Transitional Aesthetics Contemporary Art at the Edge of Europe

Using the way in which artists from the former Eastern bloc perceive the experience of EU integration and transition from a Soviet past as a conceptual launching pad this book explores how artists critically inhabit a permanent state of 'in-between' to capture the simultaneous existence of multiple and overlapping temporalities. <br/><br/>Transitional aesthetics are artistic strategies that disrupt and interrogate ideologically loaded trajectories of cultural social or political transition. Examples of such trajectories include the movement from totalitarianism to democracy (post-socialism) from war to freedom and reconciliation (post-conflict) and from the edges of Europe to its centre (inclusion in the European Union). <br/><br/>These transitional states include: the future orientation of (failed) socialism and the perpetual present of global capital; the history of unresolved past conflicts and reconciliation through 'transitional justice'; nationalist obsessions with the past and the cultural appeal of kitsch and retro objects in fashion film and music; and the uncertain future promise of EU membership and resurgence of global right-wing populism headed by figures like Berlusconi Le Pen and Trump. <br/><br/><i>Transitional Aesthetics</i> shows that apprehending time in contemporary art is fundamental to capturing the lived experience of a permanent state of instability; particularly relevant to Europe in the contemporary moment. In a world that has entered 'accelerated transition' towards instability understanding this experience has broad and resonating relevance for politics art and society.