Videobrasil. Needs No Translation. Book Collection

The collection encompasses literature dedicated to the origins of contemporary Brazilian art, the current state of Russian video art, and the development of the cinematographic medium.

 Photo: Anna Zavozyaeva

The selection of books for the Videobrasil. Needs No Translation exhibition project includes several subsections focusing on the history of Russian video art, the context of contemporary visual media studies, and Latin American culture.

New Media

Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media presents a retrospective analysis of the development of new forms of media communication, including visual culture, through the metalinguistic frameworks of modernity. Although the author focuses primarily on the study of the digital code of modernity rather than visual culture in a narrow sense, his work resonates with discourses relevant to video artists. Manovich explores the relationship between humans and code, identifying new characteristics not only of the sociopolitical and cultural landscape but also of the media space. This space is considered as a language of communication that challenges conventional understandings of the territory of the human.

Michael Rush’s New Media in Art (Russian edition) partly intersects with The Language of New Media but shifts the focus to the evolving language of visual culture, which has been in constant transformation since the 1980s. Rush does not confine his analysis to digital or media art; he also addresses the evolution of painting and photography. This approach allows him to identify broader trends in the development of the language of new media in art. The author sees the development of media in art as a process that runs parallel to scientific progress and changes in the ways information is consumed, offering an opportunity to reflect on these transformations in the context of new forms of interaction with time and space.

History and Contemporary State of Video Art

Anastasia Persheeva’s Video-art. Montazh zritelya [Video Art. Montage of the Viewer] (in Russian) is dedicated to editing techniques in video art that shape new modes of viewer perception and break away from the conventions of cinema and television. Special attention in the book is given to how video art has transformed the “montage thinking” of contemporary individuals.

A foundational work for the history of contemporary Russian art is the three-volume History of Russian Video Art  by Antonio Geusa. The author explores video art as an artistic practice that emerged within the Soviet underground, passed through multiple stages of institutionalisation, and ultimately found its place in the mainstream of Russian art. Covering the history of the phenomenon, general development trends, and the current state of video art in various Russian regions, Geusa’s work is perhaps the most comprehensive study of this medium within its specific cultural context.

Antologiya rossijskogo video-arta. Granicy` opredeleniya [Russian Video Art Anthology: Boundaries of Definition] (in Russian) is a collection of texts on Russian video art developed in the spirit of phenomenological inquiry. The volume examines the medium within the context of the Russian art scene, addressing general theoretical questions related to new media art while also providing detailed analyses of individual artists’ works. Although published in 2002, many of the essays remain highly relevant and echo themes found in the first volume of Antonio Geusa’s History of Russian Video Art. The anthology includes contributions from critics and curators, providing an insider’s view of the institutionalisation process of the medium in Russia.

The Convergence of Cinema and Video Art

David Curtis’s Artists’ Film (World of Art) (Russian edition) addresses a gap in art historical discourse resulting from the long-standing divide between the professional communities of artists and filmmakers. Rather than seeking to eliminate this boundary, Curtis focuses on independent films created by artists; on filmmakers pursuing new forms of expression beyond the conventions of the film industry; and on works by enthusiasts and non-professionals. This in-between position of artists’ films—between conventional media boundaries—is accompanied by Curtis’s reflections on the status of film and the institution of authorship.

The book Expanded Cinema is a compilation of research texts and a catalogue for an exhibition held during the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. The research articles address complex theoretical aspects of the interaction between text, image, sound, television, and the internet. The authors are interested not only in the traditional video art distinction between media but also in their similarities, mutual borrowings, citations, and paraphrases. The exhibition catalogue further enriches the material, demonstrating how cinema and video art intersect, influence one another, and at times blur the boundaries between these media.

Latin American Culture

Among the publications that connect the artistic theme of the exhibition with Brazilian culture and trace the development of Latin American contemporary art is the foundational study by Professor Aracy Amaral, The Modern Art Week of 1922 (Russian edition). The book is devoted to the formation of a national modernist language in early twentieth-century Brazilian art. Drawing on rich archival material, the author reveals the context of the Modern Art Week, which became a foundational event for the development of Brazilian art on the international stage, and reflects the concerns and conceptual efforts of artists as expressed in their contributions to the collective exhibition.

Latin American culture was largely shaped under conditions of colonialism. The intellectual implications of emancipatory and decolonial politics are explored in works such as Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism, Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, and Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh’s On Decoloniality. A broader view of South American art and cultural history is presented in the books Iskusstvo stran Latinskoj Ameriki [Art of Latin American Countries] (in Russian) and Kul`tura Latinskoj Ameriki. Avangard pervoj treti XX veka [Culture of Latin America: The Avant-Garde of the First Third of the 20th Century] (in Russian).

In the context of global inequality, contemporary artists are reinterpreting the decolonial legacy by engaging with the memory of former European colonies. In his book Return to the Postcolony, T. J. Demos calls for the formulation of new ethical, political, and aesthetic approaches to engaging with the “ghost” of history. The authors of South as a State of Mind reflect on the interconnections between capital, power, nature, and language in an era of ecological crisis—the dark underside of colonialism and capitalism.