$30.00
(available to order)
Summary:
In the modern era, the archive--official or personal--has become the most significant means by which historical knowledge and memory are collected, stored, and recovered. The archive has thus emerged as a key site of inquiry in such fields as anthropology, critical theory, history, and, especially, recent art. Traces and testimonies of such events as World War II and(...)
November 2006, London / Cambridge
The archive: Documents of contemporary art
Actions:
Price:
$30.00
(available to order)
Summary:
In the modern era, the archive--official or personal--has become the most significant means by which historical knowledge and memory are collected, stored, and recovered. The archive has thus emerged as a key site of inquiry in such fields as anthropology, critical theory, history, and, especially, recent art. Traces and testimonies of such events as World War II and ensuing conflicts, the emergence of the postcolonial era, and the fall of communism have each provoked a reconsideration of the authority given the archive--no longer viewed as a neutral, transparent site of record but as a contested subject and medium in itself. This volume surveys the full diversity of our transformed theoretical and critical notions of the archive--as idea and as physical presence--from Freud's "mystic writing pad" to Derrida's "archive fever"; from Christian Boltanski's first autobiographical explorations of archival material in the 1960s to the practice of artists as various as Susan Hiller, Ilya Kabakov, Thomas Hirshhorn, Renée Green, and The Atlas Group in the present.
$35.00
(available to order)
Summary:
The word “ostalgie” emerged in Germany in the 1990s to describe a then-burgeoning nostalgia for the era prior to the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the breaking up of countries formerly united under Communist government. Ostalgia looks at the art produced in these countries--some of which did not even formally exist two decades ago--bringing together the work of more(...)
March 2012
Ostalgia
Actions:
Price:
$35.00
(available to order)
Summary:
The word “ostalgie” emerged in Germany in the 1990s to describe a then-burgeoning nostalgia for the era prior to the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the breaking up of countries formerly united under Communist government. Ostalgia looks at the art produced in these countries--some of which did not even formally exist two decades ago--bringing together the work of more than 50 artists from 20 countries across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. Many of these works, by seminal figures and younger artists alike, offer a series of reportages on life and art under Communism and in the new post-Soviet countries. Eschewing a chronological perspective, this piblication instead establishes a series of dialogues between different generations and geographies, revealing local avant-garde practices and highlighting their international affinities. Among the artists included are Victor Alimpiev, Said Atabekov, Miroslav Balka, Irina Botea, Erik Bulatov, André Cadere, Stanislav Filko, Sanja Ivekovic, Jiri Kovanda, Edward Krasinski, Jonas Mekas, Boris Mikhailov, Paulina Olowska, Roman Ondák, Helga Paris, Dmitri Prigov, Anri Sala, Andro Wekua and Anna Zemánková.
books
Description:
x, 198 pages, 20 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm
New Haven : Yale University Press, ©1996.
The Soviet photograph, 1924-1937 / Margarita Tupitsyn.
Actions:
Holdings:
Description:
x, 198 pages, 20 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm
books
New Haven : Yale University Press, ©1996.
books
Description:
303 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), plans ; 26 cm
[Paris] : Chaudun, ©2014.
Amériques-URSS : architectures du défi / Fabien Bellat.
Actions:
Holdings:
Description:
303 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), plans ; 26 cm
books
[Paris] : Chaudun, ©2014.
$15.00
(available to order)
Summary:
A rising star in the Russian literary firmament Pelevin, winner of the 1993 Russian Booker Prize for short stories, has written a parody of life under Communism refracted through the prism of the Soviet space program. This clever parable about a young cosmonaut ordered to make the ultimate sacrifice? Killing himself after secretly piloting a supposedly unmanned lunar(...)
Omon Ra
Actions:
Price:
$15.00
(available to order)
Summary:
A rising star in the Russian literary firmament Pelevin, winner of the 1993 Russian Booker Prize for short stories, has written a parody of life under Communism refracted through the prism of the Soviet space program. This clever parable about a young cosmonaut ordered to make the ultimate sacrifice? Killing himself after secretly piloting a supposedly unmanned lunar expedition? is sprinkled with throwaway gags, absurdist humor and wickedly ironic touches, as well as with the eerie beauty of space exploration. Obsessed with space travel since early childhood, Omon Krivomazov identifies with Ra, the ancient Egyptian falcon-headed sun god, a fixation that reflects his desire to escape the gray conformity of Soviet life and his yearning for a soul. Omon learns that more than 100 of his fellow cosmonauts have already been sacrificed as guinea pigs after taking part in supposedly automated, manless launches. Pelevin portrays the Russian space program as a vast propaganda enterprise, a distraction to paper over the tawdriness and fear of everyday life. Many allusions will be lost on American readers. And, in light of the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction state of contemporary Russian society, some of the Soviet-era satire seems oddly tame.
Architecture and the imaginary
$51.95
(available to order)
Summary:
A dacha is a country house, made of wood, used by Soviet citizens to escape the rigors of the city for a rural idyll. Widespread in the countries of the former USSR, this important cultural and architectural form has been largely ignored academically. In ''Dacha'', Fyodor Savintsev documents this particularly Russian phenomenon. His photographs constitute a unique record(...)
Commercial interiors, Building types
September 2023
Dacha: the soviet country cottage
Actions:
Price:
$51.95
(available to order)
Summary:
A dacha is a country house, made of wood, used by Soviet citizens to escape the rigors of the city for a rural idyll. Widespread in the countries of the former USSR, this important cultural and architectural form has been largely ignored academically. In ''Dacha'', Fyodor Savintsev documents this particularly Russian phenomenon. His photographs constitute a unique record of a rapidly vanishing fairy-tale wooden world. The word ''dacha'' has been used to describe constructions ranging from grand imperial villas to small sheds. Originally bestowed by the Tsar to reward courtiers, this custom continued following the revolution, with Soviet cooperatives building dachas for their members. Supposedly for the benefit of laborers, in reality they were destined for those favored by the State, including famous writers, architects and artists from Pasternak to Prokofiev. The fall of the Soviet Union accelerated their use, as economic uncertainty forced city dwellers toward self-sufficiency. The dacha tradition has survived revolution, war and the collapse of Communism, becoming an integral part of life in the process. Using contemporary photographs to showcase these uniquely individual buildings for the first time, alongside an introduction explaining their historical and cultural context, Dacha is the only publication of its kind.
Commercial interiors, Building types
books
Description:
319 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm.
Paris : Sextant, 2005.
Le métro de Moscou : la construction d'un mythe soviétique / Josette Bouvard ; introduction Nicolas Werth.
Actions:
Holdings:
Description:
319 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm.
books
Paris : Sextant, 2005.
$35.95
(available to order)
Summary:
The "ruins" of the modern era are the landmarks of recent art’s turn toward site and situation, history and memory. The abiding interest of artists in ruination and decay has led in particular to the concept of the modern ruin - an ambiguous site of artistic and architectural modernism, personal and collective memories, and the cultural afterlife of eras such as those of(...)
Ruins
Actions:
Price:
$35.95
(available to order)
Summary:
The "ruins" of the modern era are the landmarks of recent art’s turn toward site and situation, history and memory. The abiding interest of artists in ruination and decay has led in particular to the concept of the modern ruin - an ambiguous site of artistic and architectural modernism, personal and collective memories, and the cultural afterlife of eras such as those of state communism and colonialism. Contemporary art’s explorations of the ruin can evoke on the one hand diverse experiences of nostalgia and on the other a ceaselessly renewed encounter with catastrophes of the recent past and apprehensions of the future. For every relic of a harmonious era or utopian dream stands another recalling industrial decline, environmental disaster, and the depredations of war. This anthology provides a comprehensive survey of the contemporary ruin in cultural discourse, aesthetics, and artistic practice. It examines the development of ruin aesthetics from the early modern era to the present; the ruin as a privileged emblem of modernity’s decline; the relic as a portal onto the political history of the recent past; the destruction and decline of cities and landscapes, with the emergence of "non-places" and “drosscape”; the symbolism of the entropic and decayed in critical environmentalism; and the confusing temporalities of the ruin in recent art - its involution of timescales and perspectives as it addresses not just the past but the future.
Art Theory
books
Description:
xi, 305 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1997.
Caught : the art of photography in the German Democratic Republic / Karl Gernot Kuehn.
Actions:
Holdings:
Description:
xi, 305 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
books
Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1997.
books
Description:
179 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
Amsterdam : Fonds BKVB ; Rotterdam : NAi Publishers ; New York : Available in North, South, and Central America through D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, ©2004.
Ideals in concrete : exploring Central and Eastern Europe / editors, Cor Wagenaar, Mieke Dings ; picture editor, Jannes Linders.
Actions:
Holdings:
Description:
179 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
books
Amsterdam : Fonds BKVB ; Rotterdam : NAi Publishers ; New York : Available in North, South, and Central America through D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, ©2004.