Visionary Worlds of the Cold War
Visionary Worlds of the Cold War

Summary/Abstract: The art of the socialist period is still an area where Latvian art historians do not linger too long. The reason for this could be partly due to traumatic experiences of this time for many who lived under its system and later the breakdown of the system, but also due to ambiguous perceptions of this period, and methodological and other difficulties dealing with it. Still, researches, explorations and interpretations of socialist art are essential to understanding the genesis of contemporary art, as well as the complexity of modernism and its transition to postmodernism in Eastern Europe. This complexity also derives from geopolitical circumstances, which had a strong impact both on art language and on its relationships with reality. My research is an attempt to contextualise the visionary dimension in modernist and neo-avant-garde art of this region in a broader perspective, including geopolitical relations between art and reality, as well as the role of their power structures.

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