title: Piotr Piotrowski, “Against Institutions,” translated from Polish by Joanna Wolańska, originally published as “Przeciwko instytucjom,” in Sztuka (1976): 52–56
abstract: Piotr Piotrowski was Professor of Art History at Adam Mickiewicz University, and redefined thinking about East-Central European art in his seminal book In the Shadow of Yalta, Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe, 1945–1989. With rich references to the American art scene, he analyses the political, social and cultural conditions of artistic activity and points to artists whose work targeted the mechanisms of the institutionalization of art. The problem of artistic communication is inextrica