| Description |
126 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Machine derived contents note: Table of contents for The total art of Stalinism : avant-garde, aesthetic dictatorship, and beyond / by Boris Groys ; translated by Charles Rougle. -- Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog -- Information from electronic data provided by the publisher. May be incomplete or contain other coding. -- Introduction: The Culture of the Stalin Era in Historical Perspective 3 Ch. 1 The Russian Avant-Garde: The Leap over Progress 14 White Humanity 15 Red Agitation 19 Ch. 2 The Stalinist Art of Living 33 Judgment Day for World Culture 37 The Typology of the Nonexistent 50 The Earthly Incarnation of the Demiurge 56 Ch. 3 Postutopian Art: From Myth to Mythology 75 The Lost Horizon 81 The Avant-Garde Artist as the "Little Man" 84 Stalin's Best Pupils 89 Poet and Militiaman 95 A Cruel Talent 99 Chronicler of the Kremlin 102 Ch. 4 Designers of the Unconscious and Their Audience 113 Notes 121 -- Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Socialist realism in art Soviet Union, Art, Soviet |
| Summary |
As communism collapses into ruins, Boris Groys provokes our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists' demands that art should move from depicting to transforming the world. The revolutionaries of October 1917 promised to create a society that was not only more just and more economically stable but also more beautiful, and they intended that the entire life of the nation be completely subordinate to Communist party leaders commissioned to regulate, harmonize, and create a single "artistic" whole out of even the most minute details. What were the origins of this idea? And what were its artistic and literary ramifications? In addressing these issues, Groys questions the view that socialist realism was an "art for the masses." Groys argues instead that the "total art" proposed by Stalin and his followers was formulated by well-educated elites who had assimilated the experience of the avant-garde and been brought to socialist realism by the future-oriented logic of avant-garde thinking. After explaining the internal evolution of Stalinist art, Groys shows how socialist realism gradually disintegrated after Stalin's death. In an undecided and insecure Soviet culture, artists focused on restoring historical continuity or practicing "sots art," a term derived from the combined names of socialist realism (sotsrealizm) and pop art. Increasingly popular in the West, sots-artists incorporate the Stalin myth into world mythology and demonstrate its similarity to supposedly opposing myths |
| Analysis |
Arts Related to Politics History |
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Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| Notes |
Translation of: Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [121]-126) |
| Notes |
Translation of: Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin |
| Subject |
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Russia (Federation)
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Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Soviet Union.
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Art, Russian -- 20th century.
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Art, Soviet -- 20th century.
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Art, Soviet.
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Socialist realism in art -- Soviet Union.
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| LC no. |
91037680 |
| ISBN |
0691055963 |
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