Paper short abstract:

In the last few years in the center of Moscow a number of nineteenth-century paintings have been reproduced on the walls of houses. Together they narrate a story of Russian sovereignty and national strength. I trace how these reproductions mediate a desire for Russian nationness and nativism.

Paper long abstract:

From 2011 - 2017, along Tverskaya Street and Kamergerskiy Pereulok in the center of Moscow, approximately twenty nineteenth-century paintings emerged on the walls of buildings and houses. Including reproductions of Ilya Repin's Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Vasily Vereshchagin's At the Doors of a Mosque, and Leon Bakst's Portrait of Serge Diaghilev, with his Nanny, the paintings differed in subject matter and style, but together they narrated a story of Russian sovereignty and national strength (derzhava). In building on discussions with Russian curators and artists, in this talk I am interested in tracing how the on-the-wall public reproductions of Russian nineteenth-century paintings mediated a desire for nation-ness and at times undemocratic values.

Perhaps deliberately vague and challenging to define, in Russia conservatism indexes traditional, nativist, and supposedly non-Western values, including obshchina (togetherness, the lack of individualism) and sobornost' (spiritual community). As a political and governmental buzzword, conservatism particularly emerged after the spectacular 2011/12 political protests had failed to prevent Vladimir Putin from taking up his third presidential term. In this talk I am asking how and why art mediates conservative and nativist values, and how and why Russian governmental art institutions support curatorial practices associated with such values. I also ask about the relationship between democracy and art, especially if democracy is understood not as integral to good government, but rather as an irritating form of governance.