Foreword

Abstract

This issue of Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis is dedicated to exploring the concept of the artistic labour in contemporary art. Its premise emerged from observing the transformations in this field over recent decades—changes that began with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the restoration of democratic systems in Central and Eastern Europe. The countries of the former Eastern Bloc, particularly those once part of the USSR, rushed to adopt Western art practices and to reintegrate themselves into an art history from which they had long been excluded by the control and censorship of the now-collapsed regimes. New artistic forms and strategies flourished: performance, installation, interventions in public space, collaborative practices, and media art. Conceptual approaches and organizational capacities gained increasing importance, at times even overshadowing traditional artistic skills. Labour—one of the most politicized and tightly regulated themes in socialist visual culture—again became a central axis of artistic practice for some, who sought to reflect the shifting economic, political, and social realities.