1st Edition
Russia - Art Resistance and the Conservative-Authoritarian Zeitgeist
This book explores how artistic strategies of resistance have survived under the conservative-authoritarian regime which has been in place in Russia since 2012. It discusses the conditions under which artists work as the state spells out a new state cultural policy, aesthetics change and the state attempts to define what constitutes good taste. It examines the approaches artists are adopting to resist state oppression and to question the present system and attitudes to art. The book addresses a wide range of issues related to these themes, considers the work of individual artists and includes besides its focus on the visual arts also some discussion of contemporary theatre. The book is interdisciplinary: its authors include artists, art historians, theatre critics, historians, linguists, sociologists and political scientists from Russia, Europe and the United States.
1. Introduction
Part I: The Conservative Zeitgeist and Russian Cultural Policy
2. The "Russian World", Genetically Modified Conservatism, or Why Culture Matters
3. The New State Cultural Policy and Visual Art
4. Neo-traditional Fits with Neo-liberal Shifts in Russian Cultural Policy since 2010
5. Daughterland [Rodina-Doch]: Contemporary Russian Messianism and Neo-conservative Visuality
Part II: The State of Affairs: Voices from the Russian Art Scene
7. Culture as the Enemy: Contemporary Russian Art under the Authoritarian Regime
8. Voices from within the Art Scene. Interviews with Russian Artists
Part III: Artistic Counter-Strategies
9. Dissensus and "Shimmering": Tergiversation as Politics
10. Humor as a Bulletproof Vest: Artists Embracing an Ironic Zeitgeist
11. Demontage of Attractions
12. The Chto Delat School for Engaged Art and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
13. A Dilemma for the Contemporary Artist: "Revolutionary Pessimism" of Roman Osminkin
14. Radical Art Actionism
15. Petr Pavlenskii and his Actions"
16. Document: Pavlenskii and Yasman: Dialogues about Art
Part IV: Theatre: A Parallel Development
17. Theatre of a Period of Archaization
18. Non-conformist Theatre in Russia: Past and Present
Biography
Lena Jonson is a Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of
International Affairs.
Andrei Erofeev is a widely published art historian, curator, and former head
of the contemporary art section of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
