No century in history has been marked by such radical changes to the face of art as the 20th century. The metamorphosis in the status of art and the loss of its recognizable characteristics has been accompanied by the birth of new, and sometimes paradoxical, modes of creativity. Since the beginning of last century, these issues have attracted the attention of artists concerned with the fate of contemporary art.
In this book, Yekaterina Bobrinskaya explores the new forms and types of art that emerged at the dawn of the 20th century, and examines the new techniques with which the ‘spiritual body’ of modern art was created. The author studies the shift in the traditional borders of art which was brought about by the Russian avant-garde, whose members espoused new methods of creativity such as collage, assemblage and the constructivist object. This study combines a thorough overview of the decay of ‘fine arts’ with detailed consideration of the specific works and events that formed the heady atmosphere of the Russian avant-garde period.

This book by St. Petersburg historian and art critic Andrey Fomenko examines the phenomenon of local contemporary culture. In the first part he explores material of the St. Petersburg artistic movements of the last 15 years; in the second, he considers separate figures and events of the Western art scene. What are the components of the grand history of art? What part do provincial and peripheral elements have to play in its construction, and are they as different from the mainstream as it is usually supposed? These are the questions that Fomenko endeavors to answer in this persuasive and fascinating study.

Yuri Gerchuk is a symbolic figure of the national art studies. He is doubtlessly the most authoritative expert in graphics and book art; the author of a countless number of monographs, articles and even manuals on the theory and history of art. In this book he tells about the visit of Khrushchev to the exhibition “30th anniversary of Moscow Regional Union of Artists” in Manezh in 1962, which had marked the end of the so-called “Thaw” period. A lot had been written about this visit. The scandal which the First Secretary of the USSR Communist Party’s Central Committee had thrown there, had badly affected the entire cultural life of the country. It led to an absurd breakdown of the modern art of that time into the officially allowed one and underground one.
In his half-documental narrative the author sums up the witnesses as well as attracts the new materials which haven’t been used in literature so far. He combines his role of a historian with the role of an eyewitness and a contemporary of the described events.

Professor of Moscow State University, Victor Golovin is one of the foremost experts on the Italian Renaissance. In his latest book, Golovin develops a new and promising area of study in the humanities, the so-called economy of art. The author deals with early Renaissance art as a social institution, discussing revolutionary changes within the world of art; the formation of “markets”, or the appearance of clients, and their subsequent role in the evolution of genre and aesthetics; the artist’s changing professional status and the social and cultural processes affected by this change.

An architect by education, the famous architectural history expert Dmitry Khmelnitsky has lived in Germany for the past twenty years. In Stalin the Architect, Khmelnitsky looks at Soviet architecture of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, suggesting that the “Stalinisation” of Soviet architecture had more to do with one man’s individual tastes than with ideological considerations. To support his argument, Khmelnitsky presents ample documentary evidence, including sensational material hitherto unpublished. Architecture under Stalin, he claims, was entirely determined by the likes, dislikes and strategic considerations of the supreme leader. Discarding the theory of evolution of style in Soviet architecture, the author insists on the purely personal nature of 1930s – 1950s architectural practice.

Alexander Rappaport’s book offers a series of free reflections on art as such: its language and ‘languages’, art history, the dynamics of evolving movements and, most of all, the philosophy of art. A well-known philosopher and specialist in the history of architecture, Rappaport currently divides his time between the United Kingdom, Russia and Latvia. In Letters on Art, he examines the material of others without being bound by the strict discourse of art history. The result is a fresh look at the many-faceted area of art offering a multitude of entirely new intellectual approaches and viewpoints. Rappaport’s book is particularly valuable in today’s cultural situation, when art is often viewed in the context of the disappearance of life painting.

‘What if the organ of sight in the book’s title is the very same apple of discord that triggered the Trojan War of eyes? For we do not know what there was in the beginning – a word or a glance, a wasp or an orchid, a question or an answer. We also do not know what there was in the centre, and although this issue obviously excites us, we are prevented from coming to grips with it by Ilya Kabakov’s warning: “Keep away from the centre – risk of death!”’
Viktor Tupitsyn is a philosopher, culturologist and professor of mathematics at Pace University New York, and is the author of a large number of theoretical and critical articles on modern art, as well as the books The ‘Other’ of Art, Communal (Post)modernism and Verbal Photography.
The Eye-Apple of Discord: Conversations with Ilya Kabakov can be regarded as a testament to the visual art of conversation. It discusses historical, social and philosophical problems of modern art and their reflection in creativity through the experience of actual artists, including Kabakov himself. Essentially, the book is a laboratory for the development of models and methods of mastering the language of art.

Dance is an art form existing purely in the moment of execution, impossible to re-capture or to convey through visual images. Yulia Yakovleva’s book is a unique attempt to present the entire story of the Mariinsky Ballet in a single, balletic impulse: in this, the first ever history of the Mariinsky, the author avoids heavy analysis and dogma, so alien to the ephemeral nature of dance. Punctuating her impressive material with portraits of ballet masters (the “cultural heroes”) and dancers (the “stars”), Yakovleva strives to portray ballet through words. Light, sharp, inevitably subjective, her finely honed journalistic style allows us to experience the semantics of her story, re-living historical moments in the life of the theatre.

This book by the well-known art critic and art historian Galina Yelshevskaya explores the work of early twentieth-century artist Konstantin Somov. Although Somov is firmly associated with the modernist group Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), in her new book Yelshevskaya views his work from a different perspective, examining his innovative approach within the wider context of European artistic experiments in the first half of the twentieth century. Yelshevskaya also explores in depth Somov’s later émigré work, hitherto virtually unresearched.