Rejecting the White Cube

It never quite seems right to place Russian artistic culture along the same lines of development as those in the West. Without endlessly musing over the involvement of some inconceivable Russian soul or national character, this paper aims to create a narrative for the development of contemporary Russian art exhibition. By looking at the historical and contemporary societal conditions surrounding Russian art exhibition culture in the last four decades, one can assemble a sturdy sense of related causality and change beginning with the inception of the Moscow Conceptualist School in the 1970s Soviet Union. The definitive Moscow Conceptualist Andrei Monastyrsky explains the unique worldview: And so I rode down World Prospekt like always, in complete introversion, isolation from outward reality. My brain was feverishly working; uncontrollable mental activity as always revolved around the the nature of the "layered world pie" and all of its mental levels. I tirelessly theologized on how and why my consciousness began to communicate with these layers; expounded on the nature of the continuous stream of mental perceptions that I wound up in, and from which I could not escape. 1 The quote shows inclusivity in analysis; an almost obsessive awareness of history and surroundings that has been a focal the Moscow Conceptualist mindset, which Monastyrsky helped to pioneer. It is a representation of the late, and Post-Soviet mentality that contributed to this unique Russian artistic culture. This paper looks to create, explain, and present for further and future consideration a historical narrative. To create such a narrative across different generations of artistic movements is hardly new, but it usually takes a number of decades before contemporary art of any era begins to be academically and taxonomically classified vis-à-vis its predecessors. 2 The goal is not to relate and scrutinize a number of distinctions in form or substance of artworks, but to establish a historical dialogue between various forms and subjects, and the sociological, political, economic, and ideological forces surrounding those artists, curators, exhibition space entrepreneurs and activists. The diverse artworks and the techniques they comprise often take a back seat to, or are a part of the larger modes that will be analyzed throughout. John Cotton Dana, an American turn-of-the-century librarian and museum director explained that each museum should be rooted in a community, and takes an active role in responding to that community's needs and desires. 3 Art spaces, which will be loosely defined …