The Hungarian Avant-garde in Late Socialism

Book excerpt: "The emergence and the activities of a second public sphere in the areas of Soviet influence were intricately linked to the performative and intermedial production and usage of alternative spaces. Applying a multitude of perspectives and networked topography, The Hungarian Avant-Garde in Late Socialism investigates artistic strategies of spaces ? namely those of the artist's studio, exhibitions, installations, clubs, apartments, cellars, chapels, and shop windows ? all of which existed parallel to or were interwoven with the regulated public sphere in Hungary from the beginning of the 1960s to the era immediately following the Kd̀r̀ regime. This book captures and discusses the exclusionary and inclusionary mechanisms inscribed into public spheres behind the Iron Curtain in all their paradoxes through the looking glass of an artist generation that was controversially labeled ?neo-?, and later, ?trans-avant-garde?. Cross-referencing the international tendencies in the art worlds between and beyond the Cold War reality of Blocs, The Hungarian Avant-Garde in Late Socialism demonstrates how mostly non-conformist artists in Hungary, and of course the spaces they created, reacted to the dependency inherent to the conflicting, contradictory nature of public spheres in the post-totalitarian condition."--