Report_Issue 1/2009 - Jubiläum/ 20 Jahre Mauerfall

How have the culture scenes in the former East Bloc and in the countries that once made up Yugoslavia developed
since 1989? Do the categories “East” and “West” retain any meaning in art? A summary by Eastern Europe experts
Margarethe Makovec and Anton Lederer from the Graz art association , one of the hubs for art from Eastern
and Southeastern Europe and Austria.
— Herwig G. Höller talks with Margarethe Makovec and Anton Lederer —
Is there just a single story to be told about eastern
and southeastern European art in the last
twenty years?
Margarethe Makovec: The developments in art
in the last twenty years, for example in Romania,
former Yugoslavia and the Czech Republic,
cannot be compared with each other, even
though the socio-political themes that artists
from these countries deal with are similar.
What these countries have in common is that
their art scenes were strongly influenced by
the involvement of the American investment
banker and patron George Soros. In each of
the capital cities Soros helped set up a centre
for contemporary art that was headed by a local
person. From that point onwards there was,
finally, a local communication and information
platform for contemporary art and there was
money for the production of art.
But is it not true that Soros’ involvement is no
longer viewed quite so uncritically?
Anton Lederer: In principle Soros’ involvement
was a wonderful thing. In the mid-1990s he
invested money in art – at a time when there
was no structure of support in most of these
countries. This set things moving within the
art scenes, and a sizable number of catalogues
were published. Ten years after the fall of the
Iron Curtain when the important exhibition
“After the Wall” was shown in the Moderna
Museet in Stockholm and was followed by a
certain hype about these countries, foreign
curators were able to orient themselves with
the aid of these centres and publications. The
disadvantage of Soros’ culture centres was
that they created peaks that were in complete
contrast to the cultural landscape surrounding
them. The example of Lejla Hodžić in Sarajevo
always shocked me: as a young staff member of
the Soros Centre in the capital she earned more
than her father, an eminent surgeon.
M. M.: And the fundamental idea that after four
or five years the centres would be taken over by
locally financed structures has functioned only
in very few cases. Many states showed little interest,
particularly because of the political orientation
of these centres.
How are the art scenes surviving in the post-
Soros era?
A. L.: The scene is characterised by the struggle
for a a critical, not just commercial spirit and
the tussle between the “old” and the “new”:
for example who should represent Croatia this
year at the Venice Biennale? These are artists
who primarily play a role in a national context.
Parallel to this the Zagreb curators collective
WHW is curating the Istanbul Biennale. These
are interesting tendencies: there exists an international
plateau of eastern European art,
but at the same time there is a parallel national
level of representation.
M. M.: In Ukraine the tendency is more strongly
in favour of traditional forms, whereas in Poland
and the Czech Republic the move is very
clearly in the direction of a progressive orientation
in contemporary art. The latter two countries
are now also beginning to support their
artists abroad. This is something new: now we
mediators of culture can reckon with receiving
state support from Poland for Polish artists
whom we invite to Austria, in the same way as
happens with Dutch or British artists, for example.
Why is contemporary Polish art so extraordinarly
successful at the moment??
A. L.: What is interesting about Poland is the
decentralisation of contemporary art. Outside
the capital cities such as Cracow, Lublin, Posen
and Gdansk are making an effort to operate in
a supra-regional way in matters relating to art.
To draw a comparison: in Poland’s neighbour
Ukraine there is no equivalent phenomenon
to be found in cities such as Odessa, Charkiw
and Lvov. Scenes can more easily develop when
there exist institutions with a contemporary
orientation that are financed by municipal
authorities or by countries. This corresponds
with the economic development of a country
like Poland in which wealthier classes are being
created. But: this always has much to do with
personal commitment and inventiveness, not
solely with money!
And with the possibility of operating beyond
one’s own borders …
M. M.: Precisely. Ukrainians and many people
in southeast and eastern Europe still require a
visa for the EU countries. Entire generations
are growing up that simply cannot travel to
the Biennale in Venice. This is an unbelievable
imbalance. The EU is making an unforgiveable
mistake by refusing generations of Europeans
the chance of contacts with and getting to know
other European countries. It is therefore hardly
suprising to learn than in these countries there
is not exactly a euphoria for Europe.
Do you not see a danger that in terms of its international
reception art from this region runs
the danger of landing in an art ghetto subsidised
by politics?
M. M.: Naturally, from a “western” view there
are always exotic elements and folklore involved.
However in , particularly in
our artist-in-residence programmes, we have
always endeavoured not to organise a one-side
exchange but instead to always work as equal
partners. I believe that many international curators
now automatically include a visit to eastern
Europe in their research work. Fifteen years
ago things were very different in this respect.
Are eastern European artists themselves not
partly to blame for these exotic aspects? Have
they not tried too hard to suit themselves thematically
to western European curators?
A. L: That is not how I see it. Like in other countries,
there is an intense examination of local
themes in the art scenes of eastern Europe,
too. Following a tendency towards internationalisation,
which asserted that the local context
should not be of relevance for an art work, that
the art work should have global validity, a different
tendency developed. And the fact that
local aspects from, say, Romania are regarded
as exotic in Central Europe may have to do with
the disrupted flow of information during the
Communist era. But a group in national folkcostume
from Aussee in Austria would seem
just as exotic (at the very least) in Bucharest.
Have the artists managed to access the supraregional
art market?
M. M.: Yes, even the younger generation of
artists, such as Anri Sala from Tirana or Šejla
Kamerić from Sarajevo, to mention just two.
At the moment both live outside their respective
countries of origin, but this is also true of
a number of Austrian artists. Galleries such as
Francesca Kaufmann in Milan and Kilchmann
in Zürich have chosen excellent positions from
the rich pool in eastern Europe. On the other
hand – and this is suprising – many top southeast
European artists such as Mladen Stilinović
from Zagreb are not represented by any gallery
at all.
Are there eastern European artists who have
become as famous and expensive as some of
their western European colleagues?
A. L.: As a non-profit art association we only
take a sideward glance at the hit parade of the
most expensive artists. I presume that the most
expensive contemporary art works continue
to be produced and sold in Germany, England
and the USA. As far as international renown is
concerned there are certainly a number who
have made it to the front ranks, such as Dan
Perjovschi (Romania), Ilya Kabakov (Soviet
Union), Sanja Iveković (Croatia), Nedko Solakov
(Bulgaria), IRWIN (Slovenia). But does the
art market define success? No. What counts is
the continuously exciting artistic examination
of contemporary themes.
Finally, before the “drawer” labelled “eastern,
central, southeast European art” is closed as
European integration advances: from which
innovative approaches can we in what is “just
about still the West” still quickly learn something?
A. L.: We can certainly learn from each other,
there’s no doubt about that. Our experience
with artist-in-residence associations has shown
that the work of many artists who went from
Austria to cities in eastern Europe has been influenced
in a lasting way by these visits. You can
probably experience more in a month in Tirana
than in Paris.
M. M.: For us eastern Europe remains an exciting
area. There are highly unusual artistic
practices there. The local transformative realities
can become a significant inspiration for our
future in the west. Strong intellectual positions
are being developed there that unfortunately
only reach us somewhat later. We find the
current discourse about the “former western
Europe” particularly interesting. The starting
point is that, like eastern Europe in the last
twenty years, western Europe is currently undergoing
a major process of transformation.
Margarethe Makovec (born in Vienna in 1971) and
Anton Lederer (born in 1970 in Graz) founded the art
association in Graz in 1999. In the past decade
it developed into an internationally recognised hub for
art from Austria and Southeast/Eastern Europe. The
current exhibition on the occassion of this association’s
anniversary: “ausgewählt: 10 Jahre ”.
http://rotor.mur.at/
Herwig G. Höller (born in 1974 in Rottenmann), is an
expert in Slavic studies and literature and works as a
journalist with the weekly newspaper “Falter”. He also
publishes in art magazines such as “springerin” or
“spike”.
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