Associate professor of Cultural Studies at Perm State Academy of Art & Culture. SOVIET ART

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1 Anna Suvorova Associate professor of Cultural Studies at Perm State Academy of Art & Culture. Syllabus draft SOVIET ART Part 1. Specificity of Soviet Art: between Art and Ideology Theme 1.1. Introducing Soviet Art General periodization of Soviet Art. Ideological, economic, social and cultural factors in the development of art in the USSR. Soviet Art as an ideological tool. Ideology, economy and art criticism as the main means of managing art in the Soviet Union. Art institutions as media of power discourse: the Academy of Fine Arts, art criticism, journals on art, the Unions of Artists. Role and functions of the Union of Artists of the USSR and the Art Foundation of the USSR. System of art management in the Soviet Union. The problem of the language of art in the USSR. Involvement in European and American art and exclusion from contemporary artistic processes. Nonlinearity of Soviet Art and artistic layers. Continuity and tradition in Soviet Art. History of studying Soviet Art. Literature and sources on the history of Soviet Art. Theme 1.2. Soviet Art in the Discourse of Pierre Bourdieu s Theory of Social Fields Characteristics of a field in Bourdieu s theory of fields. Autonomy, refraction, interaction between agents (symbolic capital, power etc). Soviet Art in the perspective of Bourdieu s theory of social fields. The logic of the operational field. Strategies of agents in the field of Soviet Art. Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) [1983] Forms of Capital Language and Symbolic Power (1991) Harvard University Press 1

2 Part 2. Soviet Art in : Government Directives in the Sphere of Art and the Unions of Artists Theme 2.1. Art as Political Agitation Radical change in the political, social and economic statuses of artists in Russia. Organizational efforts of the new state in winning the support of the artistic intelligentsia. Ideological pressure and relative pluralism of state policy in the sphere of art. Art policy: cultural enlightenment and mass propaganda. Thematic exhibitions as major channel of social commission in Soviet Art. Artistic types and forms of mass agitation and propaganda in the early years of Soviet Russia. Lenin's Plan of Monumental Propaganda" and its political, ideological and cultural aspects. Specificity of Soviet monumental sculpture in the early 1920s. Monuments and artists (Sergei Konenkov, Alexander Matveev, Sergei Merkurov, Vera Mukhina, Ivan Shadr, Leonid Sherwood etc). Decoration of mass revolutionary festivals. Agitation porcelain. Political and cultural enlightenment posters. Dyogot, E. (2009) Figthin for the Flag. Soviet Art between Trotsky and Stalin Мoscow: MMSI [in Russian]. Theme 2.2. Institutional Structure of Soviet Art Reform of artistic education. Free art workshops in Moscow and Petrograd of Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops ( ) and Higher Artistic and Technical Institute ( ). Structure, principles and methods of education. Pedagogical work of Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, etc. Establishment of the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute ( ). Analytic research of main elements of art as its goal. Constructivism and industrial art. Foundation of the Museum of Painting in Petrograd. Theme 2.3. Artistic Unions and Groupings in

3 Unions of artists as a factor of socio-cultural and economic functioning. AKhRR the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia ( ), later known as the Association of Artists of the Revolution ( ). Declaration of continuity with the art of the Itinerants and assimilation of the Russian Impressionism. Thematic exhibitions: Everyday Life of Workers, Everyday Life of the Red Army, etc. Struggle for mass audience. The Art into the Masses magazine ( ). Financial patronage by the authorities. Development of the genre typology of Soviet narrative painting. Artists: Isaak Brodsky, Sergei Malyutin, etc. The Society of Easel Painters (OST), Artists: Alexander Deineka, Yuri Pimenov, David Shterenberg, etc. Contemporary themes in the renewed easel painting. Influences of cinema, photography, German Expressionism and the Paris School, etc. OST in the context of struggle against formalism. Pavel Filonov and the Union of artists Masters of Analytical Art ( , worked unofficially from 1932 till 1941). Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich and UNOVIS ("The Champions of the New Art") in the development of constructivist forms, Constructivism as the universal artistic technique of social transformation. Left Front of the Arts (LEF) association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. Members: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Rodchenko, Osip Brik, Boris Shklovsky, etc. Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov as filmmakers congenial to LEF. Ideological program: creating a new truly proletarian art. Theory of art as construction of life, theory of the social commission and revolution of form. Publication of the LEF ( ) and New LEF ( ) journals, edited by V. Mayakovsky. Art crisis of the 1920s. Emigration of artists (Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, David Burliuk, etc.). Bowlt, John (ed.) (1976) Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, New York: Viking Press. Kamenskiy, A. (1989) The Romantic Montage. Мoscow [in Russian]. Theme 2.4. Soviet Architecture in the 1920s 1930s: the Struggle of Ideas Topic 3

4 Romantic symbolism of architecture. Symbolic expression in the projects of Vladimir Tatlin, Lazar Lisitsky, etc. Romantical urbanism. Projects of skyscrapers by Lazar Lisitsky and Anton Lavinsky. Architects of the Constructivism: Konstantin Melnikov, the Vesnin brothers, etc. The ideas of a socialist city. Traditionalism in Soviet architecture of the 1920s. Classical School of Ivan Fomin, its connection with the traditions of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. Competition of the Palace of Soviets projects. Semantic and artistic aspects of the projects. Paperny, Vladimir (2002) Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Part 3. Art of the 1930s First Half of the 1950s: Socialist Realism. Theme 3.1. Art as New Mythology Exhibition "Artists of the Soviet Russia in 15 years" as the end of artistic pluralism. Prospects for the development of art: an idealized image of "socialist building" in the USSR, "the new, young Soviet Man." Tools of policy in art. Termination of previous artistic groupings and formation of unified artistic unions. The system of rigid administrative and ideological regulation of art. Development of the unified artistic method of Soviet Art Socialist Realism and its main principles. The events of as the turning point in ideology and culture. Rupture with the avantgarde, "the struggle against formalism." The repressive nature of the struggle for the "partyness" and the "people s character" of Soviet Art. Ideologically sanctioned hierarchy of topics in art. Development of national schools of art in the Soviet republics. The exhibition "Art of the peoples of the USSR" (1927). Golomstock, I.N. (1994). Totalitarian Art. Groys, Boris (1993) Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin. Ed. Znak. Groys, Boris (2007) Communist Post Scriptum. Moscow: Ad Marginem. Theme 3.2. The Ideal State and the New Man in the Soviet Art of the 1930s early 1950s. 4

5 Monumental sculpture in the discourse of power. "A monument to the leader" and large-scale symbolic compositions (Vera Mukhina, Serge Merkurov, etc). "National holiday" and "Holiday of Meeting the Leader" thematic priorities of the late 1930s. Official portrait: the denial of psychology and realistic specificity, idealization of the sitter, stylization in the spirit of the imperial academicism. Artistic pathos of art of Socialist Realism in the s. "The theory of non-conflict". Typical subjects of narrative painting: the memories of war, "the beauty of peaceful labor", "public meeting", "public holiday", leisure scenes after the "working day", images of "happy childhood", etc. Manifestations of independent artistic positions. The phenomenon of the artist s "inner emigration". Theme 3.3. Discourse of Power in Art of the 1930s early 1950s: Means of Influence. Repressive measures against the culture of the state and party organs. The fight against "the Impressionism", "Cosmopolitanism" "Formalism," "Naturalism" and "lack of ideological and political stance" in art and art history. Development of institutions providing for the economy of art. The Arts Foundation of the USSR and its branches, exhibition boards ("vystavkomy") as tools of economic influence on the sphere of art. Development of art criticism. Art history and aesthetics as tools of control and correction of form and content in Soviet Art. Part 4. Art of the Thaw (second half of the 1950s first half of the 1960s) Theme 4.1. Ideological Turn: New Times New Art Liberalization of policy in art, overcoming stereotypes of the Stalinist Socialist Realism. I. Ehrenburg s story "The Thaw" and its significance. The XX Congress of the CPSU and the denunciation of the cult of personality (1956). The influence of the XX Congress on the sphere of art. Overcoming cultural isolation. Revitalization and democratization of cultural life. The International Art Exhibition, international competitions and festivals, renewal of museum expositions, exhibitions of young artists, new periodicals on art. Ehrenburg, Ilya (1954) The Thaw [in Russian]. Gerchuk, Yu. Ya. (2008) The MOSKH Apoplexy, or Khruschev in the Manege of December 1, Мoscow [in Russian]. 5

6 Theme 4.2. The Languages of the New Art. The problem of "the modern style of painting." "Severe style" ( ) as the search for a new style in art. Special features: resistance to the stereotypes of Socialist Realism, new understanding of the civic mission, the romantic concept of the "courageous hero", the search for "the truth of life," the rejection of ceremonial and decorative paintings, return of the monumental form. Artists: Pavel Nikonov, Yevsei Moiseenko, Tair Salakhov, etc. The exhibition "30 years of the Moscow Union of Artists" (Fall 1962 Winter 1963). Its role in the completion of the artistic "thaw". Kamenskiy А. (1989) Romanic montage. Moscow [in Russian]. Part 5. Art from the Second Half of the 1960s to the 1980s: Trends and Problems Theme 5.1. The Phenomenon of the Two Worlds in the Late Soviet Art. The year of 1974 as the turning point in the work with the artistic intelligentsia. Persecution of dissidents. Emigration of Ernst Neizvestny, Oleg Tselkov, Mikhail Shemyakin, etc. in the 1970s. Official discrimination by means of art criticism. The emergence of youth groups in the Union of Artists. Informal and amateur art. Yurchak, Alexei (2009) Everything was Forever Until It Was No More. Theme 5.2. The Strategies of Late Soviet Art Search for "the hero", psychology of time and human experience in genre paintings. Appeal to the classical understanding of beauty, art of the Middle Ages, the early Renaissance, etc. Unofficial art: opposition to the official values, development of the collection of literary sources and mythology. Abstract painting and metaphysical art. The emergence of kinetic art, Conceptualism, Sots Art etc. Major exhibitions of unofficial art. 6

What happened in this revolution? It s part of the film -Mutiny on battleship, class conflict.

What happened in this revolution? It s part of the film -Mutiny on battleship, class conflict. IV. 4 March Key terms: montage Constructivism diegesis formalism Eisenstein -uses film as tool for social change, not as escapist entertainment -Eisenstein associated with constructivism -Battleship Potemkin