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In this lecture Lóránd Hegyi contextualises the evolution of socialist political systems regarding the heterogeneous nature of socialism in different contexts. Examining the gaze of Western Europe on eastern countries, which dulls and homogenizes their differences and that neither an epochal event such as the falling of Berlin Wall could influence, Hegyi underlines the coexistence of several ideological orientations in the cultural production of Central and Eastern Europe. Starting point are the eighties, which elaborated strategies of expression to deal with themes such as “the relations between present and past, individual and universal, the actual political situation and the existential questions of life, the deconstruction of the language and the reinterpretation of tradition. All these questions were thematized in western art too, but in Eastern Europe context they were connected more radically with political and moral aspects”. Proving that historical and spatial peculiarities play a fundamental role in production and perception of art, he underlines the urge of valuing artistic production in relation to the sociocultural context in which they are made.

Lóránd Hegyi (b. Budapest, 1954) is a Hungarian art historian and curator. He studies historical avantgardes and artistic production in central and eastern Europe, with a major interest in its socio-political and anthropological contexts. He led the Museum Modern Kunst Stiftung Ludwig of Wien, the Palazzo delle Arti of Naples, the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole and the Parkview Museum of Singapore. Among his exhibitions, La coesistenza dell'arte, Biennale di Venezia (Venice, 1993), ABSTRACT/REAL-References: Malevich-Duchamp-Beuys (Wien, 1996), Roman Opalka. Octogone (Saint-Étienne Métropole, 2006), Integrantes incertitudes (Saint-Étienne Métropole, 2016), Disturbing Narratives (Singapore, 2019).