A conversation on samizdat, small-edition journals focused on art criticism, and graphic design.
Alexandra Abakshina invites visitors to leaf through magazines and pretend they are characters in a sitcom that mocks the daily ritual of a well-to-do family—reading newspapers over a morning coffee. Instead of the morning press, however, participants can study small-edition publications on St. Petersburg art from the 1980s to the 2000s, including several early issues of the magazine Kabinet, which was published with a tagline «Have fun learning; learn while having fun,» Mitki Gazette, designed by Alexander Florensky, and issues of Khudozhestvennaya Volya, Maksimka, Selskaya Zhizn and other periodicals. The discussion will focus on the experimental format of publications that play with poetic devices or mock glossy magazines. Alexandra will also invite visitors to look through the magazines and «one-day newspapers» that she has edited and which continue the tradition of St. Petersburg’s small-circulation press while also questioning it.