Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized Art under Late Socialism

The Berlin Wall was coming down, the Soviet Union was dissolving, Communist China was well on its way down the capitalist path; the world was witnessing political and social transformations without precedent. Artists, seeing it all firsthand, responded with a revolution of their own. What form this revolution took-how artists in the 1980s marked their societies' traumatic transition from decaying socialism to an insecure future-emerges in this remarkable volume. With in-depth perspectives on art and artists in the former Soviet Union, the Balkans and Mitteleuropa, China, and Cuba-all from scholars and art critics who were players in the tumultuous cultural landscapes they describe-this stunningly illustrated collection captures a singular period in the history of world art, and a critical moment in the cultural and political transition from the last century to our own.