Breaking Frames: Twenty-five Years of Independent Art in and From Russia

"Breaking Frames: Twenty-Five Years of Independent Art in and from Russia is the first survey of Russian contemporary art to be published in English. It is dramatic and not yet very long history. From 2000 to 2025 an entire art scene came to life and was then - almost - destroyed again. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, the first wave of artistic activity was preoccupied with processing and absorbing the 70 years of Western modern art history it had missed out on. It's only in the last 25 years that Russian art became truly independent and self-confident. But the young and promising art scene instead was crashed by a new period of harsh censorship and repression against critical art. Since 2022 many of the most talented artists have left the country, but some have stayed, manage to keep on creating in a widely hostile environment. Russia's leading contemporary artists are presented one by one, grouped not alphabetically or chronologically, but around topics. In this way we present the artists' work and an overview of a so far untold part of art history, the fate of Russia's independent art scene"-- Provided by publisher.