The Vancouver Art Gallery to Present MULTIPLE REALITIES: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc

The Vancouver Art Gallery will present Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, a major survey that brings together over 100 artists from six Central Eastern European nations: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Spanning visual art, performance, music and material culture, Multiple Realities sheds light on the diverse experiences of artists as they navigated varying degrees of control and pressure from state authorities between the 1960s and 1980s. Organized by the Walker Art Center, this staggering exhibition offers a rare opportunity to witness artworks seldom seen in Canada. 

“Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s is an incredible opportunity for Canadian audiences to experience art from Central and Eastern Europe that is rarely represented in Canadian collections, or shown in Canada,” says Anthony Kiendl, CEO & Executive Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. “This ambitious exhibition is a sobering reminder of the ways artists throughout history have fought for artistic freedom while navigating censorship, adversity and struggle. We hope that visitors will deepen their understanding of world history through the work of these visionary artists.”

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s weaves together a complex story of artists questioning how, when and where art could exist, and explores the varied meanings it might hold for society. Despite their geographical proximity, the artists featured in the exhibition encountered different conditions for daily life and artmaking, each confronting various state regulations, limitations and challenges. Embracing conceptual and formal innovation and a spirit of adventurousness, these visionary artists playfully demonstrated their refusal to conform to official systems, creating experimental works infused with wit, humour and irony. 

While Multiple Realities presents select canonical figures from the region, the exhibition foregrounds lesser-known practitioners, particularly women artists, artist collectives and those exploring embodiment through an LGBTQIA+ lens. There are also many pre-existing connections between Eastern Europe and Vancouver that date back to the 1970s and 80s including early mail art collaborations and residencies with Vancouver's artist-run centre Western Front. Though rooted in the recent past, the exhibition’s themes resonate today, exploring the relationship between art and politics and the roles that institutions play in society. 

“Although of the not-so-distant past, Multiple Realities arrives when imperial aggression in Central Eastern Europe is not a distant memory, but very much a present reality as evidenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, says Pavel Pyś, Curator of Visual Arts and Collections Strategy at the Walker Art Center. “The exhibition comes at a time of a persistent erosion of democratic processes, a rise in autocratic nationalist discourses, and the stalling or reversal of civil liberties. In the face of increasingly repressive forms of control and surveillance, the work of the artists shown here reminds us of art’s powerful capacity, even in its quietest of forms, to challenge and subvert dominant powers. The stories told in Multiple Realities are a testament to the vital role of friendship, solidarity, being together, finding community among the disempowered, among friends, and making it your own.” 

The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: Public and Private Spaces of Control; Dimensions of the Self; Being Together: Alternative Forms of the Social; and Looking to the Future: Science Technology and Utopia. Public and Private Spaces of Control explores the policing of behavior; the expectation to conform to social expectations in the city; and the blurred lines of where surveillance begins and ends. Works in this section address public space, as well as the place of the home—including documentary and covert photography, impromptu improvised performances and sombre memorials. Dimensions of the Self looks at how artists reflected on embodiment through their immediate physical surroundings and shared social spaces and through representations of the self. For many artists working in the Eastern Bloc, using one’s body as artistic material offered a range of possibilities for both expression and subversion. Key works here include examples by women artists who radically reshaped the representation of women’s bodies. Many addressed themes such as the merging of the body with landscape and the body as a site of sickness and trauma, as well as of pleasure, eroticism and sexuality. Being Together: Alternative Forms of the Social conveys the many ways artists collaborated and built networks of exchange beyond the prescribed system of making and presenting art as dictated by the state. Modes of collaboration included mail art, which made connections well beyond the Eastern Bloc, globalizing the possibilities of artistic exchange at a time when borders were seldom crossed. Looking to the Future: Science, Technology and Utopia speaks to how the Space Race, the advancement of nuclear energy and new forms of communication sparked major technological advancements, all of which inspired utopian thinking and experimentation. Works in this section chart the rise of Op Art, kinetics and cybernetics and the use of experimental sound and images. Without access to materials and facilities largely controlled by their States, artists were often forced to find creative avenues to continue making art. 

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s opens on Friday, December 13, 2024, and is on view through April 21, 2025.