Anatoli Felixowitsch Osmolowski

Anatoli Felixowitsch Osmolowski (2008)

Anat o li F e lixowitsch Osmol o wski ( Russian Анатолий Феликсович Осмоловский , scientific transliteration Anatolij Feliksovič Osmolovskij ; also in the spelling Anatoly Osmolovsky ; * 1969 in Moscow. ) Is a Russian action artist and curator . He formulated the concept of Moscow Actionism and is regarded as its leading theorist and - together with Alexander Brener and Oleg Kulik - as the main exponent of this movement.

life and work

Anatoly Osmolowski was from 1987 to 1988 member of the literature group Wertep ( Вертеп ) before he joined the literary critic group Ministerstwo PRO SSSR ( Министерство ПРО СССР ) in 1988 . From 1990 to 1992 Osmolowski was the head of the performance art group ETI ( ЭТИ , literally “those”), an apronym from Russian “Экспроприация Территории Искусства” , meaning “expropriation of the territory of art”. One of the most famous actions of the group took place on April 18, 1991 in Moscow, where the members of the group lay down on Red Square in the form of the word " хуй " - an obscene term for " penis ". The action was also intended as a protest against a law that, among other things, criminalized the use of obscene language in public, and which came into force three days before the action. The group was arrested. A Moscow court then initiated proceedings against Osmolowski for a “grossly offensive and harassing act with serious consequences”.

From 1992 Osmolowski was the curator of Vita Nowa in Minsk and in 1993 founded the Journal Radek ( Радек ). In the same year he was the organizer of the Nezesiudik ( Нецезиудик ) program. In 1995 Osmolowski received a scholarship from the Berlin Senate at Künstlerhaus Bethanien . In 2007 he received the Kandinsky Prize, awarded for the first time by the Deutsche Bank Foundation and the Russian art magazine ArtChronika, in the category “Artist of the Year”. Osmolowski lives and works in Moscow.

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

• 2003: Berlin-Moscow, Moscow-Berlin in the Martin-Gropius-Bau , Berlin and in the Tretyakov Gallery , Moscow
• 2004: The Collection X , Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst , Antwerp
• 2005: Angels of History , Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst , Antwerp
• 2007: documenta 12 , Kassel. The eleven-part bronze work Hardware , the twenty-part wood carving Bread and the Mayakowski-Osmolowsky photograph , which documents a performance from 1993, were shown.
• 2009: 3rd Moscow Biennale 2009 Moscow

Web links

• Official website of the artist
• Anatoli Felixowitsch Osmolowski on kunstaspekte.de
• Materials by and about Anatoli Felixowitsch Osmolowski in the documenta archive

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Irina Aristarkhova: Beyond Representation and Affiliation: Collective Action in Post-Soviet Russia . In: Blake Stimson, Gregory Sholette (eds.): Collectivism after modernism: the art of social imagination after 1945 . University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2007, ISBN 978-0-8166-4462-9 , p. 255.
2. ↑ Осмоловский, Анатолий , short biography with a photo of the performance "хуй".
3. ↑ Presentation of the campaign on Osmolowski's website. (Retrieved April 21, 2011.)
4. ^ Sandra Frimmel: Demonstrations against art: On the political instrumentalization of art in Russia and in the USA . In: Maxim Neroda, Robert Bosch Stiftung (Ed.): Demonstration . Dresden 2007, pp. 4–12. (Lectures at the symposium “Demonstration”, October 6th to 8th, 2007, Dresden.)
5. ↑ Kandinsky Prize of the Deutsche Bank Foundation: The winners have been chosen . In: db artmag , No. 45 (2007). (The Kandinsky Prize should not be confused with the Prix ​​Kandinsky .)
6. ↑ Biography on the official website of Osmolowski ; Retrieved April 20, 2011
7. ↑ documenta 12 - catalog . Taschen, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8228-1677-6 , p. 376.