28.10.2008-16.11.2008 Stella Art Foundation Presents the Exhibition of Russian Art 1975-2007

"This Obscure Object of Art", an exhibition of 40 works including paintings,assemblages and sculptures by 17 contemporary Russian artists, opens at the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna on 28 October 2008.

Curated by Vladimir Levashov, the show includes artists from the Sots Art Movement such as Vitaly Komar, Alexander Melamid, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Alexander Kosolapov and Boris Orlov, as well as works from the Moscow conceptualists, from the same period, such as Andrey Monastyrsky, Yuri Albert, and Vadim Zakharov.

Vladimir Levashov, curator of ‘This Obscure Object of Art’ comments: ‘I believe the time has come to highlight and to refocus on these art forms that have developed in Russia
over the last 30 years. Contemporary Russian art was born out of the ‘cultural underground’ and developed, up to the time of the perestroika, in opposition to the official
art. In the 1970s, it was this underground environment that brought forth the most important innovative movements such as Moscow Conceptualism and Sots Art.’

The similarities and juxtapositions between these two movements of Russian art of the late 20th and early 21st century form the heart of ‘This Obscure Object of Art’. Often referred to as ‘Soviet Pop Art,’ Sots Art (short for Socialist Art) originated in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s as a reaction against the official aesthetic doctrine of the state— Socialist Realism. The Moscow Conceptualist, or Russian Conceptualist, movement began with the Sots art in the early 1970s, and continued as a trend in Russian art into the 1980s. It attempted to subvert socialist ideology using conceptual art strategies.
Dr. Wilfried Seipel, Director General of the Kunsthistorische Museum, says: ‘The
collection of the Stella Art Foundation highlights an important episode in Russian history, and both its content as well as its quality will have exciting ressonances in the Kunsthistorische Museum. We are honored to open our spaces to this extraordinary show’.

The title of the exhibition refers to Luis Bunuel’s last film ‘Cet obscur objet du desir’ (1977), in which the characters of the principal females are constantly contrasted. It is clear that the two fellow movements Sots Art and the Moscow Conceptualism both juggled for
critical acclaim.
‘This Obscure Object of Art’ will be accompanied by a fully coloured catalogue in German
and English.

 Place

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Maria Theresien-Platz, 1010 Vienna, Austria