A GENDER ANALYSIS OF RUSSIAN PERFORMANCE (1990–2014)
Lecture
Ludmila Bredikhina
Saturday, November 20, 5.00 – 6.30 pm
Garage Education Center
Free admission
In any gender analysis, special attention must be paid to aligning universal and local tendencies. The history of Russian Actionism from the Russian avant-garde on contains its own specifics, pragmatics, and gender aspects. The past three generations paint a varied picture, with mutating male and female gender roles apparent in the "heroic" performances of Elena Kovylina and Oleg Kulik, as well as the "rebellious loser" images of Brener, Voyna, Pussy Riot, and Pavlensky, among others.
In recent years, the postmodernist pluralism of the 1990s has been replaced by a desire for firmer ground. What can be done if, to quote Osmolovsky, “Actionism is too artistic for politics, and too political for art”? These as well as other relevant issues have been discussed in the feminist works of Rita Felski, Lucy Lippard, and Judy Butler. The lecture concentrates on correlating local and universal solutions to the issues raised.
Ludmila Bredikhina is a critic, a curator, and an expert in the field of gender studies. Together with Katy Deepwell she is the author and compiler of The Gender, Theory and Art Anthology: 1970–2000 (Moscow: Rosspen Publishing House, 2005).
Images:
1. Oleg Kulik (in collaboration with Ludmila Bredikhina)
I Bite America, America Bites Me
12–26 April 1997
New-York, DeitchProjects
Courtesy of Oleg Kulik
2. Elena Kovylina (in collaboration with Anna Abazieva)
Waltz
2001
L-Gallery, Moscow
Video by Yulia Ovchinnikova
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Archive
