Timing is everything. When I was commissioned to contribute to the Manifesta 10 exhibition catalogue 1 with a text on the political meaning of Russian art, Russian lawmakers had already passed legislation against “homosexual propaganda,” but Crimea had not yet been annexed. Once the annexation became fact, it was finally clear that it would be impossible to write such a text, as if the Manifesta in Petersburg were just an ordinary exhibition in yet another ordinary country...

The artistic practices of the international neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s and ’70s are often understood through the notion of the rediscovery of the figure of the artist. Experimental art from that period included happenings, performances, and other body-related practices. One would expect such expressions of subjective freedom—to the extent they were legally permitted—from artists in the totalitarian Soviet Union. But while works of this kind did indeed exist (e.g., the performances of the...

Last year, I was taking a taxi into Kyiv’s downtown from Borispol Airport. About midway through the trip, I noticed a large black jeep coming straight towards my taxi on the same side of the road. It was not that it was traveling fast—no, it was more likely driving quite slowly. But it was going in the opposite direction on our side of the highway, which is divided by a high wall stretching almost the entire way from Kyiv to the airport. It was not entirely clear how this rudderless Flying...