Turning the Pushkin Museum into a ‘Russian Tate’: Informal creative labour in a transitional cultural economy (the case of privately funded Moscow art centres)

Abstract

This article investigates the creative work that is now taking place in newly established cultural institutions in Moscow, the non-governmental museums of contemporary art (MoCAs). The exploration of creative work in Russian art centres is of particular interest because it promises to record the transition of the contemporary art market from the Soviet-era cultural monopoly to the market economy, during the real-time formation of new, informal standards of cultural production. The present article evaluates what informality means within these new standards of the organization of creative work: while standing for culture ‘in a new and innovative way’, the new art centres preserve many residues of the ‘old system’, such as the practices of blat, favour-swapping and clientelism. The article is based on an empirical study conducted in 2016 which included 25 in-depth interviews with cultural workers employed full-time, and 20 live observations in offices and exhibition areas of the art centres.

Towards luminescent ethnography of creative work: Purity, dirt and social inequality in Russian art institutions

“…They are not invited to the opening parties or public talks. In one extreme case, a worker of a Moscow-based institution was fired for 'illegally attending' an opening party to which he was not invited (see more details in Kuleva, 2019).…”

“…For example, one can hardly find a biennial from the last few years where there is no mention of diversity, queer artists, feminist perspectives or black and minority ethnic perspectives. However, numerous ethnographic studies show that these manifestations for equality and inclusion diverge with the experience of workers in these organisations, who continue to suffer from discrimination when they speak out about inequality (Conor et al, 2015; Kuleva, 2019).…”

“…The approach is designed to spotlight the here-and-now hierarchies that flicker in the rough materiality of the world of cultural production. In previous work (Kuleva, 2019, 2020), I explored the high degree of informality in Russian creative labour (which is a feature of other scenes as well, see Alacovska, 2019). This informality, however, has little to do with the flexible, quasi-egalitarian structures of small creative companies, as previously covered by Gill (2002).…”

“We also can. We're not worse”: The Anglophone Wave in Russian indie music (Indi), 2008–2012

“…This happened in less than three years: Vinzavod opened in 2007, Artplay and Garage in 2008 and Flacon and Strelka in 2009. Kuleva (2019, pp. 6–8) describes such spaces as ‘new, sexy and international’.…”

“…These institutes stood at the intersection of the interests of rich private investors – Chelsea FC owner Abramovich (Garage), Rosneft adviser Trotsenko (Vinzavod), Afisha 's holding owner Oskolkov-Tsentsiper (Strelka) – and the Moscow public administration. Indeed, the development of privately owned cultural institutions gained political support because this process coincided with the urban policies pursued by the city government, specifically by Moscow's former Head of Culture Sergey Kapkov 11 (Kuleva, 2019, p. 7), and later by its mayor Sergey Sobyanin (2010 – present), who explicitly revealed his intentions to make Moscow look like a European capital (Bush 2016).…”