Notes on Activist Practices Behind the Iron Curtain Liberation Theologies, Experimental Institutionalism, Expanded Art and Minor Literature

As complement to FORMER WEST, I here focus on how artists have experimentally ‘instituted otherwise’ (to echo both a motto of BAK and Charles Esche’s experimental institutionalism). This involved searching for and ‘using’ an internationally connected institution that was often willing to be experimented with, the church, as well as an interest in the liberating elements of canonical literature (which for the present purposes includes both the Bible and what one can call ‘minor literature’, mostly avant-garde writing) and expanded concepts of art (Joseph Beuys et al.). A framework for where these elements meet can be found in liberation theologies and cultural practitioners’ investment in them.