Art in Europe 1945–1968. Facing the Future

Bookcover with detail from Fernand Leger's painting »Constructeurs« (1951)
Type of publication
Exhibition catalog
Author / Editor
Eckhart Gillen, Peter Weibel (eds.)
Publishing house, place
Lannoo, Tielt
Year
2016
Content

The Second World War also shattered the art world. Facing the Future: Art in Europe 1945-1968 shows how such artists as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ossip Zadkine, Henry Moore, Renato Guttuso, Fernand Léger, Yves Klein, Gerhard Richter and Lucian Freud worked through the trauma of 1940-1945 and the Cold War and started to explore new  directions in art.

This reference work includes some 400 works by 150 artists and for the first time brings together post-war art from both Western and Eastern Europe. In  enlightening texts, experts reveal the various evolutions and movements, from the mourning of the first postwar years to British Pop Art and political art leading up to the revolutions of the late 1960s.

With texts by Sven Beckstette, Kurt De Boodt, Marie-Ange Brayer, Daniel Bulatov, Alexandra Danilova, Paul Dujardin, Karl Eimermacher, Sergey Fofanov, Eckhart Gillen, Daria Mille, Margit Rosen, Anda Rottenberg, Eduardo Subirats, Peter Weibel, Sarah Wilson, Ekaterina Yurevna Andreeva and Slavoj Žižek

Content

 
Eckhart Gillen, Peter WeibelEurope after the Rain. The Dialectic of Trauma and Revival in European Art  from 1945 to 1968 
Peter WeibelArt in Europe after 1945 
Eduardo SubiratsTrauma & Träume. “Cours, camarade, le vieux monde est derrière toi” 
Kurt De Boodt, Paul DujardinThe Assaulton the Art Institute. From Occupation to Occupation at the Centre for Fine Arts 

I. Prologue: The End of War

 
Eckhart GillenWe Were Never More Free. Testimonies to the War in the Art of the 1940s 
Sarah WilsonWriting the Disaster. Trauma and Reconstruction in Post-war France 

II. Mourning and Memory

 
Eckhart GillenPictures of Pain 
Karl EimermacherVadim Sidur 
Daniel BulatovEcce Homo. Reflecting the Experience of War through Christian Iconography in European Art of the 1940s and 1950s 
Anda RottenbergNegotiating Freedom. Polish Art 1944–1970 

III. Cold War

 
Sergey FofanovPicasso. Hard to be a God 
Ekaterina Yurevna AndreevaThe War, the Cold War, Soviet Ideology and Nonconformism 
Eckhart GillenThe Cold War of the Arts I. Monument to the Unknown  Political Prisoner and Memorial to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 
Eckhart GillenThe Cold War of the Arts II. Realismo versus Socialist Realism 
Sven Beckstette1958. The Fight against Nuclear Death in the Visual Arts in East and West Germany 
Eduardo SubiratsPalomares by Jorge Castillo 

IV. New Realisms

 
Alexandra Danilova

In the Gap between Art and Life. Pop Sensibility in European Art. 1950-1960s

 

V. New Idealisms

 
Daria MilleZone ZERO. A European Network of Friends 
Margit RosenNew Tendencies 
Daria MilleThe Art of Exact Ideas. Impulses from Science in Unofficial Russian  Art 
Margit Rosen

The Secret Revolution. Cybernetics and the Visual Arts

 

VI. 1968: The End of Utopia?

 
Marie-Ange BrayerArchitectural Utopias.1950-1968. The Destruction of the Object 
Eckhart GillenAn End to Reality. Situations and Interventions beyond Art 
Eckhart GillenMarcel Broodthaers and Harald Metzkes. On the Futility of the Aesthetic Improvement of the World 
Slavoj ŽižekWhat Does Europe Want? Epilogue 

 

Language
English
Description
496 p., illustr., 29 x 26 cm, hardcover
ISBN
978-9401437080
Production / Corporation / Exhibition
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe; BOZAR, Brussels; Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Sponsors

Europäische Union (Programm Creative Europe), Königreich Belgien, Flandern, Außenministerium der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Baden-Württemberg Stiftung

Team

With texts by Sven Beckstette, Kurt De Boodt, Marie-Ange Brayer, Daniel Bulatov, Alexandra Danilova, Paul Dujardin, Karl Eimermacher, Sergey Fofanov, Eckhart Gillen, Daria Mille, Margit Rosen, Anda Rottenberg, Eduardo Subirats, Peter Weibel, Sarah Wilson, Ekaterina Yurevna Andreeva and Slavoj Žižek