Ostalgia Extends At The New Museum Thru 10/2
The exhibition "Ostalgia" takes its title from the German word ostalgie, a term that emerged in the 1990s to describe a sense of longing and nostalgia for the era before the collapse of the Communist Bloc. Twenty years ago, a process of dissolution began, leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union and of many other countries that had been united under Communist Governments.
From the Baltic republics to the Balkans, from Central Europe to Central Asia, entire regions and nations were reconfigured, their constitutions rewritten, their borders redrawn. "Ostalgia" looks at the art produced in and about some of these countries, many of which did not formally exist two decades ago. Mixing private confessions and collective traumas, the exhibition traces a psychological landscape in which individuals and entire societies negotiate new relationships to history, geography, and ideology. Some of the works in "Ostalgia"-both from the East and West-describe the collapse of the Communist system and offer a series of personal reportages on aspects of life under Communism and in the new post-Soviet countries.
"Ostalgia" does not make a case for a unified history of art in the former Eastern Bloc: instead it illuminates similar atmospheres and sensibilities across nations and points to dramatic differences, for "Ostalgia" is more about a state of mind than a specific place in time.
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art.
Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and
documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
