Filozofski vestnik | Volume XXXV | Number 2 | 2014 | 9–11 Aleš Erjavec & Tyrus Miller Editorial Since the 1970s and 1980s when the concept of postmodernism was advanced and hotly debated, the concept of “modernism” was not simply superseded, but also itself became a major object of criticism, questioning, negation, and reinscription. Throughout the 20th century and until the present, “modernism” has regularly simply superseded, has regularly accreted and shed meanings, ields of reference, and conceptual grounds. It has been variously characterized as the opposite of realism or a further radicalization of realist representation; as an outgrowth of or rupture with previous movements such as aestheticism and naturalism; as a synonym for or the antipode of various strands of the avantgarde; and as the visible proof of relevance of the notion of modernity, which by diferent thinkers has been said to have come to an end, been globally dispersed, or continued in further development and diferentiation. It has been divided among Latin American, Anglo-American, German and French designations, and was proclaimed to be the last cultural dominant arising from Europe or the capitalist “West,” to be then broadened into “global modernisms.” By recent theorists, it has been temporally distinguished from contemporary art (by Terry Smith), dissolved within a historically more encompassing “aesthetic regime of art” (by Jacques Rancière), and displaced within the concept of “ofmodernism” (Svetlana Boym). Due to its varied and contradictory history and to its uncertain present status and content we have invited new relection on the notion of modernism as a historicizing, periodizing, and/or geographical-historical framework. We wanted to attract boldly speculative, polemical essays that will set out new directions and spur further discussion and debate. These were some possible questions for contributors to consider in formulating topics: • Is modernism solely a past phenomenon or does it remain a contemporary one, and if so, how? 9 aleš erjavec & tyrus miller • How does the contemporary moment compel revisiting and reinterpretation of the modernist past, previous conceptions of modernism, the modernist canon or archive? • Should alternative concepts such as those developed by Rancière, Smith, Boym (or other relevant thinkers) displace and / or replace the concept of modernism? • Should we speak of global and alternative modernisms and how are these related to expanding notions of modernity and modernization? • How do the various strains of “Eastern modernism”—related to Soviet, socialist bloc, and non-aligned social contexts—inlect the concepts of “modernism,” “Western modernism,” and / or “global modernism”? • How do diferentiated, multiple temporalities—i.e. social-political time, technological time, material rhythms, gendered temporalities, memory structures, etc.—afect formulations of the concept of modernism (or alternatives to it)? • How have conceptions of modernism (or alternatives to modernism) responded to marginal and / or emerging identities? 10 The issue of Filozofski vestnik that is in front of you ofers some answers to the questions formulated above. At the same time it also raises new questions and reveals new facets of this dynamic artistic, cultural and political phenomenon, thereby witnessing that in spite of frequent postmodern and also contemporary denigrations and proclamations of modernism as being obsolete and irrelevant, by its inner dynamism it continues to retain its importance and applicability to the past if not also to the present art. This is possible because past art forms, ideas, and works are being continuously interpreted and re-interpreted, and thereby reintegrated and then temporarily retained within what we call “art”— whether art as an institution or art as its opposite and negation. In both instances past art—the art of modernism—is being recuperated and exists now on the same synchronic level as recent and contemporary art. Due to this re-emergence/rejuvenation of modernist art and its inclusion into our present it suices to view this art as continuously relevant. Its being incessantly questioned is another feature of its inner and continuous dynamism and vitality. Such characteristics and circumstances prove that in some (or many) of its past and current meanings and signiications it remains a concept that we expect to see and work with in the future. Modernism thus continues to be a pivotal cultural and artistic foundation of our past and present. It represents the pinnacle of art in the his- editorial tory of the EuroAmerican culture and, as recent research and exhibitions show and prove, has exterted and continues to exert an extraordinary amount of inluence also in other parts of the globe. This volume is thus yet another occasion to consider this point, causing modernism to be in the need of being revisited many more times. 11