The lecture will be given in English

This talk will explore Larisa Crunṭeanu’s Aria Mineralia within a context of analogous artistic practices from the former socialist Eastern Bloc. The focus will be on the discursive artistic practices gravitating around various instances of displaying and revealing what we loosely call ‘natural’ in our social and political life.  What is the relationship between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ environments? What is the status of an ordinary object in art and nature? What is the nature of Larisa Crunṭeanu’s performances, installations and conceptual objects? Taking Aria Mineralia — and other pieces produced by Larisa Crunṭeanu — as a point of departure, the talk will pinpoint other contemporary enactments of various post-socialist personal mythologies and political-critical reactions expressed through daring artistic practices in a variety of unconventional media. Working with both past and present social concerns these art pieces combine a politics of memory, activism, a history from below, and artistry, without aiming to foster a purist aesthetics.

Maria-Alina Asavei is a lecturer in Russian and East European Department (Institute of International Studies, Charles University in Prague) and independent curator of contemporary art. She curated several international exhibitions of contemporary art and material culture. Asavei is currently the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Fordham University (New York City) and Senior Researcher within Charles University’ research project Beyond Hegemonic Narratives and Myths: History and Memory of the Troubled Pasts. Her research interests revolve around critical theory, gender studies, cultural studies, aesthetics, ethnography, memory studies and forms of artistic engagement during and after totalitarian regimes. She is the author of numerous articles on arts and politics and of book titled Aesthetics, Disinterestedness and Effectiveness in Political Art (2018).