To speak of 1989 is to speak of revolutions.

For some, it marks the end of history as the last chapter of a long-winded ideological battle; victors promising flashy freedoms. For others, it marks the beginning of a renewed era of force; control societies marching forward in clanking servitude. To speak of 1989 is to speak of collapse. It is to speak of the many befores and the many afters across multiple centers and peripheries.

From the fringes of the former West to the afterworlds of an emergent East and across the global South, 1989 rips through the primacy of borders, speaking instead to the absurd and the absolute, the fantastic and the fragmented, that permeate our ever shifting contemporary ground.

This exhibition brings together established and emerging artists from Russia, Poland, Czechia, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, Cuba, Suriname, Hong Kong, China, New Zealand, and the USA.

Through a diverse collection of painting, drawing, installation art, sculpture, photography, conceptual emptiness, video art, digital art, and textile, each artist engages the aesthetic, political, and psychological aspects of collapse. Taken together, the exhibition designates postcollapse as a critical framework for contextualizing the contemporary practices of artists from these dynamic regions since 1989.

Guest Curated by The Mineastry of Postcollapse Art and Culture
(lknur Demirkoparan and Vuslat D. Katsanis)