Olga Shpilko

This text reflects on the now ubiquitous strategy of museum reconstruction by way of architectural expansion, and investigates an alternative (hitherto, marginal) development path that can be called ‘off-modern’, a term inspired by Svetlana Boym. It contrasts the tree-like museum structure incarnated perfectly in New York’s Museum of Modern Art with a rhizome-like, anti-hierarchical organization of integrity which, the author argues, originated in the low-profile Société Anonyme museum of Katherine Sophie Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, of which the post-War Stedelijk Museum, under Willem Sandberg, was the heir.

В тексте рассматривается схема «расширенного поля видения» художника и дизайнера Герберта Байера, конструирующая новые отношения зрителя с выставочным пространством; особая темпоральная логика, которая стоит за ее созданием; и специфика ее практического воплощения.

The text deals with the "extended field of vision" as developed by the artist and designer Herbert Bayer in his attempt to construct a new relationship between exhibition spaces and the viewer. The special temporal logic behind the creation of this field and the specifics of its practical implementation are considered.

Произведения Ива Кляйна, одного из самых неоднозначных художников группы новых реалистов, многократно интерпретировались то с точки зрения неоавангардного характера его практики, то как предвестие концептуализма. Одним из ключей к таким трактовкам была репрезентация пустоты Кляйном, в частности, его выставка «Пустота» в Galerie Iris Clert 1958 года. В статье предпринимается пересмотр концепции пустоты в творчестве художника; и анализ ее в контексте искусства нового реализма и современной Кляйну художественной ситуации выявляет ее как самостоятельное явление, которое нужно освободить от начинающих закрепляться, но по своей сути поверхностных связей с «пустотными» традициями двадцатого века.

A geometrical approach to letter design has almost always been a marginal phenomenon, and its development has never been smooth. However, in the history of letterforms, there were periods when this approach engaged in competition with the established tradition of shaping letters according to calligraphic writing. These sudden influxes of interest in geometrical letter design seem to have never been explored in their relationship, although with further study it is evident that they have common origins and sources. This thesis aims to draw a line between the letterforms from two periods when geometry became a dominant concept: the Renaissance and Modernism. These periods are separated by almost half a millennium, and the letterforms from these periods are therefore so distant from each other, that, actually, do not invite to a comparison. That is why the first part of the work is written in a defensive tone and stands as a preventive reply to those statements, which might be put forward to contest the sustainability of this thesis. The second part provides arguments in support of the hypothesis. It discusses causes that might have facilitated the rapid progress of the geometrical approach, and consequences that manifested themselves in the characteristic features of the letterforms and principles of their construction. The interest in geometry within typographic practice is put into the socio–historical context of both epochs, and is treated as strongly dependent on it.