The final seminar in Poznań has a character of both a summary of the previous discussions and forming a platform for future cooperation. It is going to take place at Institute of Art History, under the auspices of Piotr Piotrowski Research Center on East-Central European Art. Its aim is to discuss modes of future cooperation and preparation of publication on 1989 in East- Central European art which will be a direct outcome of the series of seminars. The seminar will focus on both global, revolutionary context of 1989, an attempt at a redefinition of dominant narratives rooted in 1990s (as feminism, technology or performance). It is going to address class structure behind dominant art historical narratives – those related to gender, nationality and ethnicity as well as compare it to the post-1989 situation in Latin America. The Institute of Art History at the Adam Mickiewicz University has a long tradition of research and teaching on East-Central European art due to the research and activity of professor Piotr Piotrowski (1952-2015), whose writings gained international, global readership and became prominent in the field as formulating a new paradigm of research, not only on East-Central European art but also on art created in other “peripheries”. Piotr Piotrowski worked at the Institute throughout his professional life, and his work has been continued by Center for Research on East-Central European Art, established by his former students and colleagues Agata Jakubowska and Magdalena Radomska. In East-Central Europe the Institute also stands out as one with a long tradition of adopting Marxism to the theory of art, initiated by Andrzej Turowski, continued by Piotrowski and Magdalena Radomska – the present director of the center, who has lectures and seminars on Eastern European and Latin American art. Piotrowski’s research had influenced numerous Eastern-Central European artists, among them a direct student of Piotrowski – Rafał Jakubowicz, one of the most important Polish artists, whose art, made from the 1990s till today, opens up art historical narrative to the critique of capitalism and a class analysis of post- transitional art. In the past few years the importance of Poznań has also grown due to the growing community of the Belarusian artists and curators, who are Poznań-based. PPCRE-CEA has undertaken the initiative of presenting contemporary art from Belarus, organizing discussions with artists and curators engaged in political activities. It is especially interesting for the group of researchers and students gathered in the project. Contemporary Belarusian artists often engaged in the problematization of the revolutionary tradition, which has been enduring and instrumentalized by the Belarusian authorities.
The seminar coordinated by Magdalena Radomska is also going to serve the purpose of discussing how usually temporary, task-oriented groups of researchers on art of the region can establish long- term networks in order to connect both art histories of particular countries of Eastern-Central Europe and art history of the region with the global – mainly Latin American context due to its revolutionary past. The cooperation of EastCentral European and Latin American artists had been established in Poznań already in 1970s by the NET initiative of Poznan-based Jarosław Kozłowski and was continued by Piotrowski at the final stage of his research. The goal of the closing seminar is to address the class-related and economic inequalities in the context of 1989, therefore the return of the Latin American context addressed already in Bucharest. According to the policy of PPCRE- CEA the process of globalization of the context of EastCentral Europe, which is perceived as one of global peripheries, is crucial for understanding its role in contemporary global art.