The fate of the Shukhov Tower, an early architectural tribute to Communist Russia, could be decided by ordinary Moscovites with smartphones. Designed by Constructivist architect Vladimir Shukhov, the radio tower was erected on Lenin’s order in Moscow in 1922 as a monument to the October 1917 Revolution.
Russia
Posted inIn Brief
Curator Admits Manifesta Art Biennial in Russia Is in Trouble
The chief curator of Manifesta, the roving European Biennial of Contemporary Art, told Deutsche Welle that the biennial has hit an “impasse: nothing’s happening.”
Posted inNews
Art Historian Says “Ideological Censorship Is Happening” in Russia
In a candid interview with the Germany’s Deutsche Welle last week, the Russian art historian Ekaterina Degot stated that freedom in Russia’s cultural sector is quickly diminishing.
Posted inNews
Director of Russian Pavilion at Venice Architecture Bienniale Ousted over Politics
The commissioner of the Russian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, Grigory Revzin, has been fired due to his political views on the Crimean situation, The Art Newspaper reported.
Posted inBooks
The Retrofuture Shock of Post-Soviet Architecture
If you think Soviet architecture was strange — with its retrofuture angles and monolithic forms — you should see what came after the USSR’s collapse. German photographer Frank Herfort has spent years traveling all over Russia and the former Soviet territories, from metropolises to remote rural zones, to capture the bizarre architecture of the post-Soviet era.
Posted inNews
Pussy Riot Members Go Free [UPDATED]
After the passage of an amnesty bill in the Russian parliament last week, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, the two imprisoned members of Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot, have been freed.
Posted inNews
Pussy Riot Members Could Be Freed Under Russian Amnesty Bill
The Russian Parliament has passed an amnesty bill that should send the two members of Pussy Riot still serving prison sentences home, the AP reports.
Posted inBooks
Beautiful Books, Terrible Times: The Free Expression of Soviet Children’s Lit
The 1920s in Russia weren’t exactly what people had hoped they would be. After the 1917 Russian Revolution brought down the old regime and the Soviets took over, there was a swelling sense of hope in a potential egalitarian Communist future. Yet only a few years later, censorship was curtailing art and free expression. Fortunately, no one was paying much attention to the children’s books.
Posted inNews
US Judge Puts Russia in Contempt Over Refusal to Return Historic Collection
It’s been more than two years since Russia issued a ban on lending art to the United States, and the latest news in the ongoing saga is that a federal judge has now declared the Russian government in contempt of court, imposing fines on it of $50,000 a day, the LA Times reports.
Posted inOpinion
Street Artist Creates a House of Cards from Riot Shields
Sometimes all it takes is the right gust of wind and an entire structure falls. The Yekaterinberg, Russia–based street artist Timofey Radya recently made an enormous sculpture of 55 riot shields, stacking them up in a pyramid that celebrates and critiques the one-year anniversary of the political protest movement that rocked the country last December after the Russian legislative election.
Posted inPerformance
A Report from Cyberfest: Russia’s New Media Festival
Cyberfest, the first and only yearly festival of international media art in Russia, was founded in 2007 by artists and curators Anna Frants and Marina Koldobskaya. Since that time they have brought hundreds of international media artists to St. Petersburg, and in the process raising its international profile.
Posted inNews
In Closing Remarks, Pussy Riot Grrrl Delivers Manifesto
Those who’ve been following the news out of Russia know that three members of feminist punk collective Pussy Riot are currently on trial for rushing the altar and playing an anti-Putin song in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The women called their song, which is titled “Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Out” and includes a lot of cursing, a “punk prayer.” Authorities arrested Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova after their February performance and charged them with hooliganism and inciting religious hatred. They then spent months in detention until the trial finally began at the end of July.
