art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

14
and critical articles both validating and contesting the various discourses in which
these identities have been inscribed.” Alongside the issue of the representation
of Latin American art (meaning the arts of Mexico, South and Central America,
and the Caribbean) as the core issue in the United States at the epoch, what is
even more significant (and relevant for the issue of the representation of Eastern
European art in the era of EU-integration processes after 1989) is the fact that the
debates encompassing these exhibitions marked the transformation of the curator
of contemporary art from behind-the-scenes aesthetic arbiter to central player in the
broader stage of global cultural politics.[6]
Curatorial discourses about (and/or coming from) the former Eastern European
(Central, Eastern and South-East European) cultural contexts could be understood
as a particular phenomenon of its own kind, that emerged in the 1990s after
the global political changes. At the same time, these new discourses cannot be
conceived exclusively as autonomous and self-sufficient phenomena because of a
few reasons:
a) The fact that Eastern European art only represents the other side of the common
cultural dominion of the Western cultural system, but developed in different historical
conditions from those prevailing in the states of the Western Capitalism;
b) The emergence of contemporary Eastern European art (as represented at the
exhibitions which exploded throughout the European cultural space in the 1990s and
early 2000s) has been initiated, intentionally promoted and conceptually supervised
by the prominent Western gallery and museum system;
c) Due to the Eastern Europe’s lack of the art market and an overall economical
instability, the financial background for the realization of these exhibitions has been
provided by the Western foundations and financial bodies interested in promoting
contemporary Eastern European art, through exhibitions and art-related projects.
The aforementioned statements clearly posit Eastern European art in relation to an
external point of view. If we accept the fact that what is at stake in the contemporary
art world is far from earlier identification and clear distinguishing of national schools
of art and international movements (according to precisely definable and immediately
recognizable formal characteristics), and realize that contemporary art is to the utmost
degree contextual, then it means that today’s artists and curators from all over the
world employ the same forms and devices by using them in different cultural and
political contexts. Therefore, we could pose an inevitable question: Can the Eastern
European art be said to possess a distinctive character? As Boris Groys put it in
his speech “The Complicity of Oblivion” (on the occasion of the symposium East of
Art - Transformations in Eastern Europe, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2003),
Eastern European art is first and foremost an art that is subjugated to the external
point of view, and being subjected to this external judgment on it, this art becomes
Eastern European; becomes informative about what Eastern Europe is.[7] One might
add that this must include the Western art world’s interest in the so-called emerging
markets, the desire of the countries in question to join Europe, and European financial
involvement in the culture of countries that are not yet members of the EU - otherwise
a reduced visibility would come as a final result.