This dissertation is a study of the experimental artistic practice of the group called Dvizhenie (The Movement) that was active in Moscow between 1964 and 1976 and associated with the Kinetic movement. The period of the group’s activity coincided with a political transition in the USSR from later stages of The Khrushchev’s Thaw characterised by cultural liberation and political reforms into The Stagnation era already defined by Leonid Brezhnev’s rule and subsequently a more conservative and stricter governmental attitude towards artistic production. In this period of a little more than a decade, The Movement group was a single experimental union in the USSR that enjoyed public success and achieved a rapid transformation of their activities from small-scale exhibitions into public state commissions. In the course of this transition, the members of the group formed an entirely new artistic language that was neither similar to Socialist Realism nor to the tendencies of Abstract painting, which gained importance in the circles of experimental Soviet artists at the time. Instead, they turned to the aesthetics of Kinetic art, science- fiction and design and found inspiration in a dialogue with Russian Avant-garde tradition. The narrative of the dissertation follows the specificity of the experimental group’s development in the defined stages and analyses how the group met with the challenges of censorship and opportunities of ideological collaborations. On a broader scale, the dissertation offers an investigation into the functions of experimental thinking in the USSR in the 1960s and evaluates the role of futuristic planning and artists’ dialogue with the restored tradition of the 1920s Avant-garde projects.:Table of Contents
List of illustrations...............................................................................................5 Acknowledgements...........................................................................................13 Introduction.....................................................................................................15 State of Research.............................................................................................21 Methodology....................................................................................................29 Chapter I. 1960s Alternative Culture: in the USSR and Abroad...................................53
1.1. Defence of individualism: The Thaw (1954–1968)...........................................53 1.2. Open work against individualism: 1960s movement of Kinetic art......................65 1.3. In transition to Kinetic art: the formation of The Movement group.......................71
Chapter II. Theory and Practice Of The Movement...................................................81 2.1.Theoretical principles of the group: synthesis, symmetry, and movement.............81 2.2.“Towards Synthesis In Arts”, 1964, Moscow...................................................90 2.3.Architects or artists, 1965, Leningrad..........................................................102 2.4. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, 1966, Moscow.....................................107
Chapter III. The Movement’s Performances and Theatre Productions........................115 3.1.Artistic strategies of performance in The Movement’s practice..........................115 3.2.Humans and machines............................................................................123 3.3. Manifestation of the synthesis principle in performances................................135 3.4.The symbolism of history in The Movement’s productions...............................139 3.5.Escapism of the nature performances.........................................................143 3.6.The strategy of an artefact in Infante’s work.................................................150
Chapter IV. Sciences, State, and Culture..............................................................154 4.1.Kinetic art in urban and exhibition designs...................................................154 4.2. Agitational art at the 1967 October Festival.................................................159 4.3. Value of creativity and designs for “Orlenok”, 1968.......................................170 4.4.Exhibition designs..................................................................................172 4.5.Art and the Stagnation period in the USSR..................................................182
Chapter V. Futurism In The Movement’s Projects..................................................187 5.1. Artificial environments of the next century....................................................187 5.2. The future is cybernetic...........................................................................192
5.3. The power of play..................................................................................195 5.4. Rationalising the unknown: transhumanism and space travel in The Movement’s futurism.........................................................................................................199
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5.5. Why we need another utopia?..................................................................207 Chapter VI. The Movement: Separate and Abroad.................................................217 6.1. The Movement as a part of the global network.............................................217
6.2. The Movement as a part of dissident art and contemporary interpretations........222
6.3. Separate ways: Infante, Nussberg, Koleichuk..............................................231 Epilogue........................................................................................................243 Bibliography...................................................................................................252 Illustrations....................................................................................................265
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:77342 |
| Date | 13 January 2022 |
| Creators | Yarkova, Evgeniya |
| Contributors | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | qucosa:85553 |
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