Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, "The Promises of the Past" examines the former opposition between Eastern and Western Europe by reinterpreting the history of the Communist Bloc countries through art. Challenging the idea that art history is somehow linear and continuous, this transnational and multigenerational project features works by more than 50 artists, many of them from Central and Eastern Europe, including: Marina Abramovic, Yael Bartana, Dimitrije Basicevic (Mangelos), Tacita Dean, Liam Gillick, Sanja Ivekovic, Julius Koller, Jiri Kovanda, Edward Krasinski, David Maljkovic, Marjetica Potrc and Monika Sosnowska. Accompanying an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, this publication features previously unpublished archival documentation, as well as historic essays by Slavoj Zizek, Igor Zabel and others.

Igor Zabel (1958-2005) was one of Slovenia's foremost curators and writers. Published as a part of JRP - Ringier's "Documents" critical writings series (published with Les presses du reel), this important collection of Zabel's writings--his first in English--serves as a methodology model for research into Eastern European art techniques and practices. The selected texts are divided into four chapters: "East-West and Between," which explores perceptions of otherness following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; "Strategies and Spaces of Art," which examines strategies of representation and theories of display and the role of the curator; "Ad Personam," which includes individual artists and art from Socialist Realism and conceptualism to postmodernism and contextual art, particularly in Slovenia and South Eastern Europe; and "Extras," a selection of Zabel's columns on arts and culture.