History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism
"Human history, clumsy and inarticulate, is crystallized here into clear concepts, brilliant statements, and razor-sharp intellectual paradoxes." Artforum"The essays collected in History Becomes Form offer not only brilliant critical insights into the artistic practices and works of Moscow conceptualism, but also a unique perspective on Western contemporary art and the dominant narratives by which it is explained. Representing the evolving commentary of a critic-participant in the unofficial Soviet art scene, this volume admirably documents the passage into art history of a movement that once attempted to hold up a truthful mirror to the actually existing culture of late Soviet society." Tyrus Miller, Professor of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz"These essays reveal to us the backstory behind why Boris Groys has become the one of the most insightful commentators on the switching back and forth between contemporaneity and modernity that is so characteristic of art today. Like the art they treat, Groys's essays delight in absurdity, and mix a world-historical despair with a despite-everything utopianism, while quietly yet relentlessly parodying the lot." Terry Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Pittsburgh