The Museological Unconscious: Communal (post)modernism In Russia

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The history of contemporary art in Russia, from socialist realism to the post-Soviet alternative art scene.

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The Museological Unconscious VICTOR TUPITSYN introduction by Susan Buck-Morss and Victor Tupitsyn The Museological Unconscious VICTOR TUPITSYN The Museological Unconscious Communal (Post)Modernism in Russia THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND VICTOR TUPITSYN © 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] mitpress.mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Sabon and Univers by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, Georgia. Printed and bound in Spain. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tupitsyn, Viktor, 1945– The museological unconscious : communal (post) modernism in Russia / Victor Tupitsyn. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-20173-5 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Avant-garde (Aesthetics)—Russia (Federation) 2. Dissident art—Russia (Federation) 3. Art and state— Russia (Federation) 4. Art, Russian—20th century. 5. Art, Russian—21st century. I. Title. N6988.5.A83T87 2009 709.47’09045—dc22 2008031026 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Margarita CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION SUSAN BUCK-MORSS IN CONVERSATION WITH VICTOR TUPITSYN ix 1 Civitas Solis: Ghetto as Paradise 13 1 2 Communal (Post)Modernism: A Short History 33 3 Moscow Communal Conceptualism 101 4 Icons of Iconoclasm 123 5 The Sun without a Muzzle 14 5 6 If I Were a Woman 169 7 Pushmi-pullyu: St. Petersburg-and-Moscow 187 8 Batman and the Joker: The Thermidor of the Bodily 203 9 The Body-without-a-Name 213 10 Notes on the Museological Unconscious 11 Negativity Mon Amour 229 249 12 Post-Autonomous Art 263 13 Rublevskoe Chaussée 277 NOTES 297 INDEX 329 PREFACE This book presents the history of contemporary Russian art as a communal paradigm—a model that grants the opportunity to discuss and analyze seemingly disconnected and incompatible events as effected by a number of communal phenomena, such as communal living, communal perception, and communal speech practices. Because of this “communalizing” approach, many artists and art movements are brought together for the first time, as if they were the tenants of one large communal apartment. This common approach to a variety of issues is based on the theory that the optical unconscious of the Soviet people was structured like communal speech. Admittedly, all texts in this publication have been guided by a look-alike principle—the analogy between communal speech and communal vision is linked to the imperative of seeing through the eyes or on behalf of the “collective other.” Everything that appealed to the communal eye in post–World War II Russia is critically scrutinized in The Museological Unconscious, including the reproductions of up to one hundred artworks from both Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The reference to “communal p
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