The New Museum: Ostalgia
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/museums/the-new-museum%E2%80%94ostalgia/1601/
Nikolay Bakharev, #14, from the "Relationship" series, 1989, gelatin silver print. Courtesy the artist and Gallery. Photographer.ru, Moscow.
The New Museum’sOstalgia show, through September 25, is a level-headed survey of artists whose work relates to the collapse of the communist bloc in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. It features only a few of the artists whose name became inextricably linked to Sots-Art, as coined by Komar & Melamid (noticeably absent from the show, as is conceptual dynamo Ilya Kabakov), including Eric Bulatov and Andrei Monastyrski, but also artists from Europe and beyond, dating from the 1960s to the present. Much of the art is thoughtful—less satirical in bent, and more about allowing the absurdity and poignance of daily life reveal itself through documentation. A nod to the curator, Massimiliano Gioni, for choosing the incisive title—a play on the German word “ostalgie,” evocative of both the east and nostalgia.
