8 - Celebrity, Humor, and the Avant-Garde

Summary

The Russian avant-garde arose in an age of advertising, publicity, and celebrity culture. Across the world, advances in photography, film, and print were feeding images and ideas to publics fascinated by wealth and consumption. In St. Petersburg and Moscow no less than in the other capitals of Europe, artists, writers, and performers catered to new appetites for fashion and display. The juxtaposition of publicity and art implied a radical departure from the traditionally passive role of the audience, since publicity requires the participation of the audience. Increasingly, Russian culture was commodified. Images of literary giants appeared on candy wrappers and cigarette boxes; in cheap lithographs; and then in photographs reproduced on postcards, some carrying advertising on the back. The women of Russia’s cultural circles pursued increased agency and rose to fame in the exaggerated empowerment that was part of celebrity culture. The avant-garde of both sexes courted celebrity and adopted a spirit of playfulness as they abandoned figurative forms for abstraction. They challenged conventional ideas and brought a new force – humor – to the interplay between artist and audience. In so doing, they drew on a vein of comedy that existed in both the sacred and secular traditions.