Georgy Frangulyan. Off-Modern

Georgy Frangulyan (1945, Tbilisi) has a unique position in postwar European and Russian sculpture. Trained across all media at Moscow’s famed Stroganov Academy, Frangulyan is a consummate polystylistic who has completed major public monuments and private memorials, as well as scaled sculptures, in Russia and abroad. Leveraging the insights of the late Svetlana Boym, a cultural theorist, Press considers Frangulyan as an “off-modern” artist, whose aesthetics and works defy conventional thinking about post-Socialist Realism in the USSR. Press reveals how Frangulyan’s influences absorbed classicism, the avant-garde, modernism, cubism, and futurism into a diverse artistic practice. Georgy Frangulyan, Off-Modern not only clarifies how the artist’s awareness of Western modernism expanded after seeing several international exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s, but also broad art historical influences he encountered at the Stroganov Academy. The core of the book is a detailed consideration of Frangulyan’s monumental works and sculptures, considering the content and contexts in which they were made.