Automatic for the masses : the death of the author and the birth of Socialist realism / Petre M. Petrov.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petrov, Petre, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Socialist realism.

Modernism (Aesthetics)--Soviet Union.

Modernism (Aesthetics).

Socialist realism in art--Soviet Union.

Socialist realism in art.

Modernism (Art).

Soviet Union.

Modernism (Art)--Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

316 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2015]

Summary:

"At the end of the 1920s, the Modernist and avant-garde artistic programmes of the early Soviet Union were swept away by the rise of Stalinism and the dictates of Socialist Realism. Did this aesthetic transition also constitute a conceptual break, or were there unseen continuities between these two movements? In Automatic for the Masses, Petre M. Petrov offers a novel, theoretically informed account of that transition, tracing those connections through Modernist notions of agency and authorship. Reading the statements and manifestos of the Formalists, Constructivists, and other Soviet avant-garde artists, Petrov argues that Socialist Realism perpetuated in a new form the Modernist "death of the author." In interpreting this symbolic demise, he shows how the official culture of the 1930s can be seen as a perverted realization of modernism's unrealizable project. An insightful and challenging interpretation of the era, Automatic for the Masses will be required reading for those interested in understanding early Soviet culture."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Introduction

The imperative of form

The imperative of content

Knowledge become practice

The organization of things

The organization of minds

The anonymous centre of style

The unbearable light of being

Ideology as authentication

The blind, the seeing, and the shiny

Life happens.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781442648425

1442648422

OCLC:

898086905