Contemporary Art Theory

The East, the West, and between

Igor Zabel (1958–2005) was a Slovenian curator, writer, and cultural theorist. This important translation of his writings will enrich the international critical field through Zabel’s extraordinary analytical and emphatic thinking and writing. As well as texts dealing with international issues, his writings can serve as a methodology model for research into Eastern European art practices, which often share common stand points and problems.

The selected texts are divided into four chapters: “East-West and Between” (dialogue and perception of the Other in the context of the complex relations established after the fall of the Wall in 1989), “Strategies and Spaces of Art” (strategies of representation and theories of display, the role of the curator, and the new understanding of the white cube), “Ad Personam” (individual artists and art from Socialist Realism and conceptualism to postmodernism and contextual art, particularly in Slovenia and South-Eastern Europe), and “Extras” (selected columns on arts and culture). The volume is introduced by Igor Spanjol.

Igor Spanjol is a curator at the Moderna galerija Ljubljana. Zoja Skusek is the editor of Zabel’s writings in Slovenian. Barbara Borcic is an art historian and the Director of SCCA-Ljubljana Center for Contemporary Arts.

Published with ERSTE Foundation, Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, and Moderna galerija – Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, this book is part of the “Documents” series, co-published with Les presses du réel and dedicated to critical writings.