Collective Actions

Igor Makarevich
Photo Documentation of Works by Collective Actions

The group Collective Actions was fundamental to the development of what art critic and philosopher Boris Groys termed Moscow romantic conceptualism.

Collective Actions appeared in 1976, when the poet and artist Andrei Monastyrski invited a close circle of friends to a poetry reading in Izmailovsky Park in Moscow. This small-scale event launched something entirely new on Moscow’s art scene and denoted a special relationship between the creative process and our perception of the world around us.

The theorist and Moscow conceptualism specialist Ekaterina Bobrinskaya wrote: “In the mid–1970s, when Collective Actions began to organize their ‘trips out of town,” Moscow conceptualism was not unified. One of Collective Actions’ functions at this time was the creation of a particular ‘mental field’ or, to use Ilya Kabakov’s expression, ‘a field of consciousness,’ in which one could trace the outlines of the school and the movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, regular trips to actions and participation in discussions about them were particular tools for structuring artistic life and, one might say, artistic consciousness.”

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina joined Collective Actions in 1979. Makarevich became the main photographer of the group’s actions. His photographs are distinguished by their focus on the preparation and organization of actions in addition to documenting the scenario of the action itself.

Full description of group’s actions is avaliable at the Collective Actions web-site.