Yes, this is the Russian art book of long questing! It proved impossible to get access to the art museum library (they don't answer emails; the phone number on the website is inoperable; the phone number on their door leads straight to a voicemail that hangs up before you can leave a message...) so I circumvented them by getting it as a Christmas present.
The book was good, but oh god the gender politics of the Soviet unofficial art scene. (I mean, the gender politics of Soviet labor in general, really.) There was one woman who worked as official artist, who found her unofficial artist husband a studio - his own special studio, with three whole rooms, in the Soviet Union where it was practically impossible to get any rooms at all! And she wasn't allowed to go to the studio because his studio was also his carousing space.
This husband died in a fire in his studio, and it was probably the KGB that did it, but if it was his wife who could blame her.
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Date: 2022-12-26 10:59 pm (UTC)The book was good, but oh god the gender politics of the Soviet unofficial art scene. (I mean, the gender politics of Soviet labor in general, really.) There was one woman who worked as official artist, who found her unofficial artist husband a studio - his own special studio, with three whole rooms, in the Soviet Union where it was practically impossible to get any rooms at all! And she wasn't allowed to go to the studio because his studio was also his carousing space.
This husband died in a fire in his studio, and it was probably the KGB that did it, but if it was his wife who could blame her.