Archive materials

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  Tatyana Volkova

  Problems of Archiving Activist Art in Russian Museums

  The article analyzes the problems that contemporary art historians and archivists face when working with activist art. Some of these problems are linked to the issues of archiving contemporary art in general, like the ephemerality and fragility of contemporary art, the difficulty of identifying objects worthy of archiving, the increasing digitalization of art, and others. Based on materials of Garage Archive Collection, the article also examines the problems inherent in the process of archiving activist art as a radical genre. The analysis allows the author to identify three groups of such problems (legal and technical, as well as problems of expert knowledge) and suggest potential ways to solve them.

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  Valerii Ledenev

  The Logic of Cancellation: Five Exhibitions of Russian Art Which Never Happened

  This visual essay looks at five exhibition projects of the postwar Soviet Union and post-Perestroika Russia which were conceived but never produced. Their stories exemplify the logic and conditions in which the production and distribution of artworks are carried out, as viewed through Richard Peterson’s production paradigm. The situation of an exhibition is seen in the essay not only as a set of conditions determining the meaning and perception of the artworks, but rather as a litmus test that makes the broader context and the social structure of the cultural industry more visible.

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  Valerii Ledenev, Tatyana Volkova, Anastasiya Kotyleva, Alexandra Obukhova, Maria Udovydchenko

  Queer Art in the Garage Archive Collection

  Queer art in Russia is not a well-defined movement with striking protagonists, clear manifestos, and paradigmatic works. The queer theme in the local art context is represented in the form of a ‘twinkling’ image and, with rare exceptions, reflected in scattered works and texts by individual artists. What allows a researcher to define these artworks as queer works? What understanding of ‘queer’ should art historians rely on, considering the instability of the concept and its slipping away from any clear-cut definitions? This visual essay analyzes not so much the works themselves, but documents associated with them, available in the archive of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. They outline various themes in the history of post-war Russian art and provide grounds for ‘queering’ it, with regard to a particular research angle and arguments, examples of which are also presented and discussed by the authors of the essay.