Contemporary Oppositional Art in Russia: The Artistic Non-Commitment Strategy of Shimmering

(Hardback)

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This book focuses on an artistic tactic from the late Soviet underground called shimmering, characterized by rapid shifts between various opposing perspectives and ideologies, with the artist embracing all and betraying all in turn.

The Moscow Conceptualists designed shimmering to avoid repeating what they saw as the fatal flaw of the Soviet avant-garde: the collusion between artistic and political authority. Shimmering was intended to prevent artists from ever slipping into authoritarianism, making their words, works and selves slippery instead. Inspired by American Pop Arts nonchalant critique of the hegemonic visuality of capitalism, Moscow Conceptualists forged shimmering to similarly represent Soviet official culture. Daniil Leiderman traces how shimmering developed from experiments with painterly space exploring the contentious legacy of the Soviet avant-garde, to re-negotiations of the artists relationship to their own authority, ultimately becoming a model for constructing new social collectives, outside the norms of Soviet society. The author argues that shimmering remains an important tactic for dismantling hierarchical power in contemporary Russian protest art.

Author Bio

Daniil M. Leiderman is a professor of Art History and Game design in the Visualization program at Texas A&M University.