Neo-Avant-Garde

This paper examines the cross-pollination of the neo-Marxist critique of real existing socialism with the critical practices of the radical stream of the East European neo-avant-garde, and examines the extent to which the imprint of debates over the radical overhaul of the socialist system can be detected in the practices of artists and curators. Artistic affinities with the neo-Marxist debates that flared across the Eastern Bloc can be identified in a shared willingness to question authority, a subversive
attitude to canonical thinking and a new interest in the role of an individual in socialist society. Considered also is the shift
over the course of the 1970s from a belief in the possibility of a reformed socialism, to one of resignation, cynicism and frustration
towards party bureaucracy, in which even the bureaucrats had stopped believing in the official ideology. This change in attitudes
towards socialism is detected both in the change in tone in the writings of dissident theorists and in the approach of artists who could no longer muster the neo-avant-garde enthusiasm for the utopian desire to transform the world. The difficult paths taken by those, who sought to recover the radicalism in Marxist thought from under the blanket of state bureaucracy may also be viewed as a valuable source for contemporary social criticism of the post-communist order by a new generation of theorists and artists.

Explores the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze and Guattari’s work and its relevance to artistic practice

Provides a series of philosophical encounters with the concept of multiplicity
Points to the potentialities circulating in various media for social change
Decolonialises our thinking about art by bypassing the mediation of the traditional western-centred art history
Contributors include Mieke Bal, James Williams, Laura Marks, Gary Genosko and Eugene Holland
This collection of essays from a range of philosophers and art practitioners offers tools through which we can action change across art and philosophy, across a range of media and across the theory/practice divide.
Including insights from digital apps to Indigenous ritual art and from feminist and queer art to refugee performances and talismanic magic associated with Islamic Neoplatonism, this collection will decolonise your thinking about art – subverting the traditional Western-centred art history.
The first section includes theoretical essays on the concept of multiplicities, on affect and politics as well as the thought of Raymond Ruyer and Gilbert Simondon – 2 key influences on Deleuze and Guattari.
The second section includes applied essays on specific art practices including the plastic arts, theatre, architecture, music and folk performances.


    Przedpełski and Wilmer have brought together a remarkably wide-ranging collection of essays by top-notch scholars that explore both the philosophical trajectory of Deleuze’s concept of multiplicity as well as its ramifications in domains such as art and politics The volume will become a standard reference work for anyone interested in the complexities and implications of Deleuze’s philosophical concepts.
    – Daniel W. Smith, Purdue University

    Pulsating, vibrating and intensive, this collection does not just discuss the concept of multiplicity but also enacts it through the rich array of its multidisciplinary contributions. With topics ranging from film, theatre and sculpture through to Indigenous ritual, talismanic magic and Eastern European neo-avant-garde, it offers a significant contribution to the philosophy of creativity, while itself becoming a work of art.
    – Joanna Zylinska, Goldsmiths, University of London

Notes on Contributors

Mieke Bal, cultural theorist, critic, video artist and occasional curator.
Burcu Baykan, Bilkent University, Turkey.
Gary Genosko, University of Ontario, Institute of Technology in Toronto, Canada.
Barbara Glowczewski, National Scientific Research Center, Collège de France, EHESS, France.
Eugene W. Holland, Ohio State University, USA.
Adi Louria Hayon, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Laura U. Marks, Simon Fraser University, Canada.
Radek Przedpełski, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Daniela Voss, University of Hildesheim, Germany.
James Williams, Deakin University, Australia.
S. E. Wilmer, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Audronė Žukauskaitė, Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania.