Experiment No. 3
RAKhN
The third number of Experiment (fall, 2003) is devoted to the activities of the Russian (State) Academy of Artistic Sciences (RAKhN or GAKhN). RAKhN was one of the most important "think tanks" of early Soviet culture and attracted outstanding literary, artistic, and musical practitioners -- from Alexei Sidorov to Nikolai Tarabukin, from Alexander Gabrichevsky to Alexander Larionov, from Vasilii Kandinsky to Gustav Shpet. This volume of Experiment, guest curated by Nicoletta Misler, contains much new textual and illustrative material, including extensive archival sources on Kandinsky, Petr Kogan, and Vasilii Zubov. The table of contents is as follows:
- Section I: History and Appreciation
- List of Illustrations
- Dmitrii Sarabianov: Preface
- Nicoletta Misler: Introduction
- Boris Mikhailov: Coming of Age: Russian Art History as a Professional Discipline in the 1910s-20s
- Nicoletta Misler: A Citadel of Idealism: RAKhN as a Soviet Anomaly
- Valerii Mildon: RAKhN and the Legacy of Russian Culture
- Fedor Pogodin: Towards a New Science of Art
- Sergei Strekopytov: RAKhN as a State Research Institution
- Selim Khan-Magomedov: RAKhN and the Institutionalization of Art History
- Antonina Zhdan: Art History and Psychology at RAKhN. An Experiment in Collaboration
- Natalia Adaskina: RAKhN, VKhUTEMAS, and the Graphic Arts
- Section II: Documents
- Petr Kogan: The State Academy of Artistic Sciences (Extracts) (John E. Bowlt)
- Akim Kondratiev: The Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences: The History of Its Formation (Extracts) (John E. Bowlt)
- Petr Kogan and Akim Kondratiev: Statutes of the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences
- Vasilii Kandinsky: Work Plan for the Visual Arts Section (Theses); The Primary Elements of Painting (Extracts) (Nicoletta Misler)
- Georgii Chelpanov: The Role of the Subconscious in the Creative Process (Extracts) (Antonina Zhdan)
- Alexei Sidorov: The Artistic Creativity of Dreams (Theses)
- Sergei Skriabin: Researching Esthetic Perception: Problems and Methods (Theses); The Process of Abstraction in Connection with the Perception of Form (An Experimental Investigation) (Theses); The Perception of Empty Space and the Issue of Impressionism (Theses) (John E. Bowlt)
- Gustav Shpet: On Various Meanings of the Term "Form" (Elizabeth Durst)
- Alexander Gabrichevsky: Painting; Towards a Morphology of Art: The Nature of the Artistic Object and the Study of Artistic Form (Extract); The Philosophy and Theory of Art (Fedor Pogodin)
- Boris Shaposhnikov: Can There Be Time in the Spatial Arts? If So, What Kind of Time? (Theses); Classical Tendencies in Contemporary Painting (Theses) The Museum as a Work of Art (Natalia Shaposhnikova)
- Matvei Kagan: Two Tendencies in Art; Art and Its Own Reflection: On Artistic Truth (Brian Poole)
- Alexander Larionov: Written Signs; Alphabets; Coats of Arms; Totemic Representations; Tattoos (Nicoletta Misler)
- Vasilii Zubov: Ideal; Autonomy; Synthesis of the Arts (Mariia Zubova)
- Boris Arvatov: Style and Stylization as Social Organizers (Theses); The Theory of Visual Composition (Theses) (John E. Bowlt)
- Nikolai Tarabukin: Eccentric Space and Hyperspace in Painting (Theses); Fundamentals of a Theory of Painting (Theses) (Lev Chaim)
- RAKhN On Trial: The Purge of Gustav Shpet (Extracts) (John E. Bowlt)