Boris Groys

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Boris Groys

Boris Groys ( Russian : Борис Ефимович Гройс; emphasis : Borís Jefímowitsch Grois; born March 19, 1947 in Berlin ) is a Russian-German philosopher, art critic and media theorist.

Life

Boris Groys was born in (East) Berlin in 1947. He studied philosophy and mathematics at the Leningrad University from 1965 to 1971 . He then worked as a research assistant at several institutes in Leningrad and from 1976 to 1981 at the Institute for Structural and Applied Linguistics in Moscow . In 1981 Groys left the USSR and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany , where he received various scholarships until 1985. From 1986 he worked as a freelance writer in Cologne for two years until he received a visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia ( USA ) in 1988 . From 1989 to 1994 Groys taught as a research assistant at the philosophical seminar at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In 1991 he became visiting professor for one year at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USA). In 1992 Groys received his doctorate in philosophy in Münster. From 1994 he was Professor of Art History, Philosophy and Media Theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG), and since 2005 he has been teaching as Global Distinguished Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University , New York . Groys is a Senior Research Fellow at the HfG Research Institute, a member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art and a member of the Democracy in Europe 2025 (DiEM25) movement founded in 2016.

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Total work of art Stalin

Groys deals with the Russian avant-garde , the art of Stalinism and the aesthetic-intellectual concepts of post-communism . Groys caused a sensation with his total work of art Stalin (1988), which was first published in German translation . Among other things, he advocates the provocative and historically controversial thesis that there is no break between the Russian avant-garde and Stalinist terror , but rather a continuity. Stalin's policy radically continued the avant-garde aesthetic.

Moscow conceptualism

As a theorist of contemporary Russian culture, Groys coined various names for artistic currents. He brought the term Soz Art to broader use for the response of artists under socialism to Pop Art . In 1979 he coined the term "Moscow Romantic Conceptualism" for contemporary underground conceptual art , from which the name Moscow Conceptualism emerged . He also coined the term "collective actions" ("Kollektivnye dejstvija") for an action art group around Andrei Monastyrski that has been active since the late 1970s .

Art and archive

In other works, Groys considers the effect of works of art and theories against the background of a hierarchy of values. This divides the world into a cultural archive and a profane space . The archive is the materialized memory of a society in which the cultural assets considered valuable are stored. Groys names libraries , museums and film libraries as examples .

"The area that consists of all the things that are not recorded by the archives can be described as profane space."

- Groys, About the New., P. 56

If a new work of art or a novel theory is suspected of being culturally valuable, according to Groys, a comparison is made between archive and profane space, whereby the new is assigned either to the profane or to the archive. One innovation is therefore the overcoming of the value boundary between these two areas in the course of a “revaluation of values”, Groys referring to Friedrich Nietzsche . Works of art and theories derive their effect from the tension between value levels. Technical innovations can also be determined with Groys using this logic.

Fonts

  • Moscow romantic conceptualism ( Moskovskij romanticeskij konceptualizm ) in: A-Ya. Paris 1979, pp. 3-11.
  • Preface. In: Theodor Lessing : The Jewish self-hatred. With an essay by Boris Groys . Munich 1984, pp. VII – XXXIV, ISBN 3-88221-347-7 .
  • Total work of art Stalin , Munich 1988.
  • Dnevnik filosofa (Russian) (Diary of a Philosopher) , Paris 1989.
  • The art of fleeing (with Ilja Kabakow ), Munich 1991.
  • Contemporary Art from Moscow - From the Neo-Avant-Garde to Post-Stalinism , Munich 1991.
  • About the new. An attempt at a cultural economy , Munich 1992.
  • Utopia i obmen (Russian) (utopia and exchange) , Moscow 1993.
  • Vanishing Point Moscow (Ed.), Stuttgart 1994.
  • The Invention of Russia , Munich 1995.
  • The art of installation , (with Ilja Kabakow ), Munich 1996.
  • Kierkegaard. Writings , (Ed.), Munich 1996.
  • Art Commentaries , Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85165-291-6 .
  • Logic of the Collection , Munich 1997.
  • Under suspicion. A phenomenology of the media , Munich 2000.
  • Immortality politics. Four conversations with Thomas Knöfel , Munich 2002 (Spanish: Política de la inmortalidad , Buenos Aires / Madrid 2008, ISBN 978-84-96859-25-8 )
  • Topology of Art , Munich / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-446-20368-0 .
  • In the name of the medium , audio CD, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-932513-52-5 .
  • The communist postscript , Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-12403-X .
  • Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment , MIT Press 2006.
  • Groys recording. Philosophical thoughts on film , ideas and photography: Natalia Nikitin , Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-9806313-7-2 .
  • The art of thinking , Hamburg 2008.
  • Wait to Wait: A Conversation. Andro Wekua and Boris Groys , (German / English) Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-03764-021-0 .
  • Introduction to Anti-Philosophy , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-446-23404-8 .
  • Reason to power . Dispute with Vittorio Hösle. Vienna / Berlin 2011.

Essays

  • Art criticism as art . in: The situation of art at the end of the 20th century, Ed. Hans Thomas, pp. 11–24, Cologne 1999. ISBN 3-89754-142-4
  • Expansion of the combat zone , in: Die Zeit No. 30, July 18, 2013, p. 41.
  • Art activism. The total aestheticization of the world as the opening of political action . In: Lettre International 106, Fall 2014, pp. 88–92. ISSN  0945-5167
  • Money beats word. Today's Russia and the state of culture. In: Lettre International 111, Winter 2015, pp. 35–42. ISSN  0945-5167
  • Become cosmic. Immortality and technology in the Russian avant-garde In: Lettre International 118, autumn 2017, pp. 46–51. ISSN  0945-5167
  • Universal curating. The global art system as a utopian transnational project In: Lettre International 125, summer 2019, pp. 37–39. ISSN  0945-5167

Curated exhibitions

  • Dream Factory Communism , September 24, 2003 - January 4, 2004, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt am Main
  • Privatizations - Contemporary Art from Eastern Europe , May 16, 2004 - June 26, 2004, Kunst-Werke Berlin e. V.
  • Images of an empire. Life in pre-revolutionary Russia , April 23 - August 6, 2006, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
  • The total enlightenment. Moscow Conceptual Art 1960–1990 , June 21 - September 14, 2008, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt am Main, October 10, 2008 - January 11, 2009, Fundacion Juan March, Madrid
  • Medium Religion, November 23, 2008 - April 19, 2009 (with Peter Weibel ), Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
  • After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer , May 20-15. July 2012, BAK Utrecht and October 17, 2012 - January 7, 2013, Paris

Groys was curator of the Russian pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale 2011, in which the action artist Andrei Wiktorowitsch Monastyrski and his group Kollektiv Aktion were exhibited.

Artistic work

  • The Art Judgment Show , film and video installation, Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija 2001; Brussels: Roomade 2002; Berlin: Podewil 2002.
  • Thinking in a loop. Three videos about the iconoclastic, ritual and immortal , (DVD) Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit 2008.

literature

Web links

Primary texts

To person

Audios and videos

Remarks

  1. ↑ Boris Groys' curriculum vitae on the website of the Free Academy of the Arts, Hamburg.
  2. ^ Movement website
  3. ↑ Boris Groys: About the New. Attempt of a cultural economy. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 31.
  4. ↑ Boris Groys: About the New. Attempt of a cultural economy. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 74.
  5. ↑ Boris Groys: Technology in the archive - The demonic logic of technical innovation. In: W. Rammert (Ed.): Innovation: Processes, Products, Politics. (= Technology and Society. Yearbook 9). Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1997, ISBN 3-593-35741-0 , pp. 15–33.
personal data
SURNAME Groys, Boris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grois, Boris Efimowitsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher, art critic and media theorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin