The Russian Avant-Garde in the Curatorial Practice in the 1970s - 1980s

Abstract

The paper focuses on the examination of the process of the Russian avant-garde canonisation. It investigates how the curatorial practice influenced the history of the early XX century art. The choice of the exhibition Paris-Moscou, held at the Centre Pompidou in 1979, as a case study helps to emphasise the influence of curatorial decisions on the art historical narrative. This subject is topical because it contributes to the emerging field of exhibition history. It is connected to the museum studies that point out the genealogy of a museum, and the problems linked with exhibiting the objects, such as contextualisation, the narrative structure, representation of identity and memory, and the very idea of heritage. It gives an opportunity to reflect on the tension between art and politics. The research provides examples which demonstrate that any canon is a result of authority relation. The methodology applied is in part an intellectual history with some elements of critical theory and discourse analysis. The thesis seeks to achieve the following goals: to reconstruct the chronology of the Russian avant-garde’s revival in the West and in the post-Soviet cultural contexts; to demonstrate that the valorisation initially contained some elements of cultural diplomacy, and to discover what forced the popularisation of this art and how it affected the historical truth and cultural memory.

Keywords: Russian avant-garde, Curatorial turn, Institutional history of art