How do artists confront major political shifts? The end of the 1980s witnessed a series of civic uprisings worldwide. Central and Eastern Europe experienced revolutionary changes—from the dismantling of the Berlin Wall to the breakup of Yugoslavia. The political transformations following the end of the Cold War and its imposed East-West dichotomies incited many artists to publicly reassess their countries’ entangled histories in relation to new democracies, transnational networks, and personal identity—sometimes with a sense of new possibility and sometimes with retrospective insight. They experimented with performance, montage, and fragmented narratives, underscoring art’s potential to imagine histories alternate to official interpretations. “Everything we do has a political charge and the division between politics and aesthetics is entirely erroneous,” the artist Sanja Iveković once pointedly noted.
Collection 1970s–Present
208
After the Wall
208
After the Wall
New on view
Ongoing
MoMA
- MoMA, Floor 2, 208 The David Geffen Wing
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Sibylle Bergemann Gummlin, Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany November 1975 -
Sibylle Bergemann Gummlin, Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany May 1, 1976 -
Sibylle Bergemann Gummlin, Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany July 1977 -
Sibylle Bergemann Gummlin, Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany July 1985 -
Sibylle Bergemann Lauchhammer Art Foundry, Lauchhammer, Germany October 1985 -
Sibylle Bergemann Berlin, Germany February 1986 -
Günther Förg Untitled 1987 -
Isa Genzken Painting 1989 -
Georg Herold Muttler 1985 -
Sanja Iveković Personal Cuts 1982 -
New on view Boris Mikhailov Untitled, from the series Case History 1997-98 -
Dan Perjovschi Wonderful World (A) 1994–97 -
Sigmar Polke Watchtower 1984 -
Mladen Stilinović Exploitation of the Dead 1984-90
Artists
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Michael Schmidt
German, 1945–20148 exhibitions, 5 works online -
Ion Grigorescu
Romanian, born 19453 exhibitions, 5 works online -
Geta Brătescu
Romanian, 1926–20185 exhibitions, 10 works online -
Sanja Iveković
Croatian, born 19497 exhibitions, 19 works online -
Dan Perjovschi
Romanian, born 19612 exhibitions, 2 works online - There are 15 artists in this collection gallery online.
Installation images
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