The exhibit traverses this new psychological landscape through interviews, photographs, reenactments, paintings, site-specific installations, drawings and video, each piece showing what happens when your world suddenly divides. Taken as a whole, Ostalgia is a visual record of the “outcasts, visionaries, and witnesses” that emerged from a region in collapse, unified by their collective (i.e. unraveling) state of mind. On a more personal level, each work is an individual history on display and carries with it all the anxiety, tension and pain inherent during traumatic events. Despite any of the cultural and generational gaps that exist between exhibiting artists, one thing remains constant: art was the catharsis. Distinct in scope, place and time – when these artists saw the myths of their respective countries dissolve, their response was to create.

Ostalgia runs from July 14-October 9, 2011 at the New Museum in New York.