The Moscow Conceptualist, or Russian Conceptualist, movement began with the

Sots art Often referred to as “Soviet Pop Art”, Sots Art or soc art (russian: Соц-арт, short for Socialist Art) originated in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s as a reaction against the official aesthetic doctrine of the state— socialist ...

Komar and Melamid Komar and Melamid (pronunciation: ''Kómar and Melamíd'') is a tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar (born 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born 1945). In an artists' statement they said that "even if only one of us ...

in the early 1970s, and continued as a trend in

Russian art Russian culture (russian: Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and Western influence. Russian writers and ph ...

into the 1980s. It attempted to subvert socialist ideology using the strategies of

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

and

appropriation art Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The use of appropriation has played a significant role in the history of the arts (literary, visual, musical and performing arts) ...

. It was an artistic counterpoint to

Socialist Realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...

, and the artists experimented aesthetically in a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, performance, and literature. The central figures were

Dmitri Prigov Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov (russian: Дми́трий Алекса́ндрович При́гов, 5 November 1940 in Moscow – 16 July 2007 in Moscow Ilya Kabakov Ilya Iosifovich Kabakov (Russian: Илья́ Ио́сифович Кабако́в; born September 30, 1933), is a Russian–American conceptual artist, born in Dnipropetrovsk in what was then the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. He worked f ...

, Irina Nakhova,

Viktor Pivovarov Viktor Dmitrievich Pivovarov (russian: Виктор Дмитриевич Пивоваров; born 1937) is a Russian artist who lives in Prague since 1982. He represented Soviet Nonconformist Art and was one of the leading artists of the Mosco ...

, Eric Bulatov,

Andrei Monastyrski Andrei Viktorovich Monastyrski (born Sumnin; October 28, 1949, in Pechengsky District, Pechenga, Murmansk Oblast, USSR) is an author, poet, artist and art theorist, one of the leaders of the Moscow Conceptualists, Moscow Conceptualist movement alon ...

and

Mikhail Epstein Mikhail Naumovich Epstein (also transliterated Epshtein; russian: Михаи́л Нау́мович Эпште́йн; born 21 April 1950) is a Russian-American literary scholar and essayist who is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theo ...

, in ''After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture'' (1995) explains why conceptualism is particularly appropriate to the culture and history of Russia, but also how it differs from Western Conceptualism: Epstein (1995) quotes

Ilya Kabakov Ilya Iosifovich Kabakov (Russian: Илья́ Ио́сифович Кабако́в; born September 30, 1933), is a Russian–American conceptual artist, born in Dnipropetrovsk in what was then the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. He worked f ...

: The Moscow Conceptualist artists faced difficulties exhibiting their work in the cultural atmosphere of the late

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. At the Manezh exhibit of 1962, which featured the work of many aesthetic precursors to the Moscow Conceptualists, then- Party first secretary

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

excoriated the art and artists he saw there. In 1974, at the infamous Bulldozer Exhibition, many Moscow Conceptualist artists had their work destroyed when the Soviet authorities brought in bulldozers to clear the field in which the exhibition was held. The art movement was largely ignored outside of the Soviet Union, and within it, it was confined to a narrow circle of Moscow artists and their friends.

References

Epstein, Mikhail: ''After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture'', Amherst: The

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts a ...

, 1995.

External links

Moscow Conceptualism. Russian Conceptual Art

MOSCOW CONCEPTUALISM PRESENTED BY VADIM ZAKHAROV

''e-flux journal'' #29
{{Years in the history of fine art of the USSR Moscow Conceptualists Moscow Conceptualists Moscow Conceptualists Conceptual art

See also

References

External links