SOVIET ART OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY AS PART OF THE WORLD ART PROCESS: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND PERSPECTIVES FOR FUTHER STUDIES

Abstract

The article examines writings on the history of art, in which artworks by Soviet artists are described not as a local phenomenon but in a global cultural context. These writings are combined into four blocks. The first block – “Socialist Internationalism” – explores papers by Soviet art historians written in the 1950s and 1960s and developed a conception of world “progressive art.” The second block – “Soviet Non-official art and Western art critic” – starts with analyzing the texts created in the 1970s – 1990s by European, American, and Soviet – émigré authors and ends with the writings by Russian curators of the 2000s. All the articles from this block represent a common idea of the universality of Western modernist and postmodern art theory. Thus, these authors selected only those artworks which could be described within this theory. In the context of contemporary European and American art trends, Soviet non-official art looks like a peripheral phenomenon. The third block – “Cold War and Global History of Art” – investigates the texts and exhibitions made during the last two decades and influenced by the ideas of global turn and critical research of the Cold War cultural policy. It is shown how art historians seek to develop new approaches and universal criteria to describe the 20th century world art. The last block – “Critical geography” – talks about the theoretical approach elaborated by Piotr Piotrowski. Within the framework of critical geography, the phenomena that have long been considered marginal come to the fore. Attention is paid to the international contacts of artists. The boundaries of art centers are shown to be different from the borders of states. Thus, the art of the Soviet artists is represented as part of the new geographic conglomerations.