An Engaged Nouveau Réalisme? Eastern European Mutations as an Alternative to Criticism of the Movement. The Conceptual Approach of Alex Mlynárčik

Strany: 172 - 192

Jazyk: eng

The article analyses the connections between Slovak artist Alex Mlynárčik and the French milieu centred around Pierre Restany, theorist of the Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism) movement in the 1960s. Referring to the research method of Czech art historian Tomáš Pospiszyl called associative art history (2018), the text attempts to challenge myths about the development of art in the Eastern Bloc in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the impermeability of the Iron Curtain or the secondary nature of Eastern Bloc artistic production in relation to their Western counterparts. The method allows us to view Mlynárčik’s artistic projects and compare them in a non-hierarchical way with the works of artists such as Joseph Beuys and the art and architecture theory of Frenchman Michel Ragon. In addition, the article not only highlights Mlynárčik’s original contribution to the development of art in Europe, but also analyses his early conceptual approach, which may be a response to the limitations of the New Realism movement and its criticism.

ISO 690:

Cytlak, K. 2025. An Engaged Nouveau Réalisme? Eastern European Mutations as an Alternative to Criticism of the Movement. The Conceptual Approach of Alex Mlynárčik. In ARS, vol. 58, no.2, pp. 172-192. 0044-9008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/ars-2025-00011

APA:

Cytlak, K. (2025). An Engaged Nouveau Réalisme? Eastern European Mutations as an Alternative to Criticism of the Movement. The Conceptual Approach of Alex Mlynárčik. ARS, 58(2), 172-192. 0044-9008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/ars-2025-00011