Book

Automatic for the masses : the death of the author and the birth of Socialist realism

Petrov, Petre, author

Overview

\"At the end of the 1920s, the Modernist and avant-garde artistic programmes of the early Soviet Union were swept away by the rise of Stalinism and the dictates of Socialist Realism. Did this aesthetic transition also constitute a conceptual break, or were there unseen continuities between these two movements? In Automatic for the Masses, Petre M. Petrov offers a novel, theoretically informed account of that transition, tracing those connections through Modernist notions of agency and authorship. Reading the statements and manifestos of the Formalists, Constructivists, and other Soviet avant-garde artists, Petrov argues that Socialist Realism perpetuated in a new form the Modernist \"death of the author.\" In interpreting this symbolic demise, he shows how the official culture of the 1930s can be seen as a perverted realization of modernism's unrealizable project. An insightful and challenging interpretation of the era, Automatic for the Masses will be required reading for those interested in understanding early Soviet culture.\"-- Publisher's website.

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Subject: Socialist realism. / Modernism (Aesthetics) Soviet Union. / Socialist realism in art Soviet Union. / Modernism (Art) Soviet Union.
• ISBN: 9781442648425, 1442648422

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
NX556.A1 P48 2015	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE