Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov
05 Nov 2010 - 27 Mar 2011
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov
Russian Earth, Soviet Earth, 1979
Courtesy Galerie Sandmann, Berlin
© Dmitrij Prigov Foundation
Russian Earth, Soviet Earth, 1979
Courtesy Galerie Sandmann, Berlin
© Dmitrij Prigov Foundation
DMITRI ALEKSANDROVICH PRIGOV
The Text Works of Dmitri Aleksandrovich
5.11.2010 - 27.03.2011
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov belonged to a generation of Russian poets and artists who, in the early 1970s, broke out of the island existence of the underground into the surrounding ideological cosmos and explored the symbols, myths and rituals of Soviet mass culture. Denied access to official publication channels, Prigov – one of the most important exponents of Moscow Conceptualism – used his hand- and typewritten texts to make artistic objects. His texts appeared in “editions” corresponding to the number of typed carbon copies. They existed independently of the Soviet Union’s state-ruled distribution sphere as Samizdat – unprinted books produced by the author himself. A wide diversity of written artefacts developed from the processing and graphic manipulation of official printed material.
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov stylized himself as an artistic figure. He made a name for himself in his poetic self-embodiment as a militiaman. In his work, the equivocally staged figure of the poet-militiaman appears in the midst of a world of mythical dimensions. Prigov churned out his texts as on an “assembly line” with an output target of three poems per day. Yet this approach was not intended merely as a parody of modern production mechanisms. On the contrary, it was a kind of semiotic survival strategy, a means of filling an abyss of metaphysical emptiness with ever-new masses of text.
The show provides a concentrated overview of Prigov’s oeuvre with a focus on his text works. It will feature poetry books, Samizdat booklets, newspaper overpaintings, poetic objects and installation designs as well as readings in the form of audio and video documents.
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov died unexpectedly in the summer of 2007; he would have been seventy on 5 November 2010.
An exhibition of the Research Centre for Artist's Publications in cooperation with the Research Centre for east European Studies at the Universität Bremen and the Freie Universität Berlin
Curator: Sabine Hänsgen
The Text Works of Dmitri Aleksandrovich
5.11.2010 - 27.03.2011
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov belonged to a generation of Russian poets and artists who, in the early 1970s, broke out of the island existence of the underground into the surrounding ideological cosmos and explored the symbols, myths and rituals of Soviet mass culture. Denied access to official publication channels, Prigov – one of the most important exponents of Moscow Conceptualism – used his hand- and typewritten texts to make artistic objects. His texts appeared in “editions” corresponding to the number of typed carbon copies. They existed independently of the Soviet Union’s state-ruled distribution sphere as Samizdat – unprinted books produced by the author himself. A wide diversity of written artefacts developed from the processing and graphic manipulation of official printed material.
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov stylized himself as an artistic figure. He made a name for himself in his poetic self-embodiment as a militiaman. In his work, the equivocally staged figure of the poet-militiaman appears in the midst of a world of mythical dimensions. Prigov churned out his texts as on an “assembly line” with an output target of three poems per day. Yet this approach was not intended merely as a parody of modern production mechanisms. On the contrary, it was a kind of semiotic survival strategy, a means of filling an abyss of metaphysical emptiness with ever-new masses of text.
The show provides a concentrated overview of Prigov’s oeuvre with a focus on his text works. It will feature poetry books, Samizdat booklets, newspaper overpaintings, poetic objects and installation designs as well as readings in the form of audio and video documents.
Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov died unexpectedly in the summer of 2007; he would have been seventy on 5 November 2010.
An exhibition of the Research Centre for Artist's Publications in cooperation with the Research Centre for east European Studies at the Universität Bremen and the Freie Universität Berlin
Curator: Sabine Hänsgen