Institutional Critique, or Artists Face-to-Face with Museums in Identity Discourses in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine

• In Event: Museums as the Locus of Identity Discourse in the Countries of the Former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc

Abstract

The paper focuses on complex and divergent contexts of Russia, Poland, and Ukraine in the post-1990 period when identity transformations were stimulated by different pasts and futures. National ethos, cultural heritage, euphoria of liberation, trauma of the economic transitions, newly forged political alliances—factors such as these played a role in identity transformations. Museums in each of these countries participated in identity discourse to a different degree but performance and video artists entered in dialogue with museums and galleries—with their collections, programming, profile, and the mainstream identity politics supported by these institutions. The paper offers an analysis of performances enacted by Russian artists Aleksandr Brener and Yuri Albert, Polish artist Piotr Wyrzykowski, and Ukrainian artist Vova Vorotniov as well as video art by Piotr Armianovski. Through the study of these artworks, the paper reassesses the role of contemporary art as a critical agent in the post-1990 identity debates and an interrogator of mainstream, or state-supported identity constructs.

Author

• Joanna Matuszak, U of Texas at Tyler