Power, Politics, and Russian Art in Transnational Contexts, 5 cr

The course introduces students to research on power, politics and Russian art that manifest in transnational contexts by delving into specific case studies. These case studies, located beyond Russia’s territorial borders, include the Russian Pavilion at the contemporary art festival Venice Biennale, the State Russian Museum’s satellite in Malaga, a Russian fine art exhibition in China and artistic resistance at the former ‘Russia House’ during the World Economic Forum in Davos. The course will discuss and provide examples of how the Russian state and elites have accumulated power in and through art and the transnational field of art. Students will learn to discover and analyse power and politics at artistic sites and they will gain insights about the range of actors involved in the transnational field of art as well as various field-crossing and scale-exceeding dynamics of capital, power and position-takings. Students will be presented with theoretical and methodological frameworks and tools that they will be encouraged to apply in selecting and analysing relevant case studies.