Contacts: Social dynamics in the Czechoslovak state-socialist art world

Contemporary European History

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 67-86

  Svašek, Maruška ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

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EID: 34247462559     PISSN: 09607773     EISSN: 14692171     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777302001042     Document Type: Review

References (37)

1. Ton Bevers, ed., De Kunstwereld. Produktie, distributie en receptie in the wereld van kunst en cultuur (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993).
2. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984 [1979]).
3. Maruška Svašek, 'Art, Myth and Power: Introduction' Focaal. Journal of Anthropology, 29 (1997), 7-23.
4. Vera Zolberg, Constructing a Sociology of Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
5. Becker, Art Worlds, 161-2.
6. For more information on social dynamics in the Czechoslovak state-socialist art world, see Maruška Svašek, 'Styles, Struggles, and Careers. An Ethnography of the Czech Art World, 1948-1992', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam (1996).
7. Maruška Svašek, 'Gossip and Power Struggle in the Post-Communist Art World', Focaal. Journal of Anthropology, theme issue on 'Visual Art, Myth and Power' (Maruška Svašek and G. van Beek, eds.), 29 (May 1997), 101-22.
8. Maruška Svašek, 'The Politics of Artistic Identity. The Czech Art World in the 1950s and 1960s', Contemporary European History, 6, 3 (1997), 383-403.
9. Maruška Svašek, 'From the Zoo into the Jungle. Social Hierarchies in the Czech Art World before and after 1989', in H. Ganzeboom, ed., Transformation Processes in Eastern Europe (Amsterdam: NWO, 1998), 191-210.
10. See for example S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, 'Patron-Client Relations as a Model Structuring Social Exchange', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22 (1980), 42-77.
11. and S. W. Schmidt et al., eds., Friends, Followers, and Factions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).
12. John Gledhill, Power and its Disguises: anthropological perspectives on politics (London and Boulder, CO: Pluto, 1994), 125.
13. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), 61-2.
14. In general, research into art patronage has mainly examined art production and consumption in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque period, times when religious and political powerholders commissioned artists to produce specific art works. See Judith Balfe, ed., Paying the Piper. Causes and Consequences of Art Patronage (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993).
15. Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters. A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (London: Phaidon, 1963).
16. Bram Kempers, Painting, Power, and Patronage: The Rise of the Professional Artist in the Italian Renaissance (London: Penguin, 1994). In a recent study, the Dutch sociologist Erik Hitters used the perspective of art patronage to analyse contemporary forms of individual and institutional art support in the Netherlands.
17. See Erik Hitters Patronen van patronage. mecenaat, protectoraat en markt in de kunstwereld (Utrecht: Uitgeverij: Jan van Arkel, 1996).
18. See Svašek, Styles, Struggles, and Careers (1996), chs. 2 and 3.
19. Svašek, 'The Politics of Artistic Identity', 385-8.
20. Václav Jícha, 'Na Novou Cestu', Výtvá rné umění, 1 (1951), 1.
21. Vlastimil Tetiva, české malířství a sochařství 2. poloviny 20 stol. (Hluboká nad Vltavou: Alšova Jihočeská Galerie, 1991), 39.
22. See Sharon L. Wolchik, Czechoslovakia in Transition. Politics, Economics, and Society (London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1991), 24.
23. Vladimír Bína 'Cultuur en cultuurbeleid in Tsjechoslowakije', Boekmancahier, 2, 6 (1990), 345.
24. Jiří Pelikan, 'De oppositiebeweging in Tsjechoslowakije', in Anet Bleich et al., Stalinisme en destalinisatie. Verslag van het Amsterdamse congres (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1981), 108.
25. In 1947 for example, he had met the art critic Herbert Read in London.
26. Otakar Nový, 'Architektonické aspekty', in Historik umění Jiří Kotalík (Prague: Galerie Paideia, 1995), 21.
27. Václav Havel, 'Letter to Dr. Gustáv Husák, General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party', in Living in Truth (London and Boston: Faber and Faber (1986 [1976]), 57.
28. Hána led the Prague Academy of Art at the time of the Velvet Revolution. He was fired and replaced by the non-conformist multi-media artist Milan Knížák. Svašek, 'Gossip and Power Struggle', 29 (1997), 101-22.
29. Svašek, Styles, Struggles, and Careers, 248.
30. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the gap between politically controlled, state-supported culture and the activities of non-conforming 'independent' artists was wider than in any other communist country. See Jacques Rupnik, The Other Europe (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990), 209.
31. Ivan Poldauf, Velký česko-anglický slovník. (Čelákovice: WD Publications, 1996), 633.
32. Guy Fitch Lytle 'Friendship and Patronage in Renaissance Europe', in F. W. Kent et al., eds., Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 47.
33. See Petr Skalnik, ed., Outwitting the State (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1989).
34. When talking about 'outwitting the state', Czechs often compared themselves with the famous literary character of 'the Good Soldier Švejk' who continually fooled his superiors. In the context of the state socialist system, references to Švejk signified 'hidden resistance'. See Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. National Identity and the Post-Communist Social Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 25.
35. See also James Scott (1990), Domination and the Art of Resistance. Hidden Transcripts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press).
36. The game, a humourous account of life before the Velvet Revolution, was produced by the Prague publishing house Paseka in 1990. In the course of the game, as they throw dice and walk around the board, players must earn money and buy 'blocks' with which to build the Stalin Monument. See Justin l'Anson-Sparks and Maruška Svašek '"Post-Communist Personality Cults": The Limits of Humour and Play', Etnofoor, 12, 2 (1999), 117-31.
37. Personal conversation, May 2000.