ABSTRACT
Historiographical research on “dictatorships over needs,” a sociological expression coined by the Budapest school of philosophers for Soviet-type societies, often falls back on the phenomena of an alternative, parallel, or second public sphere, but has only marginally investigated the origin and complexity of this powerful occurrence. The lack of a systematic, careful allotment of the public sphere’s diverse variations in communist regimes is still present in the field of art history. Yet, when looking for new narratives that help decipher Eastern and Central Europe’s fascinating art diversity, the discourse of the second public sphere is an ideal analytical scheme. Through several cases, this chapter demonstrates the second public sphere’s fruitful ground as a historiographical narrative. In particular, an examination of the relationship between an alternative public sphere and avant-gardist art in Kádár’s Hungary illuminates the many factors that shaped art-making between 1956 and 1989: restrictions and permissions of cultural politics, rebellious and oppositional tendencies in creativity, apolitical art, corridors between official and unofficial production, and international exchange between art worlds.
