The hidden meanings of Destined to be Happy exhibition - The Interview with Irina Korina
10 January 2017 | By
09 January 2017 | By
Inside the Picture: Installation Art in Three Acts - by Jane A. Sharp
19 November 2016 | By
Conversations with Andrei Monastyrski - by Sabine Hänsgen
17 November 2016 | By
Thinking Pictures | Introduction - by Jane A. Sharp
15 November 2016 | By
31 October 2016 | By
Tatlin and his objects - by James McLean
02 August 2016 | By
Housing, interior design and the Soviet woman during the Khrushchev era - by Jemimah Hudson
02 August 2016 | By
Dressing the Soviet Woman Part 3: "Are Russians Women?" Vogue on Soviet Vanity - by Waleria Dorogova
18 May 2016 | By
Dressing the Soviet Woman Part 1 - by Waleria Dorogova
13 May 2016 | By
Eisenstein's Circle: Interview With Artist Alisa Oleva
31 March 2016 | By
Mescherin and his Elektronik Orchestra - by James McLean
13 January 2016 | By
SSEES Centenary Film Festival Opening Night - A review by Georgina Saunders
27 October 2015 | By
Nijinsky's Jeux by Olivia Bašić
28 July 2015 | By
Learning the theremin by Ortino
06 July 2015 | By
Impressions of Post- Soviet Warsaw by Harriet Halsey
05 May 2015 | By
Facing the Monument: Facing the Future
11 March 2015 | By Bazarov
'Bolt' and the problem of Soviet ballet, 1931
16 February 2015 | By Ivan Sollertinsky
Some Thoughts on the Ballets Russes Abroad
16 December 2014 | By Isabel Stockholm
Last Orders for the Grand Duchy
11 December 2014 | By Bazarov
Rozanova and Malevich – Racing Towards Abstraction?
15 October 2014 | By Mollie Arbuthnot
Cold War Curios: Chasing Down Classics of Soviet Design
25 September 2014 | By
Walter Spies, Moscow 1895 – Indonesia 1942
13 August 2014 | By Bazarov
'Lenin is a Mushroom' and Other Spoofs from the Late Soviet Era
07 August 2014 | By Eugenia Ellanskaya
From Canvas to Fabric: Liubov Popova and Sonia Delaunay
29 July 2014 | By Alex Chiriac
My Communist Childhood: Growing up in Soviet Romania
21 July 2014 | By Alex Chiriac
Monumental Misconceptions: The Artist as Liberator of Forgotten Art
12 May 2014 | By Rachel Hajek
28 April 2014 | By Rachel Hajek
An Orgy Becomes a Brawl: Chagall's Illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls
14 April 2014 | By Josephine Roulet
KINO/FILM | Stone Lithography Demonstration at the London Print Studio
08 April 2014 | By Alex Chiriac
24 March 2014 | By Renée-Claude Landry
Book review | A Mysterious Accord: 65 Maximiliana, or the Illegal Practice of Astronomy
19 March 2014 | By Rosie Rockel
Leading Ladies: Laura Knight and the Ballets Russes
10 March 2014 | By Bazarov
Exhibition Review | Cash flow: The Russian Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale
03 March 2014 | By Rosie Rockel
24 February 2014 | By Ellie Pavey
Guest Blog | Pulsating Crystals
17 February 2014 | By Robert Chandler Chandler
Theatre Review | Portrait as Presence in Fortune’s Fool (1848) by Ivan Turgenev
10 February 2014 | By Bazarov
03 February 2014 | By Paul Rennie
Amazons in Australia – Unravelling Space and Place Down-Under
27 January 2014 | By Bazarov
Exhibition Review | Siberia and the East, fire and ice. A synthesis of the indigenous and the exotic
11 December 2013 | By Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky
Shostakovich: A Russian Composer?
05 December 2013 | By Bazarov
Marianne von Werefkin: Western Art – Russian Soul
05 November 2013 | By Bazarov
Chagall Self-portraits at the Musée Chagall, Nice/St Paul-de-Vence
28 September 2013 | By Bazarov
31 July 2013 | By Richard Barling
Exhibition review | Lissitsky — Kabakov: Utopia and Reality
25 April 2013 | By Richard Barling
Exhibition review | Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Happiest Man
18 April 2013 | By Richard Barling
05 May 2015 | By
'To me the tops of these Soviet style tower blocks resemble what people thought of as futuristic in the 1950’s. The large satellite dishes and missile shaped aerials and wires and rungs stuck out of a grey, patchy obelisk. Everything is built square and skyward. Box on top of box on top of balcony, topped by countless aerials. There are birds all over the city of Warsaw. They aren’t like pigeons, these are small flitty brown birds with black beady eyes and cobweb legs. It’s funny how a city so rectangular and dusty and grey is home to so many of these delicate birds. I’m also having trouble with the trams. There isn’t much information anywhere about which tram goes where or what ticket you’re supposed to buy. I don’t think I’ve paid for transport once since I’ve been here. There are police and security people everywhere. Mostly young men and women with big black boots and vests that say ‘OCHRANA’. All I’ve seen them do is move homeless people around.’
‘There’s graffiti all over the stairwell of the apartment block I’m staying in. My flat is a short walk from Warsaw’s largest football stadium and ‘Legia Warzawa White Power’ is written everywhere in permanent marker. I imagine football hooliganism is a big problem in Praga. I guess this building must be part of rival gang territory since there’s anarchist symbols as well. The wall outside my flat says ‘Skin’s must die and I do it’. On my journey to work I walk past a swastika carved into a sixth floor balcony. I stopped and stared when I first saw it. I felt uneasy about what people would think if they saw me looking so now I avert my eyes whenever I walk past. That also makes me feel uneasy.’
‘Everyone at work tells me about the history of Warsaw. At first I thought it was funny how knowledgeable people are about the cities past, but you soon realise how integral that is to the way of life here. Warsaw was completely flattened in World War II and was defended mostly by civilians in the Warsaw uprising. It was then completely rebuilt in the Soviet style. The rest of Poland has an awkward relationship with the city since bricks and building materials were taken from other towns and sent to rebuild the capital at the expense of the rest of the country. It’s only in recent years that the city has started to create its own identity, and even more recently develop a subculture. Hardly anyone who lives in Warsaw comes from Warsaw. It’s a city full of young people who grew up in surrounding districts, who still send their laundry home.’
‘I met [Jan] today and he said it was a brave thing for me to strike out on my own in a new city. He said when he was twenty he went and worked in Belarus for a summer, but that that was different because of the political situation. I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. [Adam] later told me he was working that weekend at a Belorussian rock festival on the Poland- Belarus border. I asked if Belorussian music was popular in Poland and he said not really, but you can’t have music festivals in Belarus because of the government, so they have to have them over here. He explained the Lukashenko regime and the tight restrictions on culture, art and journalism in Belarus and how it’s called ‘Europe’s Last Dictatorship’. How did I not know about any of this?’
‘[Jan] says it’s hard to be a photographer here since it’s still a very new and under respected art form. People will buy paintings or sculptures but don’t see photographs as valuable and there’s barely any industry surrounding the commercial side of documentary photography. Photography might be new and under respected but that means there hasn’t been the chance for it to become cynical or laboured. The art scene is still new and fresh enough that it hasn’t been tinged with irony. It’s the polar opposite of London.’