Beyond the Postcard: an Ecocritical Inquiry on Images of Nature

Rita Süveges, Oct, 2020Nov, 2021

xtro realm / Climate Imaginary Reader Contemplations of nature continue to be dominated by “factfulness-organizing” Western notions of modernity – in other words, scientificity, infinite development and capitalism’s unrelenting urge to grow. As nature takes form in the Enlightenment’s worldview and becomes the culturally passive […]

The Long March through Social Imagination

Márk Losoncz, Oct, 2020Nov, 2021

xtro realm / Climate Imaginary Reader Social imagination appears to be suspicious – engagement with it may be easily questioned, as if it naively suggests that the social being of humans can be significantly determined by arbitrary association and the chaotic connection and disconnection of […]

Preface

Dóra Hegyi – Eszter Szakács, Aug, 2020Sep, 2020

This thematic Mezosfera issue examines the shifting paradigms of regional art history writing, globally. Which Past the Present Stands On? studies how, for what reasons, and with what ramifications the histories of art are rewritten, again and again, along various concepts and from different perspectives […]

Constructing the Heritage: Patriotic Field Trips and National Style in Romanian Nineteenth-Century Architecture

Ada Hajdu, Aug, 2020Aug, 2020

This study[1] discusses the role of field trips in shaping the architectural heritage at the end of the nineteenth century, taking primarily into account the case of Romania, within the broader local context. Throughout the nineteenth century, architects across Europe focused upon inventing national styles […]

The Obscure Object of Desire

Edit András, Aug, 2020Aug, 2020

Is there any place for Eastern Europe on the Map of World Art or Global Art (History)? Dedicated to the memory of Romanian art historian Ada Hajdu a committed advocate of regional art history writing. Naming matters The name of the region that is located […]

Unified yet one? A Continued Plea for Regionalist Art History in Southeast Asia

Vera Mey, Aug, 2020Aug, 2020

Introduction Angkor, the famed 12th century archaeological site in Siem Reap, Cambodia, attracts around 2.5 million visitors a year. Its most famous attraction is the ancient temple complex, Angkor Wat, which has been imaged multiply: on the country’s flag, on postcards and through replicas, including […]

and this is the object that I found

Shuruq Harb, Aug, 2020Aug, 2020

Like many others in Jericho, Montasir was born a farmer by lineage, but eventually settled on the profession of “taxi driver.” He was not fortunate enough to be from a family of landowners. Instead, he was one of generations of farmers mitigating their lives in […]

First as Yugoslav Revolution, then as Post-Yugoslav Art: History and A(na)estheticization around 1968 and Now

Ivana Bago, Aug, 2020Nov, 2020

Contributing editor: Jelena Vesić [1] 1. Post- If postmodernity was, as Fredric Jameson argued, characterized by a global spatialization and flattening out of time,[2] the past decade would have marked a shift towards what could be called a deep temporalization of the globe. Even beyond […]

The Past and Present of Queer Art in India through Bhupen Khakhar’s Paintings

Mayookh Barua, Aug, 2020Jan, 2022

In June 2019, Business Review put up the headliner “Bhupen Khakhar sets new record as painting fetches over 22 cr at Sotheby’s sale.”[1]This painting here refers to Khakhar’s 1982 oil on canvas titled Two Men in Benares.[2] The painting has broken records as being one […]

Past Contemporary: The Politics of Memory in Social Museums and Public Spaces

Dóra Hegyi – Eszter Szakács, Nov, 2019Dec, 2019

An Introduction to Issue #7 The point of departure for Mezosfera’s thematic issue is the 30th anniversary of the 1989 regime change in Hungary and Eastern Europe. While it was already clear in Hungary in the mid-2000s that what was celebrated in the 1990s as […]

The Offended Hungary. The House of Terror as a Demonstration of Objects, Memorial, and Political Rite (2002)*

Zsofia Frazon-Zsolt K.Horvath, Nov, 2019Nov, 2019

Foreword to the 2019 Republication of “The Offended Hungary” This essay was originally published in 2002 in Hungarian about the House of Terror in Budapest, which was established by the (first) right-wing government of Viktor Orbán (1998–2002). The set objective of the House of Terror […]

Performing Future Affiliations in Argentine Spaces of Memory[1]

Ceclilia Sosa - Philippa Page, Nov, 2019Feb, 2020

Introduction In the aftermath of devastating military dictatorships, one of the most substantial ways in which Latin America’s Southern Cone has worked to cultivate a dynamic and politically significant memory of its traumatic recent past is by transforming former sites of repression and political terror […]

Activist Museology. The Museum of Free Derry

Sara Greavu, Nov, 2019Dec, 2019

The Museum of Free Derry (MoFD) is one of a number of projects in the north of Ireland, including interpretive centers, historical museums, and political tours,[1] that attempt to articulate an alternative, counter-hegemonic history of the conflict in Ireland. Opened in 2007, the museum is […]

The Legacy of Joseph Murumbi: Making a Collection and Archive as Freedom Fighting

Rose Jepkorir Kiptum, Nov, 2019Dec, 2019

The legacy of Joseph Murumbi as a politician, a collector and, a businessman is expansive. He is mostly known through his political roles in Kenya and Africa, but also through the collections and archive he made. These latter two and by extension, among others, the […]

De/Re-Memorization of Portuguese Colonialism and Dictatorship: Re-Reading the Colonial and the Salazar Era and Its Ramifications Today

Marta Lanca, Nov, 2019Dec, 2019

Memories are constitutive of contemporary culture. Maurice Halbwachs suggests that memory should answer the interests and desires of today, and thus the past is consecrated or omitted accordingly.[1] Memory works as an everyday construction, that combines feelings, realities, points of view, and intentions. The tendency […]

Curating Memories and Shaping Minds, the Museum as a Commissar

Isel Arango Rodriguez, Nov, 2019Dec, 2019

Diluted in a repressive and demagogic context, the XIII Biennial of Havana concluded in May 2019.[1] As part of the Biennial, the National Museum of Fine Arts opened a mega-exhibition titled The Infinite Possibility. ToThink about the Nation in the Cuban Art building. It was […]

Parallel Nonsynchronism: Times and Places in Cold War Eastern Europe

Dóra Hegyi – Eszter Szakács, Feb, 2019May, 2019

An Introduction to Issue #6 Mezosfera’s 6th thematic issue titled Parallel Nonsynchronism: Times and Places in Cold War Eastern Europe is a textual and translational compliment to the exhibition 1971 – Parallel Nonsychronism, a collaboration between the Kiscell Museum – Municipal Gallery and tranzit.hu. The […]

Parallel Nonsynchronism

Zsuzsa Laszlo I Eniko Roka, Feb, 2019Feb, 2019

Parallelism – Nonsynchronism – Generational experience Ernst Bloch, on the eve of the Nazi takeover, looking for its economic and societal driving force, came to the conclusion that the different social classes of his time had divergent relations to the present. In his book, published […]