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This book illuminates the interconnections between politics and religion through the lens of artistic production, exploring how art inspired by religion functioned as a form of resistance, directed against both Romanian national communism (1960-1989) and, latterly, consumerist society and its global market. It investigates the critical, tactical and subversive employments of religious motifs and themes in contemporary art pieces that confront the religious 'affair' in post-communist Romania. In doing so, it addresses a key gap in previous scholarship, which has paid little attention to the relationship between religious art and political resistance in communist Central and South-East Europe.
List of contents
1. Art, Politics and Religion in (Post-) Communist Romania: An Introduction.- 2. On the Varieties of Cultural Resistance during Romanian Late Communism.- 3. Godless Religious Art of Romanian National Communism.- 4. Art, Nature and Ecologies of Transfiguration during Romanian National Communism.- 5. Spiritual Ecologies and Meta-Byzantine Music during Nicolae Ceausescu's Regime.- 6. Contemporary Aesthetic Mysticism and Religious Revitalization Movements.- 7. The Body in (Post-) Communist Art: a Site of Salvation and Resistance.- 8. Religion Inspired Art and Politics: Neo-Orthodoxism as Neo-Traditionalism?.- 9. Art as Resistance to the "Religious Affair" and Consumerist Religion in Post-Communist Romania.- 10. Looking Forward: Looking Back through the Three Lense of Art, Politics and Religion.
About the author
Maria-Alina Asavei is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of International Studies at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and an independent curator of contemporary art.
