Language Generation: Word in contemporary Russian Art

Abstract

The focus of the article is the investigation of the verbal-visual representations in the relevant practices of contemporary Russian artists of Generation Y (Millennials), i.e. artists born from 1981 to 1996. The paper examines various types of connections between word and image in Russian art, forms of existence and cultural meanings of the verbal components in contemporary Russian art. The author comes to the conclusion that verbal-visual art is an established trend on the Russian art scene. Interesting processes of rethinking the traditional principles of conceptualism are evident in the artworks of contemporary artists. The sign-symbolist imagery is obvious in the visible graphics of figured poems by contemporary Russian artists: artistic representation coexists with logocentrism, the desire for self-identification is combined with the idea of being rooted in the foundations of traditional Russian culture. The principle of eclecticism, characteristic to the era of metamodernism, allows contemporary painters to create the endless semiosis of simulacra that do not give direct clues to the viewer for interpretation. Contemporary artists, being the conductors of the mass culture, strive to get away from the rules of academic school and define the boundaries of the past and the future, the random and the natural. The article pays special attention to the study of visual rhetoric. Using examples, the author shows that the language in contemporary Russian art has not a narrative meaning, but a multi-level semantic impulse closely related to the visual component.