A talk by Marina Maximova, PhD researcher PHIR

10am Wednesday 18 May – Edward Barnsley 63.1.08, School of the Arts, English and Drama, Loughborough University

This presentation will address exhibition strategies developed by unofficial artists in Moscow as a way to resist hegemony of Socialist Realism. It will focus on ‘dissident’ artists who were forced out of the public sphere and had to go ‘underground’. The only opportunity they had to show and discuss their works were in apartment exhibitions. It will also consider how the changes in the social and political climate and closer interactions between the official and unofficial artworlds were reflected in the mode of exhibition making. Through the discussion of selected shows, this presentation will track the changes that happened in the relations between the state, the underground and its viewers.