Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons. Works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana

The Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons catalogue, published to accompany the eponymous exhibition at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, presents avant-garde art of postwar Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics from the Arteast 2000+ Collection at Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana.

The Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons catalogue was published for the eponymous exhibition in Garage Museum of Contemporary Art developed in close collaboration with Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana. The exhibition of works from the Arteast 2000+ Collectionhas updated the long history of cultural exchange between Russia and Yugoslavia. The project based on one museum collection brought together examples of avant-garde art from post-war Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics, allowing the viewer to see the aftermath of World War II, the transitional period of the 1990s and contemporary neoliberal capitalism through artists’ eyes. The main goal of the project was to offer a history of artists’ struggle for individual and artistic freedom.

The catalogue opens with introductory articles by Garage Founder Dasha Zhukova, Garage Chief Curator Kate Fowle, Moderna Galerija Director Zdenka Badovinac, one of the curators of the show Snejana Krasteva, and Moscow Art Magazine(Khudozhestvennyi Zhurnal) Chief Editor, contemporary art theorist and curator Viktor Misiano.

The main part is composed of five lessons, as in the exhibition (Lesson 1: The Body as a Tool for Liberation; Lesson 2: The Transformation of Systems; Lesson 3: The Power of Collaboration; Lesson 4: The Practice of Self-Organization as Resistance; Lesson 5: Hardships as a Unifying Force). Each part features images and descriptions of works by over 70 individual artists or art groups, including Marina Abramović, Yury Albert, Oleg Kulik, Yury Avvakumov, Dan Perjovschi, Zoran Popović, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Dmitry Prigov, Józef Robakowski, Ion Grigorescu, and all artists’ biographies are provided in an appendix.

Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons will be interesting to professionals as well as to the broad audience of readers interested in the history of contemporary art in the international context.