IRWIN
East Art Map
2005
EB66
4-color offset print
70 x 100 cm
Edition of 100, signed and numbered
Edition A: 55 copies (numbered 1/55 - 55/55, all in portfolios)
Edition B: 35 copies (numbered I/XXXV - XXXV/XXXV)
10 Artists Proofs (numbered AP 1/10 - AP 10/10)
300 Euro (Edition B)
Under the project title East Art Map (2000–06), the collective of Slovenian artists IRWIN, in collaboration with several editors, is attempting to (re)construct a history of contemporary art in Eastern Europe from 1945 to 2000. Their stated goal is to “showcase the art of the entire Eastern European region, removing artists from their national contexts and presenting them in a unified system.”1 IRWIN presented the project at the 5th Cetinje Biennial in Montenegro in 2004 and contributed the offset print East Art Map to the graphic portfolio Love It or Leave It (EB66). The print shows a schematic representation of their joint research in the form of a network diagram in which the relationships between artists and overarching concepts such as Moscow Conceptualism or Sots Art are represented by lines. The network is overprinted with an appeal to the viewer: “HISTORY IS NOT GIVEN. PLEASE HELP TO CONSTRUCT IT.”
Text: Katrin Seemann
1 IRWIN, in: In den Schluchten des Balkan. Eine Reportage, Exhib., cat., Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, 2003, p. 72.