Memory in Creation: The Artistic Legacy of the Soviet Past, Present, and Future

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Memory is a central theme in classical art, and it serves as explicit and implicit focus for many contemporary works as well, even those by unofficial or “underground” artists, whose creations often contradict official interpretations of history and offer alternative views of past, present, and future. As we have seen throughout the Former East since 1989/1991, narratives during and after such “cataclysmic” historical events are often the most contested and artists the most obstinate in resisting attempts to curtail alternative versions of our shared historical fate. Recent and ongoing creative responses to the continually changing political, social, and artistic landscape in the region range from collective acts of defiance in a perceived “struggle for history” to individual efforts of “memory-work as resistance.” Other artists reject the notion of politics in art, yet their works often serve as artistic “counter-memories” to narratives or silences imposed from above. Our panel explores such questions in broad transnational terms. Is curation of the past and present a conscious act of artistic resistance or a role thrust on artists by increasingly repressive regimes? In times of societal upheaval and censorship, do artists have a duty to comment on such issues? How has our “past”—and access to it in electronic and paper archives—changed over the years? We explore these and other implications of “memory in creation” to see how artists continue to confront, repurpose, ignore, and repudiate the still contested legacy of the Soviet Bloc.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Chair

• Liisa Bourgeot, U of Helsinki (Finland)

Papers

• The Legacy and Memory of Socialist Realism Globally - Ksenya Gurshtein, Independent Scholar

• Distortions and Other Post-Soviet Memories of Moscow Conceptualism - Mary A. Nicholas, Lehigh U

• Memories of the Future: The Soviet Past in Works by Contemporary Artists from Central Asia - Sven Spieker, UC Santa Barbara

• Memory Making on the Subway: Daria Serenko’s #Quiet Picket - Joanna Matuszak, U of Texas at Tyler

Discussant

• Klavdia Smola, U of Dresden (Germany)