The book is devoted to the artistic methods of self-historicisation, archiving, and the creation of alternative institutional frameworks in the context of power and ideology structures dominating art in Communist Central and Eastern Europe and subsequently during their transformation.

Ten essays take the form of case studies that focus on neo-avant-garde, post-avant-garde and contemporary art projects from Poland, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Their common denominator is their development over long stretches of time, in many cases coinciding with the lifetimes of their creators.

Trying to come to terms with the given conditions for artistic practise in each of these countries, artists like Peter Bartoš, Goran Đorđević, György Galántai, Matej Gavula, Tomislav Gotovac, Zofia Kulik, Ana Lupaș, Lia Perjovschi, Milica Tomić, Petr Štembera, Jiří Valoch, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor and others developed a link between artistic and community work, practices of collecting, sorting and distributing difficult to access or otherwise censored knowledge and information, establishing parallel institutional networks and founding active archives which today serve as inspiration, not only to galleries and museums, but also to contemporary artists, theoreticians, and organizers of art events.

This book was made possible with the support of a grant project PATTERNS Lectures at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava titled »Curating archives. Critical perspectives on parallel cultural histories« (2014-2015).

This publication is available at ERSTE Foundation Library.