Abstraction Beyond Art
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THE AESTHETICS OF CENSORSHIP AND THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE: Abstraction Beyond Art Volume One KAMILA KOCIAŁKOWSKA Pembroke College Department of History of Art University of Cambridge November 2019 THIS DISSERTATION IS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PREFACE This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of any other University or similar institution except as specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University of similar institution except as declared in the Preface specified in the text. The dissertation is 78, 682 words in length, including footnotes and list of images, but excluding image captions and bibliography. Cover image: Varvara Stepanova, Risunek dlia tekstil’ (1924) Kamila Kociałkowska Pembroke College 29th November 2019 ABSTRACT This thesis reconsiders the art of the Russian avant-garde by exploring its engagement with, influence from and contribution towards an unconventional area of culture: censorship. Although extensive research has already considered the way artists such as Malevich, Rodchenko and Stepanova blurred the binaries between art and vandalism, construction and deconstruction in their work, this analysis has not yet extended to consider their engagement with institutions of censorship to its full extent. This disinclination is informed by a long-standing and resilient assumption that censorship and creativity are antithetical, mutually oppositional forces. My thesis uses extensive new archival findings to problematise this position. By questioning these binary distinctions, and searching for commonalties between art and expurgation, this project offers a new understanding of how at different points in their careers, across different media, artists borrowed, adapted or referenced the censor’s strike in complex ways. Whilst extensive research has been devoted to the ideology and institutional mechanisms of Russian censorship, its aesthetic dimensions have been largely disregarded. As a corrective to this, this project will consider case studies of visibly altered and amended works in three different media: typography, photography and painting. Case studies range from redacted texts, censored manuscripts, excised details in print journals and defaced photographs. In each case, it will be argued that the very surface and texture of censorship itself warrants a formal reading, as placeholders of enforced negations which contain a rich semantic complexity. This project adds to a growing field of research which reconsiders the interactions between avant-garde artist and institutional apparatus. Covering a chronological period from the First to the Second World War, it charts the artists’ transition from anti-establishment cultural agitators to employees of the Soviet state’s expanding art administration network. It explores the tense entente that ensued as their art was adapted and appropriated to accommodate these changing institutional allegiances. Ultimately, it illuminates a new facet of the relationship between art and its destruction during this period, and provides a new understanding of the role of the artist as a willing or willed iconoclast. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................... i Abbreviations, and Transliteration ....................................................................................................................................... iii List of Illustrations ................................................................................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 SECTION ONE: TYPOGRAPHY Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 20 1. Early Avant-Garde Book Design and Imperial Censorship i. Mimicry and Misprint in Malevich’s Books ................................................................................................. 21 ii. Destruction as Literary Device ............................................................................................................................ 28 iii. The Counter-Intuitive Creativity of Censorship ....................................................................................... 30 a. Censorship as Slovanaiia massa .................................................................................................................. 35 b. Censorship as Sdvig .......................................................................................................................................... 37 c. Censorship as Signs of Omission ............................................................................................................. 40 2. Constructivist Design and Soviet Censorship i. The Aesthetics of Glavlit ........................................................................................................................................ 45 ii. The Brusok Bar .......................................................................................................................................................... 49 iii. USSR in (de) Construction ..................................................................................................................................... 52 iv. The Editorial Board..................................................................................................................................................... 56 v. The Design of Deletion........................................................................................................................................... 62 vi. What’s in a Line? ........................................................................................................................................................ 64 SECTION TWO: PHOTOGRAPHY Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 72 3. Photographic Defacement in Pervaia konnaia i. The Photobook: History in the (re)Making.................................................................................................... 73 ii. Iona Iakir: The Commissar Vanishes................................................................................................................. 77 iii. Catalogue of Defacement in Pervaia konnaia ............................................................................................ 79 iv. Issues of Authorship ............................................................................................................................................... 82 v. Issues of Agency ......................................................................................................................................................... 85 vi. Iozef Stalin’s Annotations ...................................................................................................................................... 86 vii. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 91 4. Counterfactual Photography: 10 let Uzbekistana i. The Headshot ............................................................................................................................................................... 92 ii. Defacement in 10 let Uzbekistana...................................................................................................................... 94 iii. Defacement as Social Ritual.................................................................................................................................. 97 iv. Defacement as Profanophany .......................................................................................................................... 101 v. Defacement as Symbolic Violence .................................................................................................................. 104 vi. The Aesthetics of Defacement........................................................................................................................... 105 vii. The Photograph Versus the Painting .............................................................................................................. 107 viii. Unfixing Facts ............................................................................................................................................................ 109 ix. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................... 114 SECTION THREE: PAINTING Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................................................