Trieste Contemporanea november 2001 n.8
 
EDITORIAL
VENICE DOSSIER

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by Enrico Tantucci

The European Union is about to expand its borders and the attention swiftly moves eastwards. If so far the matters of debate have mainly concerned economics and politics, culture - until now neglected - is bound to become one of the inevitable grounds of debate to achieve the intergration of different models of society. If the western model - also in the light of what is happening in the world - appears today less dominant, there is also an increasing desire to know, and come to terms with, the countries of Eastern Europe which will gradually enter the EU. Countries which combine the unavoidable post-wall difficulties with an approach to culture and art that is less conditioned by the new show-based society and more rigorous, and has somehow preserved its driving force. It is not by chance that Harald Szeeman, after directing the first Venice Biennale of the new millenium - still heavily loaded with technology - declared that he personally would like to dedicate a possible next edition to an exhibition about the art of the Balcans, the title of which has already been decided as "Blood and Honey" and which he is determined to organise in any case. In this connection, and taking the experience of last Venice Biennale as a starting point, Trieste Contemporanea organised in Venice, at the beginning of June, a Forum with commissioners, curators, critics and artists from the countries of Eastern Europe. The aim was, using their statements and their description of the situation of art in their countries, to photograph the difficult period of transition they are experiencing but also the new artistic proposals they are binging about at a moment in which the "filming trend" - as it has recently been defined by an art critic - that has informed contemporary art in recent years, seems to be facing a crisis. All of this is faithfully reported in this monograph issue of the magazine which maintains an idealistic continuity with its previous edition. In that, starting from the new Restoration Charter presented and signed in Cracow, we discussed the concept of cultural heritage and examined ideal ways of conserving it; here, attention is drawn to how again from Eastern Europe, may emerge a will to establish a line of transformation of the arts capable of influencing that followed in a Europe conceived as being unitary.

Enrico Tantucci
 
 

 

 
 
 
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