BORIS GROYS “POLITICS OF POETICS”
Today, the philosopher, theorist of art and curator Boris Groys is one of the most respected critics in the world art community. His recent book, The Politics of Poetics, is a collection of essays from two English-language books, Art Power and Going Public, as well as articles published in American and European journals. Some texts of the book are published in Russian for the first time. Groys is important to read to those who want to familiarize themselves with the contemporary philosophical discourse of modern art: at the same time it turns out that it is relatively easy to write about the complex. One of the main themes of the collection is the relationship of art to the art market and to the sphere of political ideologies.
ELENA PETROVSKAYA “NOMINAL COMMUNITIES”
The recently published book of the Russian philosopher and culturologist Elena Petrovskaya “The Nameless Community” is better read for those who have decided to go deeper into the understanding of modern culture and the mechanisms by which it exists. In his study, Petrovskaya examines the avant-garde of the early 20th century, utopian in popular culture, the concept of image and image, as well as new features of the perception of the visual. The author emphasizes that today perception goes more through a collective phenomenon than through a personal one. That is, the question of art and mass consumption is again raised.
GERALD RAUNIG “ART AND REVOLUTION. ARTISTIC ACTIVISM IN THE LONG-TWENTIENTH CENTURY ”
The book is interesting in that it considers in detail and provides an understanding that art and politics often have common points of intersection. After all, studying art of any period in the first place you need to take into account the time and context in which it was created. The philosopher Herald Raounig wrote an alternative history of art and politics of the twentieth century, in which he described activist artistic practices. Raunig cites examples from Courbet to Russian futurism and constructivism, from Viennese actionists and Situationist International to VolksTeatreCaravan in Genoa, and claims that the artist throughout the twentieth century and today is an activist who expresses his political and social positions with his artistic gestures.
EKATERINA ANDREYEVA “EVERYTHING AND NOTHING. SYMBOLIC FIGURES IN THE ART OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX CENTURY ”
The book “Everything and Nothing” by Russian art critic, art historian and curator Ekaterina Andreeva is an analytical history of important moments in the development of modern art. This edition describes the work of Western (J. Pollock, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein) and Russian (K. Malevich, V. Sterligov, E. Mikhnov-Voitenko, Timur Novikov) artists: biographies, history of artistic movements and new technologies make up the main story research.
“Everything and nothing”, although written by an art historian, is suitable for a wide range of people interested in art – in an accessible exposition Andreeva explains all the important changes that happened to art in the 20th century.
ALEXANDER SOLVIEV “TURBULENT SHLUTES”
Published in 2006 by the Kiev Institute of Contemporary Art Problems, the book “Turbulent Gateways” (named after the 1990 exhibition of the same name) by art historian and curator Alexander Solovyov is an excellent tool to figure out what the history of Ukrainian art of the 1990s is. . Being a witness and an activist of everything that is happening in the Ukrainian art process of the 90s, Solovyov described and analyzed what was done by artists and curators during that period. The study is a subtle analysis of art history and at the same time, the availability of presentation. The book can be found in the free access in the archive of the electronic library “Culture of Ukraine”.
