‘Investigating artistic interventions from within the semiperiphery of post-socialist Central Europe, Denisa Tomková de-centers the concept of individualistic authorship by accentuating community as a key factor in marginalized artists' works. Not only does Tomková de-peripheralize Central Europe by placing local art within the context of feminist histories, she also makes a key contribution to post-socialist decolonial thought.’
- Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová, Assistant Professor in the Graduate Program in Gender Studies, Charles University, Czech Republic
‘Empowering Aesthetics brilliantly illuminates how art confronts surging populism across post-socialist Central Europe, powerfully demonstrating its capacity to amplify marginalized voices, catalyze social transformation, and chart a bold alternative path toward collective liberation.’
— Christina Schwenkel, author of Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam.
‘The book offers a carefully theorised account of how contemporary art addresses the everyday through a multitude of practices. Denisa Tomkova's nuanced analysis highlights tactics of empowerment without forgetting the need for resistance to what constructs and reproduces vulnerability and exclusion in the first place. Her study will be useful to all who see the potential of critical interventions against oppression in the contemporary art field.’
- Angela Dimitrakaki, Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Edinburgh
‘This remarkable study delves into the diverse artistic practices emerging from post-socialist Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland), a region that has frequently been neglected in the discourse of contemporary art criticism. A comprehensive analysis of how contemporary art actually empowers marginalized communities, it is an essential read for anyone interested in socially engaged practices in semi-peripheral, non-western societies. It is a hopeful and very much needed book. It encourages readers to appreciate the profound impact that art can have in fostering understanding across differences, and ultimately, social justice.’
- Tereza Stejskalová, Director of tranzit.cz, Czech Republic