Pushing Border Art’s Borders - session #3

Alessandra Franetovich (University of Florence), Internalized imageries of borders. How Eastern European artists  deconstructed the Iron Curtain and the post-1989 border politics

The essay analyses the Iron Curtain and post-1989 border politics as imagery as seen in artworks realized by Eastern European artists. While literature already discussed the role played by the repressive nature of the Soviet state on non-conformist culture, the study focuses on performative artworks that deals with the concept of borders, and offer ways to cross the border through processes of symbolic transfiguration.

Realized in the context of the “optional communalization” of Moscow Conceptualism (Tupitsyn, 2009), selected works by Ilya Kabakov, Vadim Zakharov, SZ Group (Viktor Skersis and V.Zakharov), Komar & Melamid (Vitaly Komar and Aleksandr Melamid) in  the frame of unofficial Soviet underground art movements. The selected works deals with the Iron Curtain and the life limitations representing a strong metaphor for the international isolation. Such artworks have been realized between 1976-1981 in the artists’ studio, through international connections or in public areas, and have a performative attitude reflecting the impassable and faraway border as an iconographical and conceptual reference to express openly an internalized imagery, and a functional tool to construct self-ironical and critical views as well as “counter-hegemonic discourses” on borders (Brambilla, 2015). A pivotal example is offered by Kabakov, author of important artworks and writings, who speaks about “Border consciousness”.

Concerning the post-1989 border politics, an important case study is represented by the creation of NSK State in Time (1993-ongoing) by the Slovenian collective NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst). At the core of the project laid the creation of a Moscow Embassy, a fictitious institution opened for a month in the former capital of USSR, where artists gathered together in order to discuss how the East perceived the East. While Eastern European artists were witnessing their inclusion in the international art scene, identitarian problems arises as a result of their practices’ politicization in the frame of Western reception. Questioning identitarian crises as well as international border policies in the aftermath of 1989 and the fall of Soviet Union, the group founded a fictitious and utopian state creating a “more or less accidental community” (Badovinac, 2017) while interpreting the borders as a territory of debordering and rebordering (Dell'Agnese, Amilhat-Szary, 2015; Brambilla, 2015).

Open up to today, the NSK State in Time releases passports to every human who wants to be part of it, has no property but offer regular global meeting to discuss - together with all participants – the basis of their own State. For this study, is therefore fundamental the attempt to cross two different theoretical perspective: while keeping an eye on art historical discourse - specifically following theories about the narratives around isolation, self-isolation and the role of self-institutionalization - it aims at the reflection on how such artworks can be interpreted in the frame of Border Art theoretical discourse, introducing the concept of internalization of borders.

Elena Korowin (University of Art in Braunschweig), On Mental Boarders in Germany

When I was thinking about a possible contribution to your exciting CFP, many important artistic positions came to mind, all of which would be worth mentioning. I have been working for over ten years on issues of borders and border crossings through art and cultural-political events. My focus has mainly been on Eastern Europe and the exchange with Germany. Here, too, there is a lot of material that would be interesting for an expansion of the concept of “border art”. However, the cultural situation in Germany’s cultural sphere has become so much tense since 2024 that when I think of borders, the first thing that comes to mind is the mental borders that are showing in the last years. I would like to dismiss what is happening in Germany in the last couple of months as temporary debates, but it is becoming increasingly clear how far-reaching German cultural policy is and how the discussion continues across German borders.

It all started to get more intense with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which shocked and silenced the art and culture world as much as anyone else. Gradually, people found their language again, but it quickly became clear that talking to each other had suddenly become difficult or was no longer to take place. The particularization of the art world in Germany has actually been going on for much longer, but the events of the Russian invasion, the Documenta fifteen and finally the terrorist attacks by Hamas in October 2023 have led to an unimaginable wave of cultural-political chaos in this country. It is becoming increasingly clear that the borders here are mainly in people’s heads and that it is becoming much more difficult to get in touch with each other and start a conversation. Interestingly, this demarcation is particularly noticeable in the cultural sphere, although the real crises lie in the political fields that take place outside Germany's borders. And another striking point of the situation is that here we are actually not talking about the work itself, or rarely it is the work, which is discussed, but the personal political opinion of the artist behind this work. Some artistic positions are dismissed not because of the quality of their work, but because the artist is expressing sympathy with the people of Palestine for example.

Proxy discussions are held about the attitude and connection between artist and work, as recently during the exhibition opening of Nan Goldin's “This will not end well” at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin 2024, which has become a prophetic title. Germany is marked by its history and by the border that ran through the country just a few decades ago, yet the new trend of trying to silence voices is highly disturbing. It happens especially in art and spreads to all kinds of attitudes, not just the issue of Israel and Palestine. With this topic it escalates most obviously at the moment.

For me, art is an opportunity to look at things outside their usual framework and put them up for discussion. To create new spaces in which togetherness is possible. Where discussion is allowed, where there is an exchange of opinions and where people look and listen. All of this is currently gradually being lost and I am looking for ways to get out of this situation with my research and my planned professorship program for the arts. The aim of my research is not to discuss political events but to ask how come that the art scene is not only divided but that it feels that it is not able to come to a productive format of discussion in Germany? The borders in the mind sets become stronger and it seems that the easiest solution not to listen to other opinions is omnipresent. The border between art and politics is disappearing and simultaneously stronger than ever before. This paradox is hard to handle but it is worth a try.

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