Lecture, video screening & debate: Art and Political Activism in Russia Today

Thu 10 May 2012 – 6.00pm
Discussion, St Martins College of Art and Design, London
Art and Political Activism in Russia Today: Art in The Absence of Civil Institutions 
TEN CENTURIES OF RUSSIAN ART: IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY LECTURE SERIES
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Lecture, video screening and debate.
In the chair: Dmitry Vilensky, artist, writer, and founding member of Chto Delat? (What is to be done?), a collective publication of artists, critics, philosophers and writers which gathers political theory, art and activism (St. Petersburg)


Over the last decade, a number of artists have succeeded in both realising and finding the theoretical grounding for a variety of works, which allows us to speak of a new situation in art. These projects have found points of connection between art, new technologies, and the global movement against neo-liberal capitalism. The lineages of this interest in political art can be traced back to Documenta 10 (1997) and coincides with the emergence of the “movement of movements”, which erupted onto the political horizon in Seattle in 1999 – an event which, it can be argued, has crystallised a new political subject (named the Multitude by Hardt and Negri’s Empire published in 2000) and have its new embodiment in recent occupation movement that spread in many countries.


This situation has subsequently been manifested through a variety of cultural projects whose critical stance towards the process of capitalist globalisation and emphasis on the principles of self-organisation, self-publishing and collectivity has evoked the idea of a return to “the political” in art. The lecture will focus on the analyzis of how this international process were represented in Russian art and activism during last decade where they have to operate under the hostile conditions, direct repression and exclusion.


Screening of videoworks will be included.
THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS COLLEGE ART AND DESIGN, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS OF LONDON, GRANARY BUILDING, 1 GRANARY SQUARE, LONDON N1C 4AA


Tickets: £7, conc. £5 (Friends of Pushkin House, students and OAPs)
http://www.pushkinhouse.org/en/events/art-and-political-activism-in-russia-today-art-in-the-absence-of-civil-institutions