The Aesthetics of Anarchy - Art and Ideology in the Early Russian Avant-Garde

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-520-26876-0
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 360 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 243 mm, Gewicht: 715 g

In this groundbreaking study, Nina Gurianova identifies the early Russian avant-garde (1910-1918) as a distinctive movement in its own right and not a preliminary stage to the Constructivism of the 1920s. Gurianova identifies what she terms an “aesthetics of anarchy”—art-making without rules—that greatly influenced early twentieth-century modernists. Setting the early Russian avant-garde movement firmly within a broader European context, Gurianova draws on a wealth of primary and archival sources by individual writers and artists, Russian theorists, theorizing artists, and German philosophers. Unlike the post-revolutionary avant-garde, which sought to describe the position of the artist in the new social hierarchy, the early Russian avant-garde struggled to overcome the boundaries defining art and to bridge the traditional gap between artist and audience. As it explores the aesthetics embraced by the movement, the book shows how artists transformed literary, theatrical, and performance practices, eroding the traditional boundaries of the visual arts and challenging the conventions of their day.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gurianova, Nina

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction. The Russian Avant-Garde and the Aesthetics of Anarchy

Part I. Movements and Ideas
1. The Aesthetics of Anarchy: Definitions

2. Ideas: Bakunin, Tolstoy, and the Russian Anarchists

3. Movements: Futurisms and the Principle of Freedom

Part II. Poetics
4. A Game in Hell: The Poetics of Chance and Play

5. Victory over the Sun and the Theater of Alogism

6. Deconstructing the Canon: Russian Futurist Books

Part III. Locating the Avant-Garde’s Social Stance
7. The “Social Test”: The Avant-Garde and the Great War

8. The Suprematist Party

Part IV. Politics
9. Art, Creativity, and Anarkhiia

10. The Last Revolt: Politics of the Left Federation

11. The Avant-Garde and Ideology

Conclusion. The Historical Paradigm: The Avant-Gardes and Revolution

Notes

List of Illustrations

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nina Gurianova is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. She is the author of Exploring Color: Olga Rozanova and Early Russian Avant-Garde.