Organised by Research Area 3: "Future Perfect".

Starting from Czech non-conformist artists and philosophers, this lecture looks at which forms critical art takes in (post-)totalitarian systems and in which spaces it can manifest. Hana Gründler first examines how ideologically determined norms and concepts of reality can be problematised and deconstructed through 'resistant' (aesthetic) practices. Then, following Václav Havel's Six Asides on Culture (1984), she reconsiders the often glorified figure of the underground and asks to what extent this 'parallel polis' was instrumentalised on both sides of the so-called Iron Curtain during the Cold War. What ideas – and perhaps also idealisations – of artistic and philosophical practices went hand in hand with this, and what concepts of the 'political' were at stake? Gründler concludes with a brief meditation on how the analysed positions serve as important examples for reflecting on the effectiveness and limits of political art even today.  

Hana Gründler is Head of the Permanent and Independent Research Group Ethico-Aesthetics of the Visual at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut. Her research areas include the intersections of philosophy and art (history), extending from the early modern period to the present. Currently she is writing a book on Czech art and philosophy as resistant practices, 1948–1989. Among her publications are the monograph Die Dunkelheit der Episteme. Zur Kunst des aufmerksamen Sehens (Berlin 2019), the special issue of the Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte "Eastern Underground" (Munich 2024) as well as articles on the ethical dimension of art and visibility. She is also a co-editor of the Edition Giorgio Vasari and editor of Leon Battista Alberti's moral dialogue On the Tranquillity of the Soul (Berlin 2022).