Life Between Two Panels: Soviet Nonconformism in the Cold War Era

Beneath the facade of total conformity in the Soviet Union, a dynamic underground community of artists and intellectuals worked in forced isolation. Rejecting the mandates of state-sanctioned Socialist Realist art, these dissident artists pursued diverse creative directions in their private practice. When they attempted to display their work publicly in 1974, the carefully crafted facade of Soviet society cracked, and the West became aware of a politically subversive undercurrent in Soviet cultural life. Responding to the international condemnation of the censorship, Soviet officials allowed and encouraged the emigration of the nonconformist artists to the West.This dissertation analyzes the foundation and growth of the nonconformist artistic movement in the Soviet Union, focusing on a key group of artists who reached artistic maturity in the Brezhnev era and began forging connections in the West. The first two chapters of the dissertation center on works that were, by and large, produced before emigration to the West. In particular, I explore the growing awareness of artists like Oleg Vassiliev of their native artistic heritage, especially the work of Russian avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich. I look at how Vassiliev, in a search for an alternative form of expression to the mandated form of art, took up the legacy of nineteenth-century Realism, avant-garde abstraction, and Socialist Realism. From there, I investigate issues of text and communication in Soviet society, considering both the official language of power from state propaganda, to the coded language of the communal apartments, shaped by the awareness of constant surveillance. In this section, the artworks of Komar and Melamid, Erik Bulatov, and Ilya Kabakov are discussed.The second half of the dissertation focuses on works produced by artists who left Russia for various western capitals. At issue are works that take a retrospective point-of-view on the experience of life in the Soviet Union from the distance of political exile, deconstructing its commonplaces as well as the state’s exercise of power over historical interpretation. My project examines how these artists, having emigrated to the West mid-career, were simultaneously insiders and outsiders within the major discourses of both socialism and capitalism. From their liminal perspective, Soviet dissident artists employed deconstructive practices to challenge prevailing notions about the geopolitical landscape of the Cold War, and find conceptual footing for themselves that is not complicit in the ideology of either superpower. Rejecting the premise that being anti-Soviet automatically makes one pro-Western, these artists undermined the political dogma of the world as ideologically binary, exposing fundamental similarities between each respective system’s power structures and territorial tendencies. This dissertation seeks to investigate the work of nonconformist artists from the Soviet Union as a means of better understanding the Cold War era that served as the backdrop for twentieth century geopolitical developments.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History of Art

Grantor dc:publisher

The Ohio State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Buhler, Clinton J.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mudrak, Myroslava

• Art History
• Soviet art
• nonconformism
• dissident
• Komar
• Melamid
• Kosolapov
• Kabakov
• Vassiliev
• Sokov
• Bulatov
• Cold War
• Sots Art
• unofficial art
• Moscow Conceptualism

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366080515

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:osu1366080515