Alexandru Barnea Photograph Private Collection

Through colour photographs and slides, the Alexandru Barnea private collection documents the demolitions imposed by the communist regime in the centre of Bucharest following the devastating earthquake of 1977, which served as a pretext for the destruction or mutilation of many historic monuments. The policy of demolishing the architectural and urbanistic heritage has been considered one of the most aberrant and arbitrary measures in the recent history of Romania.

Location:
- București Drumul Taberei 18, Romania 061344
Topics:
- alternative lifestyles and resistance of the everydays
- visual arts
Date of founding:
- 1984
Featured items:
- Alexandru Barnea's Asahi Pentax camera
- Barnea, Alexandru. Mihai Vodă Monastery, 1984. Photo

Andrei Pandele Photograph Private Collection

The Andrei Pandele private collection is the most significant testimony in pictures, mainly black and white, to the demolition of historic monuments and districts in the Romanian capital in the period of late communism. Together with photographs that are essential for the preservation of the memory of a mutilated city and a vanished cultural heritage, the collection also includes a series of images capturing aspects of the degradation everyday life throughout the profound crisis of the 1980s. These suggest both the absurdity of the policies of the Ceaușescu regime and the grotesque mutations in the everyday routine of ordinary people to which these policies gave rise.

Location:
- București Strada Dumbrava Roșie 12, Romania 030167
Topics:
Date of founding:
- 1980
Featured items:
- Pandele Andrei, Translation of Mihai Vodă Church, 1986. Photograph
- Pandele, Andrei. Queues during communism, 1985-1989. Photographs

András Kisfaludy collection

András Kisfaludy’s collection suggests ways of interpreting retrospective gazes on the alternative culture of the socialist period. While Kisfaludy is the owner of a sizable private collection that concerns alternative and dissent culture of the era, he is more a creator than a collector of documents. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was a member of the famous youth gang called "Kalef" (in 2006, he made a film about the gang). From 1968 to 1971, he was the percussionist of the underground band "Kex.” Kisfaludy began to make documentary films on cultural opposition in the 1990s. The core of his oeuvre was done between the early 1990s and early 2000s.

The status of the collection is special because the rights of the movies belong exclusively to András Kisfaludy, so the collection exists only as a private collection. However, the majority of his films are accessible via Youtube.

Location:
- Budapest, Hungary
Topics:
Date of founding:
- 1990
Featured items:
- Lawless geranium I-III (1996), dir. András Kisfaludy, Hungary. Film

Artists' Archives of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Artists’ Archives gather private collections of artists, documenting the most significant phenomena in post-1945 Polish art, including those which opposed the system or were criticised by the authorities.
Many of these, are the work of creators and milieus engaged in the critique of the authorities and the cultural mainstream of Polish People's Republic. The Archives, designed as an integral part of the new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, collects artzines, manifestos, private and official letters, as well as documentation of artistic activities. Its collection is being digitised and published via Internet portal. The unveiling of every new collection is treated as an exhibition marked by a series of panels and meetings.

Location:
- Warszawa plac Defilad 1, Poland 00-901
Topics:
Date of founding:
- 2008
Featured items:
- Panoramiczny happening morski, photographic documentation, 1967

Benedikt Rejt Gallery

Benedikt Rejt Gallery and its collection were founded in the 1960s with the aim of collecting contemporary tendencies in visual arts. The gallery kept buying works by progressive artists even after 1968. The Benedikt Rejt Gallery owns a unique collection of constructivist pieces.

Location:
- Pivovarská 29, 440 01 Louny, Czech Republic
Topics:
Date of founding:
- 1965
Featured items:
- Filla, Emil. Slovak Folk Songs, 1948–1951. Paintings