Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. This book looks at how the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a politicized aesthetic of public space that enables the public to rehearse democratic practices.

Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. This book looks at how the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a politicized aesthetic of public space that enables the public to rehearse democratic practices.

From Russia to Poland and Romania, and from the Czech Republic to Yugoslavia and East Germany, Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe is an ambitious attempt to chart the changing realities of the eastern half of the continent, as seen through the eyes of artists, critics, photographers and curators. New paperback edition of the popular ARTWORLD series. If the Iron Curtain and the antagonisms of the Cold War era had often kept the richness and diversity of Eastern European art hidden from the rest of the world, the contemporary era has been a witness to its unparalleled creative explosion and fruitful dialogue with the global art scene. The work featured in this book explores the correlations between shifts in the political, cultural, economic and geographical realities of Eastern Europe and the region’s contemporary art. The artists in this book revisit the region’s past to envision a better future, reaching challenging conclusions and creating some of the most powerful and inspiring art being produced today. The book features essays from respected writers in the field and profiles the most influential artists producing work in and from the region today, including Marina Abramovi�, Christo, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Zofia Kulik, Komar and Melamid, IRWIN, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, Alexander Brodsky, Ewa Partum, NSK, Group OHO, Stano Filko, Laibach, KwieKulik, Post Ars, Weekend Art, Zbigniew Libera, Marjetica Potr�, and Mladen Stilinovic. The following countries are covered in this anthology: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, East Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Yugoslavia.

Future/Memory is a book about the exhibition with the same name, organized in Dresden, Germany at HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts Dresden, during the summer of 2013. Future/Memory shows the nature of the work of artists like Boogie, Martha Cooper, Cody Hudson and Horfe - artists that all stem from, and get their inspiration from street culture and urban environment. Wasted objects in the street are turned into sculptures, images of children playing in the Bronx are transformed into timeless testimonies of the 1980s and graffiti is converted into abstract and conceptual art.

Over the past 50 years, East European artists have seen the virtual breakdown of their societies and their cultures. Instead of seeking to replace their devalued ideologies with new belief systems, many have profoundly challenged the very concept of belief systems. In this provocative exhibition catalogue, artists and essayists from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgari and Slovakia confront Eastern Europe's cultural watershed head on. In addition to the excellent illustrations, the book includes a foldout timeline of noteworthy events since 1945, plus regional maps and a statistical profile of each country.

This book provides an up-to-date, critical review of theoretical concepts connecting artists and urban development. It focuses on the multidimensionality of potential and actually observed interactions between artists and cities and their impacts on urban space, its form, functions and perceptions. Departing from the viewpoint that a more nuanced geography of artists is still needed to fully conceptualise the diversity of roles artistic creatives play in urban transformations, the book presents contributions with a common denominator of distinguishing artists as a unique professional and social group. The essays focus on the complexity of the artists’ spatial preferences and analyse a myriad of expressions of artists’ presence in urban centres in different geographic, political, economic, social, and spatial contexts drawing on experiences from 16 cities across Europe. The book presents several case studies ranging from Spain to Russia and from Scandinavia to Slovenia, and offers new pathways into understanding the implications of artists’ residence and activities in contemporary cities. Apart from presenting less obvious expressions of artists’ involvement in urban transformations such as their participation in urban planning or grass root urban movements, the volume explores the ambivalence of artists’ interactions with cities. Particular chapters test several divergent narratives of artistic creatives as inspirers and instigators of urban changes, pioneers of gentrification, contesters and resisters of neoliberal urban policies or mere indicators of transformations inspired by other actors, instrumentalized by public and private stakeholders.

Traces the history of New York graffiti, shows a variety of painted subway cars, and desribes the graffiti writers and how they work.