This volume comprises a selection of texts and presentations from a seminar organized in Warsaw in 2008 by the Museum of Modern Art with art historian Claire Bishop that presented a comparative reflection of Western and Eastern European evaluations of the artistic significance of 1968 and the transformations of 1989, which saw the end of the Soviet empire. The essays presented here explore the extent to which political change affects the form, medium, and distribution of visual art; explains the differences among artistic practices that appear similar but arose in diverse political and ideological contexts; and considers the possibility and desirability of writing a European art history that brings together East and West.
