Russia by Richard Anderson (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 749 one considers how much more informative the parallels that Bryzgel presents tend to be when they involve performances enacted in various settings within the East, and across the socialist and post-socialist periods. Moreover, one might argue that — rather than evincing reciprocal cultural exchange — allusions to artists such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Smithson, Daniel Buren, Jenny Holzer, Yves Klein, or Sherrie Levine inadvertently reinstate the East-West binary and undermine Bryzgel’s valiant effort to move towards a global art history in which Western practitioners cease to function as our main points of reference. In fact, Bryzgel is at her best when she relies on her source material to shed new light on broader discourses regarding performance art. One such instance appears when Bryzgel contests the assumption that Eastern European artists favoured performance due to its immateriality and ephemerality — in other words, its capacity to leave no trace of unsanctioned activity. Many Eastern European artists, Bryzgel explains, carefully documented their actions because sociopolitical circumstances often necessitated that the audience for these artworks be delayed. By highlighting an instance in which documentation functioned as a substitute for presence, Bryzgel weighs in on art-historical debates regarding the relationship between live art and photography. It is at moments like this that Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960 most succeeds in its stated aim of ‘looking not from the centre to the periphery but the reverse, to see how such an approach might not only challenge but also overturn perceptions regarding art history, artistic styles, and the canon’ (p. 5). Humanities Center; History of Art & Architecture Michelle Maydanchik University of Pittsburgh Anderson, Richard. Russia. Modern Architectures in History. Reaktion Books, London, 2015. 356 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. Index.£20.00 (paperback). In Russia, Richard Anderson offers a comprehensive survey of modern architecture in Russia from 1861 to the present. Across nine richly-illustrated chapters, seven of which focus on the Soviet decades, Anderson weaves together periods and developments that are typically treated by historians in isolation. The result of this unconventionally broad time-frame is a fascinating account in which Anderson is able to highlight significant turning points while also stressing continuities. Each chapter sets Russia’s architectural designs, buildings and plans against the broader political, social, cultural and economic transformations of the era. Anderson examines related developments in engineering, film and the other arts, while also exploring the SEER, 95, 4, OCTOBER 2017 750 evolution of architectural education and patron-client relations through the pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet periods. RussiaistheninthbookintheReaktionBooksseriesonModernArchitectures in History. There are a number of challenges in fitting the Russian case into this series. As Anderson suggests, Russia’s relationship with modernism was complicated. Firstly, the term ‘modern architecture’ is problematic when applied to the Russian case. With the exception of the stil modern (known elsewhere as Art Nouveau), the term ‘modern’ rarely appeared in Russian and Soviet architectural discourse. Secondly, the orthodox narrative holds that the state-imposed turn toward Socialist Realism in the 1930s brought an end to modern architecture in the Soviet Union. This was the longtime view both of historians and modern architects themselves, many of whom once hoped that Russia would serve as the modern movement’s promised land. ‘The story of Russia’s relationship to modern architecture,’ Anderson writes, ‘cannot be told as the evolutionary development of a unitary idea’ (p. 7). Rather, this is a story with many twists, turns and contradictions. Anderson’s Russia is thus a history of ‘modern architecture’ broadly construed. From Vladimir Shervud’s Historical Museum (1875–83) in Moscow to Felix Novikov and G. Saevich’s Soviet Embassy to Mauritania (1973–77), Anderson takes his reader on an exciting tour of the many styles, materials, techniques and locales that constitute Russian architecture of the modern era. While most of the discussion focuses on developments in Moscow and St Petersburg (Petrograd/Leningrad), this book is, as its author writes, ‘an international history of a national architecture’ (p. 10). Anderson makes a strong case against isolating Russia from international trends and developments. He explores the work of Russian architects beyond Russian borders, and the international ideas and foreign practitioners that flowed into Russia in...