FORMER WEST

http://www.formerwest.org

Former West – a term never fully articulated as a counterpart to the widely used ‘former East’ – considers the question: What impact did the events of 1989 have on the art of the ‘West’? The project examines significant artistic and cultural developments from 9 November 1989 to the present, speculating on whether 11 September 2001 (destruction of the World Trade Center, New York) and 15 September 2008 (breakdown of the international financial system) might represent new milestones in our artistic, cultural and political histories. More than two decades after one of the greatest political changes in the last 150 years, the project reflects on the cultural output of the ‘new world order’, and embarks on a process of coming to terms, if provisionally, with our recent past. Former West aims to address this history through researching and charting art and culture from 1989 until the present to explore how significant changes in society are reflected and understood in all their complexity in new artistic productions. The project seeks out artworks that not only have something to say – however argumentative and partial – about their times, but which are works ‘of their times’ and even ‘for their times’ (Kaspar König, Westkunst).

Former West is initiated by Maria Hlavajova, artistic director BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. It is curated by Charles Esche (curator, author and director, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven), Maria Hlavajova, and Kathrin Rhomberg (curator, Berlin Biennial 6 (2010) and advisor and corresponding member of Secession, Vienna) and developed with a dense network of research advisors and institutional partners.