emerging artists including 33+1, Kirill Kryuchkov and Alexey Krutkin.<br /> <br />Introducing a number of new names, the catalogue is an important contribution to writing the history of contemporary art of the region. But the question of how an artwork can be relevant outside of the local context that produced it remains open. <em>I. B.</em></p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_xzh.jpg" alt="" width="2429" height="2679" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Художественный журнал. 2000. № 4 (33). Регионы [Moscow Art Magazine. 2000. No 4 (33) Regions]</h2>
<p data-tpl-selection=""><br />In 2000, Moscow Art Magazine devoted an entire issue to a survey of contemporary art scenes in Russian regions. The magazine&rsquo;s inquiry offered little hope: most cities discussed in the issue had no museums, galleries, critics or contemporary art education. Whatever happened in contemporary art was organised by artists themselves, with little or no help from local institutions. (<em>Walking around Lake Onega</em>. M. Yufa)<br /> <br />Artist Alexander Lozhkin begins his analysis of the art scene in his home city (<em>Novosibirsk Zone</em>) by saying that Novosibirsk &lsquo;has two contemporary artists&mdash;maybe three&rsquo;, and this description would be true of many Russian cities. Narrow as it was, at some point the circle of contemporary artists began to widen. Perhaps, it was the influence from the outside or the natural development of the community itself. Either way, the centripetal force has drawn quite a few local artists to Moscow. As Svetlana Martynchik writes in her <em>Peculiarities of Provincial Pointlessness</em>, &ldquo;what kept the local artist alive is the myth of the capital city &lt;&hellip;&gt;, where people will be able to &lsquo;understand&rsquo; him, &lsquo;appreciate&rsquo; his work, and will surely want him to stay.&rdquo; One city where the state of things has been different is Saint Petersburg, with its poor but cheerful bohemians creating their own artistic communities and contexts. &ldquo;I suppose, Saint Petersburg is the last remaining zone of the &lsquo;great chill&rsquo;,&rdquo; Dmitry Vilensky writes in <em>The Art of Wasting</em>.<br /> <br />On the other hand, Moscow, which might appear to be the mecca of contemporary art if one looks from the regions, remains at the periphery of the international art scene. The art world, as the world in general, is still in need of decentralization, Kendell Geers concludes in the first article of the issue. <em>M. K.</em></p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_Geo.jpg" alt="" width="2444" height="2590" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Искусство против географии. [Art against Geography]</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">М.: ООО &ldquo;Арт Гид&rdquo;, 2011. &ndash; 64 с.</p>
<p data-tpl-selection="">Russian curators and institutions have turned their eyes towards the regions before the Garage Triennial. One project involving artists from several Russian regions was organized by Marat Guelman as part of the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011).<br /> <br /><em>Art against Geography</em> was produced by the Cultural Alliance, Guelman&rsquo;s creation, which he defined as a non-commercial initiative to introduce Moscow to the art practices from the regions, represent regional artists and extend the Moscow art scene into the country. The name was later transferred to what was previously known as Marat Guelman Gallery in Moscow. The Gallery is no longer open, but many publications about it are available at Garage Library.<br /> <br />The 2011 exhibition featured works by artists from Saint Petersburg (Vladimir Kozin, Ekaterina Florenskaya), Perm (Mikhail Pavlyukevich and Olga Subbotina), Ufa (Timofey Dorofeev, Rinat Voligamsi), Yekaterinburg (Darya Zakharova, Evgenia Mikheeva and Tatyana Komova), Samara (Alisa Kot-Nikolayeva), Togliatti (Mikhail Lezin) and other cities, including those represented by other artists at the Garage Triennial.<br /> <br />Unlike the Triennial, <em>Art against Geography</em> reflected the perspective of one curator. Curiously, the project was an inverse of another exhibition of the same name, which took place at the Russian Museum in 2000 and was entirely devoted to the projects of Marat Guelman Gallery. The catalogue of that exhibition is also available at Garage Library. <em>V. L.</em></p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/compressed_Perm-2.jpg" alt="" width="2663" height="2663" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Живая Пермь. Культурный текст. [Living Perm. The Text of Culture]</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">Пермь.: PERMM, 2012. &mdash; 299 с.</p>
<p data-tpl-selection="">The publication is devoted to the &lsquo;cultural revolution&rsquo; that happened in Perm between 2008 and 2013, and offers an overview of exhibitions, festivals, and reforms of the period. Although structurally it resembles an exhibition catalogue, essentially the book covers a much broader phenomenon&mdash;an experiment in creating in one of the smaller Russian cities an arts cluster similar to the one in Sheffield, UK.<br /> <br />Along with descriptions and photographs of exhibitions at the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art and of public art objects across the city, the book offers some general information about Perm&rsquo;s cultural traditions and landmarks, from Stroganov icons, embroidery and bronzework, to Sergei Diaghilev and the city opera. Several articles look at successful local art initiatives, including a Soviet-era labour camp museum Perm-36 and Flahertiana Documentary Film Festival. A particularly valuable contribution to the book, Anna Suvorova&rsquo;s <em>Perm Underground</em> tells the story of Non-Artists, the Friends of Postmodernism&mdash;a local group of activists visualizing contemporary philosophy in the early 1990s.<br /> <br />The book&rsquo;s design and quality of print match the ambition of the cultural experiment that promised to put Perm among the key European cultural destinations. However, as you turn the last page, you are left with the question of what exactly constituted Perm&rsquo;s cultural phenomenon&mdash;whether it was the &lsquo;animal style&rsquo;, Syava the rap musician, Teodor Currentzis, or the TV-series Real Guys. <em>Yu. Yu.</em></p>
</article>
</section>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

Books on Art in Russian Regions

<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable">
<p class="text__small"><strong>Overview prepared by Valery Ledenyov and Anastasia Tishunina </strong></p>
</header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<p class="text__lead" data-tpl-selection="">In order to introduce those interested in contemporary art to Garage Museum Library&rsquo;s most important publications and new acquisitions, Garage Museum Research Department presents a series of overviews of its collection. The first overview, following the opening of<em> Grammar of Freedom/Five Lessons: Works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection</em>, focuses on publications on contemporary art in Eastern Europe.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/5/compressed_image-fb03dfab-a10f-495e-b852-a62fed6e6f3c.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="394" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Igor Zabel, Contemporary Art Theory</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">Zurich, Dijon: JRP|Ringier &amp; Les Presses Du Reel, 2012</p>
<p>One of the key Eastern European curators and art theorists, Slovenian Igor Zabel (1958&ndash;2005) was sceptical about the notion of &ldquo;Eastern Europe.&rdquo; According to Zabel, in the post-ideological post-war era, the separation of Europe into East and West is not a straightforward geographical division, but remains politically charged: opposing the East to the West is opposing <em>us to them</em>. For Western Europe, such an opposition serves to affirm the universality of its political and cultural model, while the East has to accept its status as a cultural periphery and its own &ldquo;otherness.&rdquo; &ldquo;It may be true that western art is &lsquo;other&rsquo; for us, but what really matters is that &lsquo;we&rsquo; are &lsquo;others&rsquo; for the West,&rdquo; Zabel writes. &ldquo;The perversity of such a situation is that &lsquo;we&rsquo; in advance understand ourselves as being &lsquo;others&rsquo; for the West, that &lsquo;we&rsquo; look at ourselves through &lsquo;the other's eyes&rsquo;, so to speak. This is, of course, a phantasmatic view; but through it, &lsquo;we&rsquo; understand ourselves as &lsquo;the other's other&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Apart from this critical analysis of the latent confrontation between the East and the West, the collection includes Zabel&rsquo;s articles on the peculiarities of modernist art in the former Soviet block, where it would sometimes become the official, state-promoted art, as well as texts on particular artistic phenomena in the region, such as Neue Slovenische Kunst, IRWIN group, and others.</p>
<p>A Russian translation of &ldquo;&lsquo;We&rsquo; and Others,&rdquo; one of the articles in the collection, was published in <em>Khudozhestvenny Journal</em> (Moscow Art Magazine), no. 22 (1998). This issue, dedicated to the art of Eastern Europe, is also available in Garage Library.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/7/compressed_image-fd1e76cf-0eae-48d2-829f-6bfbc65bfa67.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="415" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">The Art of Eastern Europe. A Selection of Works from the International and National Collections of Moderna galerija Ljubljana</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">Vienna: Folio, 2001</p>
<p>All works exhibited in <em>Grammar of Freedom/Five Lessons</em> come from the <em>Arteast 2000+</em> Collection of the Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana. The collection was founded in the 1990s and became available to the public in 2000, the year when Manifesta took place in the Slovenian capital. Garage Library holds a catalogue of selected works from the collection, also containing several essays that are interesting in their own right. As if engaging in a debate with Igor Zabel (a consultant for <em>Arteast 2000+</em>), Boris Groys in his essay &ldquo;Back from the Future&rdquo; states that the unique and particular nature of Eastern European art has yet to be explored by cultural studies. He further develops this idea in &ldquo;Overcoming Variety,&rdquo; featured in his <em>Politics of Poetics</em> collection published by Garage and also be available in the Library.</p>
<p>Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski discusses the notion of frame as a hermeneutics tool in art analysis, allowing us to see beyond a superficial all-leveling perspective that ignores contextual details. &ldquo;It may be that art all over the world &hellip; speaks similar languages, but in fact it communicates diverse meanings dictated by the &lsquo;<em>frame</em>&rsquo;,&rdquo; Piotrowski writes. &ldquo;The language of Balka and Kabakov only seemingly resembles that which is being used in the center. If we approach it within our own &lsquo;frame&rsquo; &hellip; then we will see its proper meanings.&rdquo;</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/8/compressed_image-0ebdcfe4-9508-4343-8c3b-e1e495adf6ce.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="369" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">East Art Map: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe (edited by IRWIN)</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">London: Afterall, 2006</p>
<p data-tpl-selection="">This publication is one of the first books in the series initiated by the influential UK <em>Afterall</em> magazine. Drawing a line under an ambitious survey started by IRWIN art group in 2001, this massive edition includes contributions by 24 curators and art critics, who were asked to compile a list of up to ten contemporary artists from their home countries. Images of their works make up the first part of the book, while critical comments and general overviews of art scenes in each of the countries follow in the second. The third part consists of critical essays, with authors including Charles Esche, Boris Groys, Igor Zabel, Slavoj Žižek, J&uuml;rgen Harten, and others. &ldquo;We do not seek to establish some ultimate truth,&rdquo; IRWIN write in the introduction. &ldquo;On the contrary, our aims are much more modest and, we hope, more practical: to organise the fundamental relationship between Eastern European artists where these relations have not been organised, to draw a map and create a table.&rdquo;</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/11/compressed_image-b8190ee1-9d87-4836-9cf0-a8aa32787d7a.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="432" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">&nbsp;New York: Museum of Modern Art/London: MIT Press, 2002</p>
<p>This collection of essays and documents aims not at providing a comprehensive overview of contemporary art in Eastern Europe, but at showing the context and polyphony of voices in the regional art scenes throughout the last 50 or 60 years. This is why most of the essays provided are by artists &ndash; Braco Dimitrijević, Nedko Solakov, Sanja Iveković, Katarzyna Kozyra, Yuri Sobolev, and Andrey Monastyrsky &ndash; the immediate witnesses of the events and processes that are being discussed. Apart from the necessary exploration of the underground art scene, which one would expect to find here, the publication also focuses on the new developments in the &ldquo;conflict between the East and the West,&rdquo; such as were revealed by the controversy around the 1996 <em>Interpol</em> exhibition in Stockholm.</p>
<p>A more detailed account of the story behind Interpol can be found in<em> &ldquo;The Other&rdquo; and the Different</em> by one of the curators of the exhibition, Viktor Misiano. This book is also available at Garage Library. Another publication on the legendary event, <em>INTEЯPOL: The Art Show Which Divided East and West</em>, donated to the Library by IRWIN, brings together historical evidence and critical analyses of the exhibition.</p>
<p><em>Primary Documents</em> contributors also include Milan Kn&iacute;ž&aacute;k, Geta Brătescu, Artur Żmijewski, Ekaterina Degot and Slavoj Žižek.</p>
</article>
</section>
<section class="text__review mceNonEditable"><header class="text__review__header mceEditable"><img src="//cdn-ec-static.garagemca.org/storage/tinymce_asset/12/compressed_image-c2b809d7-9d38-4732-80ea-2c3b86c1f869.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="327" /></header>
<article class="text__review__content mceEditable">
<h2 class="text__nomargin">Contemporary Photography from Eastern Europe: History, Memory, Identity</h2>
<p class="text__small text__muted">&nbsp;Milan: Skira, 2009</p>
<p data-tpl-selection="">The editors of this album extend their definition of Eastern Europe further than one might expect, including in their selection works by artists from Georgia and Turkey. However, the album also includes works by Ivan Moudov, Milica Tomić and Mladen Stilinović, artists featured in <em>Grammar of Freedom</em>. Although the publication is dedicated specifically to photography, the medium is also understood quite broadly, with video works appearing amongst photographs. Most of the featured works reflect on certain political moments or the general historical context of Eastern European countries: the war in the Balkans, the traumatic break from the totalitarian past (Zbigniew Libera, Iosif Kir&aacute;ly), the violence of the state (Maja Bajevic), and the forming of a national identity accompanied by the rise of local nationalism (Alexandra Croitoru).</p>
</article>
</section>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

Overview of publications on contemporary art in Eastern Europe