Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The purpose of my research is to discuss the role and importance of Art Festivals and Exhibitions in Soviet Public life during Perestroika period, which was an important time for post-Soviet countries. In general, the social-political events which occurred in the 1980s touched all aspects of living, including cultural life. Non-official art was exhibited in private flats, studios and in open public spaces; however, it appeared in state museums and exhibition halls very rarely even in times of perestroika. After the non-official art emerged from the “closed” local context and was presented in international exhibitions it became visible to the general public. The existence of non-official art in daily life propagated the allowance of “different” and indicated the possibilities of the transformation of the existing system. In my study, I focus on one of the most interesting and important events held in Narva, Estonia in 1988. The avant-garde art festival was organized by N. Ziterova, in which avant-garde artists from the former USSR republics of Georgia, Belarus, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and others took part. Research is based on documentation which is kept in the Narva art museum and private archives and has never been profoundly researched before by scholars.