Promises of the Past

Book excerpt: Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Promises of the Past examines the former opposition between Eastern and Western Europe by reinterpreting the history of the Communist Bloc countries through art. Challenging the idea that art history is somehow linear and continuous, this transnational and multigenerational project features works by more than 50 artists, many of them from Central and Eastern Europe, including: Marina Abramovic, Yael Bartana, Dimitrije Basicevic (Mangelos), Tacita Dean, Liam Gillick, Sanja Ivekovic, Július Koller, Jirí Kovanda, Edward Krasinski, David Maljkovic, Marjetica Potrc and Monika Sosnowska. Accompanying an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, this publication features previously unpublished archival documentation, as well as historic essays by Slavoj Zizek, Igor Zabel and others.