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This is an important documentary book that surveys and historically unifies the world of unofficial Soviet art and literature. Samizdit means "self-made, self-published, " and, within a distinctive Russian tradition that extends back to icon painting, illuminated manuscripts, and incunabula, this volume's principle focus is the contemporary handmade book and the political and intellectual apparatus that, often paradoxically, encourages and sustains the fashioning of such bookworks. Of secondary importance, but also coming under the samizdat label, are certain installations, exhibitions, theater actions, and artistic games, as well as the artistic circles and networks engaged in these unofficial expressions.There is renewed interest in bookworks and the intriguingly related genre of artists' correspondence and mail art. Russian Samizdat Art joins such recent publications asJoan Lyons' anthology Artist's Books, George Myers' collection of interviews Alphabets Sublime, Chuck Welch's Networking Currents: Contemporary MailArt Subjects andIssues, and Crane & Stoffiet's thick compendium Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity in documenting these genres that intermedially straddle the fences between art and craft, between public and private, intimate and outspoken, between the literary act of reading and visual art's insistent demand that one look and see. However, samizdat artists infuse their works with vitality born out of repression and nurtured by the sophisticated cultural traditions of Russia. In the Soviet Union poets fill stadiums and those whose voices lack official sanction can stir up the troops of severe censorship. It is this powerful atmosphere, in a distinctively Russian context, that provides tiny, crude editions with a bold impact sometimes shocking, othertimes parodic or humorous but altogether absent in the comfortably bourgeois livre d artiste or livre de peintre. There is the unmistakable paradox embodied in democratically inspired samizdat books being made in limited editions that circulate among an elite coterie -such intimate numbers suggest more of the vanity press than a vital network of communication. Yet, as one appraises the traditions supporting this independent art movement it is apparent that freedom of expression is the force that motivates these artists and writers. Russian Samizdat Art offers a substantial introduction to an important aspect of this movement, but there are poorly ritten sections to struggle through and in annoying overabundance of incidental photographs of the artists active in the movement. And with an artistic lineage that reaches back to Russian manuscript and iconographic book design and includes allegiances to early 20th century neo-primitivists, cubo-futurists, constructivism, rayonism, the handcolored lubak, as well as to the dadaists and surrealism, there are numerous sublimely obscure references. This book breaks ground and, not inappropriately, it is a bit messy and far from grand, yet fundamental for the scholarship and inquiry that will surely follow. -- From Independent Publisher
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