This excellent book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a fuller understanding of the art and culture of the 'other' Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, so long marginalized by Cold War optics, and for those interested in the chameleon strategies of artistic opposition. Susan E. Reid, Professor of Russian Visual Culture and ... Read moreDirector of the Centre for Visual Studies, University of Sheffield (UK) There are histories that are risky to rescue. The required factography was rarely gathered in time and is thus largely contaminated (however innocently) by the ahistorical. Luckily, that is not the case here. Klara Kemp-Welch's book is illuminating and thoroughly written. Dr. Victor Tupitsyn, Emeritus Professor, Pace University, Westchester, New York (US) Moving through a series of poignant case studies drawn from Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Hungarian contexts, this text explores the ways artists invented an experimental culture of everyday life, an aesthetic space of exception from within the deadening and immersive system of the totalitarian communist state's controls and repressions. This is a remarkable art history, concisely developed and engagingly analyzed. TJ Demos, Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art, University College London, University of London (UK). The relationship between art and politics is the linchpin of the differences dividing those interested in art from what was formerly known as Eastern Europe. As the first study of its kind to address this issue specifically, rather than tangentially or merely casually, this book is indispensable. Sven Spieker,Professor,University of California, Santa Barbara Show Less