Four Walls (Voices sector of Paris Photo)

With Alexandra de Viveiros (Paris), Anca Poterasu (Bucharest), Fotograf Contemporary (Prague), Kaunas Photography, and Monopol (Warsaw)

Faced with the coercive power to which many Eastern and Northern European countries were subjected between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, artists, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, developed diverse and powerful strategies. Armed with the sovereignty of their bodies, imagination, and often humor, they confronted restrictions on freedom, censorship, and the normativity of images. Staging and compositions, interventions on the image, and the search for transcendence of the everyday were all ways to transfigure reality, mock it, or re-enchant it. The presented galleries propose to continue exploring a now historical period and to draw connections to the contemporary times. The connection of the exhibited works, imbued with a common spirit of resistance, allows for cross-readings and an assessment of their relevance.