Tag: Soviet Union

Saodat Ismailova: As We Fade

Three seductive, spellbinding films demonstrate the Uzbek artist and film-maker’s confidence in letting images tell the story, in her first solo exhibition at a UK institution
Alexey Titarenko: ‘I wanted to capture my inner perception of the world around me’

An exhibition at the Naiya Alexander Gallery in New York brings together Alexey Titarenko’s photographs from four cities taken over 30 years. Here, he talks about how life in the Soviet Union shaped his work, being jailed by the KGB,…
Asya Dodina and Slava Polishchuk: ‘Material dictates the way you relate to the fact you describe’

The Russian immigrant artists talk about the difference between art education in the former Soviet Union and in the United States and the importance of using materials as expressive means in their work
Yevgeniy Fiks: ‘Any utopia is queer by nature, because it takes you from the present and directs you to a strange time and place’

Artist and curator Yevgeniy Fiks talks about his work with curator Olga Kopenkina for the exhibition Future Queer Perfect, which looks at the utopian aspirations of Soviet experience and its connection to artistic and cultural concerns
Vagrich Bakhchanyan: Accidental Absurdity

Vagrich Bakhchanyan was a follower of the Russian avant garde and a precursor of Moscow conceptualism and Sots art, as he strove to highlight the deadening absurdity of Soviet authoritarianism and officialdom
Valera & Natasha Cherkashin: ‘There is no future without understanding our past and our present’

The Russian artist couple talk about the importance of history in their work and the beginnings and development of their multimedia art practice, encompassing photography, performance, video, digital art, painting and drawing
Beijing’s 798 Art District

A decade ago, setting up radical art studios in the workshops of a largely abandoned military electronics complex on the fringe of Beijing was considered to be intriguing and provocative. Today, Factory 798 is a warren of contemporary art galleries,…
Rediscovering the Silver Age of Russian Art

Mir Iskusstva: Russia’s Age of Elegance Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey 25 February-11 June 2006 While the recent, ambitious ‘RUSSIA!’ show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York was a bit thin on the artists associated with the Ballets…