Anti-Shows. APTART 1982–84.

A collective of artists, a gallery and a movement, APTART was a series of self-organised ‘anti-shows’ that took place in a private apartment and outdoor spaces in Moscow between 1982 and 1984. These covert and anarchic actions, which soon came into conflict with the Soviet authorities, represent a collective attempt to rethink the politics of exhibition-making and the practice of making public in the absence of a public sphere. The first comprehensive publication on APTART, this book presents extensive photographic documentation of all their activities alongside archival texts from contributing artists and documents from the time. Main essays by Margarita Tupitsyn and Victor Tupitsyn offer a detailed elucidation of the movement’s history and guiding concepts; and further contexts and analysis are provided through contributions by Alexandra Danilova and Elena Kuprina-Lyakhovich, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Richard Goldstein, Sven Gundlakh, Ilya Kabakov, David Morris and Valerie Smith.