The collection of essays on art by the philosopher and critic Boris Buden constitutes a history of post-communism studied through that of works of art.
Today, after post-communism has ended in chaos and confusion, we are entitled to ask: was it a condition, or a transition; a rise or a decline; progression, regression or simply a time-lag? Has it ever shaped its own form of social being, a unique mode of economic production, a politics of its own, a culture? Or was it just another interregnum of history, full of morbid symptoms we cannot get rid of?
Most of the essays in this book search for answers to questions in works of art. Not because art possesses a superior knowledge on history, but because the knowledge on history we posses has failed in providing those answers. This is a new experience made possible by both art and history, which, in simultaneously facing their end, have come closer to one another than ever before. It is an experience we might possibly learn from.
Boris Buden (born 1958 in Garešnica, Socialist Republic of Croatia, Yugoslavia, lives and works in Berlin) is a writer, cultural critic and translator. He studied philosophy in Zagreb and received his PhD in Cultural Theory from Humboldt University, Berlin. His essays and articles cover topics related to philosophy, politics, cultural and art criticism. Among his translations into Croatian are some of the most important works of Sigmund Freud. Buden has co-edited several books and is author of Übersetzung: Das Versprechen eines Begriffs (Translation: Promises of a Concept, 2008, with Stefan Nowotny), Zone des Übergangs: Vom Ende des Postkommunismus (Zone of Transition: On the End of Post-communism, 2009), Findet Europa, (Find Europe, 2015), among others. Buden is permanent fellow at the European Institute of Progressive Cultural Policies, Vienna.
