Trading Zones. Art and Philosophy in Eastern Europe since 1945

The project investigates the trading zone between artistic and aesthetic practice and philosophical ideas in Central and Eastern Europe. The relationship between art and philosophy is understood as a productive form of synergy rather than an instance of appropriation, static commentary, or prescriptive instruction. Thus, the project places the focus on artists from the region who are engaged in a critical dialogue with philosophy and philosophical ideas (both from Eastern Europe and beyond), and whose work possesses transformative experiential, intellectual, and political potential. It also explores the work of philosophers and theorists from the region whose thinking engages or addresses art. Among others, the project concentrates on the following questions: which philosophical traditions and discourses have contemporary artists in or from Eastern Europe engaged with since 1945? How aware and familiar were theorists and philosophers from Eastern Europe with contemporary artistic trends, but also with the art of the past? Where have theorists or philosophers tended to conceive of art and aesthetic practice schematically, or with too much idealism? More generally speaking: to what extent can art and philosophy resist both all-encompassing formalism and ideological instrumentalisation?