1970s

Raised during the socialist period of the former Yugoslavia, Irena Lagator Pejović examines two case studies of Yugoslav art and architecture that provide insights into Montenegro’s transition to neoliberalism.

The essay explores the history of Galeria Adres, which the feminist Polish artist Ewa Partum launched in Łódź in 1972, and reveals the role of this avant-garde gallery in fostering conceptual art with an international reach during the period of state socialism in Poland.

Karl-Heinz Adler used an abstract geometric approach in both his design and his fine art practices. Given state control and the resistance to alternative aesthetic forms, it is remarkable that Adler’s abstract geometries found their way into the everyday life of East German citizens.

Fernando Bruno analiza la relación entre pintura y escritura en la obra de la artista argentina Mirtha Dermisache a finales de los sesenta y setenta, examinando el modo particular en que ésta se articula con algunas tendencias del arte argentino de la época.

Fernando Bruno analyzes the particular relationship between painting and writing in the work of Argentine artist Mirtha Dermisache, examining the specific ways in which it contrasts with some of the most significant artistic tendencies at the end of the sixties and seventies in Argentina.

The sculptures of Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (1948-2015) offer a vision of a future modernity that is beautiful, harmonious, and functional.

The history of the reconstruction of the Macedonian capital Skopje, after a devastating earthquake in 1963, is at this point firmly associated with the role played by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and his Brutalist contributions to the cityscape. But Maja Babić turns her attention to the Ottoman heritage of the city, which she argues was largely disregarded in Skopje’s efforts to assert its “political modernization.”

The publication, Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents (2018), edited by Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout, offers an unprecedented resource for the study of modernism: a compendium of critical art writings by twentieth-century Arab intellectuals and artists. The selection of texts—many of which appear for the first time in English—includes manifestos, essays, transcripts…

The following excerpt is from Socialist Architecture: The Reappearing Act, published in Berlin by The Green Box in 2017. A collaboration between the architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss and the photographer Armin Linke—supported by the Graham Foundation—the book introduces the concept of an “architecture of Balkanization” and explores textually and visually what that might be in the landscape of the decentralized socialist society of Yugoslavia.

Through Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso to ancient Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, scholar Luis Pérez-Oramas outlines and contextualizes Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s vast body of work. The third and final section of this essay connects the sculptural nature of Clark’s paintings and the human body’s activation in her later works.

Waldemar Cordeiro’s work shifts from his involvement with Concrete Art in São Paulo (of which he was one of the central artists, critics, and curators), to landscape design, a unique take on Pop Art through his “Popcretos,” and his final 1970s experiments with computer art. Cordeiro’s 1970s works were produced while Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship that was skilled and innovative in its manipulation of mass media to control society and manage dissent.

Through Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso to ancient Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, scholar Luis Pérez-Oramas outlines and contextualizes Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s vast body of work. Part two of this essay positions Clark’s paintings as architectural explorations and living organisms.