ABSTRACT
The planetary aspects of East European art can be uncovered in a host of artistic, curatorial, and art historical positions toward the ecological crisis of late socialism, although these did not constitute a coherent movement and were rich in contradictions and dissonances. Attitudes to environmental art at the crucial juncture are also revealed by the critical reception of the environmentally-conceived travelling exhibition Resource Kunst at Mucsarnok Budapest in 1990. Art critic Julianna P. Szucs used her review in the daily Nepszabadsag to reveal how a longstanding "illusory deep faith in the human" had been dispelled by a new awareness of environmental questions. One of the main genres of Socialist Realist art was the portrait of the leader, depicted surrounded by the adoring masses, in conversation with comrades, or at the center of historical events. As a young artist with an interest in cartography, Sikora represented the places he visited as abstract geographies in his paintings.
