In this bold book Klara Kemp-Welch offers a compelling account of the way

that artists in Central Europe embraced alternative forms of action-based

practice, just as their dissident counterparts were formulating alternative

models of politics - in particular an `antipolitics` of self organization.

Spanning a period punctuated by landmark events - the crushing of the 1956

Hungarian Revolution, the invasion of Czechoslavakia in 1968 and the birth

of the Polish Solidarity movement - while presenting powerful new readings

of six key artists, Antipolitics in Central European Art anchors art historical

analysis to a robust historical framework. Its rich illustrations reveal how

those artists struggled to enjoy freedom of expression and reclaim public

space inside a political system where both seemed impossible.

KLARA KEMP-WELCH is Lecturer in Twentieth Century Modernism at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.