Moscow Conceptualism in a Monologue with the Avant-garde

This article is the first to explore the relationship of Moscow conceptual artists with the creative and moral legacy of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910s-1920s. In the 1960s, the previous generation of Soviet non-official artists resonated with the avant-garde legacy upon getting acquainted with it and attempted to continue the tradition seen precisely as a formal experiment. Meanwhile, the Moscow conceptualist circle recognized Russian avantgarde as a conceptual source for the consequent ideologization of the entire reality and as a project of the violent transformation of life. And if social realism was a more obvious opponent for conceptualists, the forbidden art of the avant-garde became its own Other, alien in a very close and uncomfortable sense. The relations articulated in Moscow conceptualism over several decades were different and ambiguous; they developed and evolved as the legacy of the avant-garde became more familiar and as the socio-political and cultural context changed. In the 1970s, the conceptual art practice did not seek a ‘dialogue’ with the avant-garde, and the reflections of the older generation of Moscow conceptualists were marked with intention to dissociate themselves from the avant-garde and its aesthetic systems (the discussion of the political engagement of the avantgarde was pushed forward for later reflections, mainly into the 2010s). The 1980s brought liberalization into the study and exhibiting of the Russian avant-garde, and its admiration became a kind of duty that was taken ironically by the next generation of Moscow conceptual artists. To get international recognition, contemporary Russian art required to establish any affiliation (negative, if not positive) with the brand of the ‘Russian avant-garde’. The artistic practice of Ilya Kabakov has radically escalated the polemics with the avant-garde, which was subsequently projected onto the entire Moscow conceptualism. However, the exploration into the history of Moscow conceptualism as a response to the avant-garde project reveals heterogeneity of such a response, comprising individual halftones and historical dynamics.