ARTISTS TALKING
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Action and theory
In the last feature in this series, the focus is on artist Anatoly Osmolovsky living and working in Moscow.
From a career as a writer, Osmolvsky went on to form 'ETI' (the Expropriation of the Territory of Art) in 1989. Members were young artists who initiated spontaneous events, capturing media and public attention. He explains: "The process was connected to the aesthetics of urban youth – a kind of punk culture that has to do with political activism and a desire to be open in public". One of ETI's more controversial actions took place on 18 April 1991 when thirteen artists lay down to make an obscene Russian word in Red Square. This resulted in arrests and a criminal investigation, including questioning from the KGB. It was only the fall of the Soviet Union in August of the same year that convinced the authorities to close the case. Having established themselves as the first of a new generation of artists in Moscow, ETI finally disbanded in 1992. During its existence, the group had witnessed the rise of the capitalist system: "The general cultural background changed in such a radical way that the basic functions of contemporary art were no longer required." Osmolovsky says the shift was in retaliation to the institutionalisation of art that developed in the eighties, when the...
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