Comradely Objects: Design and Material Culture in Soviet Russia, 1960s-80s (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781526139870)

The Russian avant-garde of the 1920s is broadly recognised to have been Russia's first truly original contribution to world culture. In contrast, Soviet design of the post-war period is often dismissed as hack-work and plagiarism that resulted in a shabby world of commodities. This book offers a new perspective on the history of Soviet design by focusing on the notion of the comradely object as an agent of progressive social relations that state-sponsored Soviet design inherited from the avant-garde. It introduces a shared history of domestic objects, hand-made as well as machine made, mass-produced as well as unique, utilitarian as well as challenging the conventional notion of utility. This is a study of post-avant-garde Russian productivism at the intersection of intellectual history, social history and material culture studies, an account attentive to the complexities and contradictions of Soviet design.

Author: Yulia Karpova
ISBN-10: 1526139871
ISBN-13: 9781526139870
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/26/2020
Pages: 232
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.80w x 0.90d