Anda Rottenberg – Contemporary Languages in Central and Eastern Europe

Lesson part of the course Decolonised History of Art: Global Narratives from 1900 to the Present. Click here for the programme and the full course.

Between 1989 and 2010, artists across Central and Eastern Europe redefined cultural narratives and artistic languages, confronting the residues of socialism and the promises—and disillusions—of new democracies. Their works negotiated memory, ideology, and identity through irony, intimacy, and political critique. In Poland, Critical Art—Zbigwiew Libera, Katarzyna Kozyra, Paweł Althamer, Artur Żmijewski, Alicja Żebrowska, Grzegorz Klaman—challenged biopolitical control and gender norms, while Mirosław Bałka explored the fragility of memory and Wilhelm Sasnal reflected on media and national myth. In Romania, Ion Grigorescu, Dan Perjovschi, and Lia Perjovschi transformed performance, drawing, and archive into instruments of civic memory, while Mircea Cantor explored invisibility, migration, and the tension between sacred and profane. Baltic artists often interrogate identity, occupation, and corporeality: Jaan Toomik and Eni-Liis Semper explore vulnerability and existential tension, while Deimantas Narkevičius employ performance and cinematic language to negotiate memory, trauma, and spirituality. Belarus offers a different trajectory, marked by post-Soviet authoritarian continuity. Marina Naprushkina challenges state propaganda, patriarchy, and ideological apparatuses, merging feminist activism with para-institutional strategies. In the Balkans, Milica Tomić, Grupa Spomenik, Sanja Ivekovic, and Tanja Ostojić confronted the trauma of war and the commodification of the body; Anri Sala’s videos traced the dissonance of memory and modernity; Nedko Solakov and NSK exposed post-ideological paradoxes through irony and reenactment.

Anda Rottenberg is a prominent art historian, curator, writer, and critic, renowned for her significant contributions to the development of contemporary art in Poland. A prolific writer, Rottenborg has been recognized for her critical engagement with art and her commitment to fostering a deeper understanding of Polish and Central European artistic practices.