Do you think art can change society? Yes, the summer is here and it’s good to catch some sun and energy for the upcoming fall, so we are offering material for your holiday contemplation.

After 1989, instead of constructing a common narrative of Central Europe, we kept looking to the West. Although art itself cannot offer any magical solutions to everyday political issues, it has nevertheless always been a valuable ally in many struggles all over Mitteleuropa.

The pandemic has shown us that serious global problems cannot be solved by closing ourselves away from others. Artists and cultural institutions can teach us to open our eyes and minds. Discover with us if Art Can Change Society in the new Aspen Review!

Can Art Change Society?

Although the world has been changing and a number of positive transformations have taken place which avant-garde artists would have eagerly approved of, the basic coordinates of our socio-political reality remain the same as they were 100 years ago.

Art cannot offer any magical solutions, but despite all its downsides it has been a valuable ally in many progressive struggles.

The stubborn persistence of the avant-garde is one of the most uncanny and fascinating features of the contemporary art world. What is sometimes called the great avant-garde articulated a radical program of overcoming the division between art and the rest of the social world in the mid-war period of the early twentieth century, writes Jan Sowa in his text The Zombie of the Avant-Garde: Can Art Change Society?

“The inferiority complex is killing us. We should realize how much we have to offer and systematically present the story of our common experiences, and these experiences in Central Europe were diametrically opposed to those in Western Europe,” says Alicja Knast in an interview with Zbigniew Rokita. After 1989 We Constantly Looked to the West.

After 1989, instead of constructing a common narrative, a common front, we kept looking to the West. This has become annoying because we are not able to focus on one common message that would help others—Alicja Knast

The Madness of Central Europe

In the Czech Republic, politicians pretend to be saviors, but in fact, they use what is happening for their own purposes. It’s as if they didn’t understand that the time for lying is over—Radka Denemarková

And we have to build our own worlds contemplates the Czech writer Radka Denemarková. “All my titles have sparked strong controversies, and only after some time did I understand what was going on: I am not Czech enough,” she says in the interview The Madness of Central Europe.

Apart from the the cover stories, there are also other topics: Merkel’s continent-wide popularity is the topic of the text Will Europe Miss Merkel? by Brendan Simms. “More generally, it is unclear whether Merkel, who has genuinely tried to combat the forces of extremism, did not ultimately encourage them,” he states.

It was like re-thatcherisation of the party, a lot of small-business, jingoistic, often racist people joined. Consequently, British politics changed fundamentally in the second half of 2019—Paul Mason