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. 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 ch ...

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

Irina Nakhova Irina Isayevna Nakhova (russian: Ирина Исаевна Нахова; born 1955 in Moscow) is a Russian artist. Her father, Isai Nakhov, is a philologist. At 14 years old her mother took her to Victor Pivovarov's Atelier. Pivovarov played an ...

, Viktor Pivovarov,

Eric Bulatov Erik Bulatov (russian: Эрик Владимирович Булатов; born September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk) is a Russian artist, who was raised in Moscow. His father was a communist party official who died in World War II at Pskov, and his mo ...

, Andrei Monastyrski 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: 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 transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. 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 The Bulldozer Exhibition (russian: link=no, Бульдозерная выставка) was an unofficial art exhibition on a vacant lot in the Belyayevo urban forest ( Bitsa Park) by Moscow and Leningrad avant-garde artists on 15 September 1974 ...

, 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 press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

, 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 The Moscow Conceptualist, or Russian Conceptualist, movement began with the Sots art of Komar and Melamid in the early 1970s, and continued as a trend in Russian art into the 1980s. It attempted to subvert socialist ideology using the strategies of ...

Conceptual art

See also

References

External links