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Photo of Anna Khachiyan

Anna Khachiyan

Address: Brooklyn, New York, United States
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Papers by Anna Khachiyan

Research paper thumbnail of Discipline and Publish: Censorship and Falsification in Aleksandr Rodchenko's 10 Years of Uzbekistan
Discipline and Publish: Censorship and Falsification in Aleksandr Rodchenko's 10 Years of Uzbekistan
In 1984, historian David King was combing through the Rodchenko family archive when he made the d... moreIn 1984, historian David King was combing through the Rodchenko family archive when he made the discovery of his career: "10 Years of Uzbekistan," a lavish jubilee album published in 1934 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the republic’s formation and hastily taken out of circulation in 1937 at the height of Stalin’s Terror. Inside were the portraits of nine local Party officials that had been inked over by the hand of Aleksandr Rodchenko himself. His motive, while inhospitable, is hardly ambiguous. To invoke the memory of a denounced person was a crime punishable in kind. Rodchenko’s only means of protecting his legacy was, ironically, to deface his own work. The genre itself, meanwhile, is a more complicated matter. Designed using high-end imaging and printing technologies and typically issued in limited edition, photobooks were a coveted item among the nomenklatura. Yet this very fact makes them incongruous with the realities of an industrial, postwar economy and even more so with the principles of socialist ideology. Under such circumstances, most, like the present example, would fall out of favor and into obscurity on the heels of the people and events they depicted.

My research attempts to reconcile this remarkable piece of ephemera with the culture of uncertainty and absurdity that produced it. I argue that the Soviet photobook industry represents the appropriation of Constructivist visual strategies and capitalist commodity structures as a gateway for the shift to traditional Stalinist aesthetics. To do so, I identify the layers of misinformation operating simultaneously in the form, from official state censorship, which included not only the redaction of text and the doctoring of images, but the wholesale purging of writings, artworks, people and attitudes from the realm of public life, to the self-censorship of individuals, both ordinary citizens and artists, to the subtle art of lying through photomontage. What emerges is the need for a reframing of the historic opposition between avant-garde and socialist realism in terms of a continuity. Rodchenko’s infelicitous gesture reveals its own “third meaning” as well as that of the original photographs: the personal agency behind the totalitarian state’s repression of radical artistic practice and ethnic identity. Surviving in a handful of copies, the Uzbekistan album stands as an unlikely document to an alternate history of coercion and compromise.
Research paper thumbnail of Tolstoy in Paris: Estrangement as Meaning in the Work of Edgar Degas
Tolstoy in Paris: Estrangement as Meaning in the Work of Edgar Degas
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012
Research paper thumbnail of Cathedrals of Modernity: Constructivism and the Utopia of Glass Architecture
Cathedrals of Modernity: Constructivism and the Utopia of Glass Architecture
Master's Thesis, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012
Research paper thumbnail of Uncanny Likeness: Visions of Modernity in the Portraiture of Valentin Serov and John Singer Sargent
Uncanny Likeness: Visions of Modernity in the Portraiture of Valentin Serov and John Singer Sargent
Undergraduate Thesis, Rutgers College, Rutgers University, 2007

Clips by Anna Khachiyan

Research paper thumbnail of Miley Cyrus' Bangerz Tour Heads to Barclays Center
Miley Cyrus' Bangerz Tour Heads to Barclays Center
Revolt TV, April 2014
Research paper thumbnail of Kim and Kanye Take Paris, I Take Apart the Wedding
Kim and Kanye Take Paris, I Take Apart the Wedding
Medium, May 2014 (originally published on Revolt TV)
Research paper thumbnail of Magna Carta Holy Fail: What Hova Teaches us About Art
Magna Carta Holy Fail: What Hova Teaches us About Art
Medium, April 2014
Research paper thumbnail of Artist Rachel de Joode on Absurdity, Authenticity and Playing with Your Food
Artist Rachel de Joode on Absurdity, Authenticity and Playing with Your Food
BULLETT, November 2012
Research paper thumbnail of Creative Duo Dora & Maja on Media, Process and Hawking Axe to Teens
Creative Duo Dora & Maja on Media, Process and Hawking Axe to Teens
BULLETT, October 2012
Research paper thumbnail of Point and Shoot: Photography as a Survival Strategy in Larry Clark and Nan Goldin
Point and Shoot: Photography as a Survival Strategy in Larry Clark and Nan Goldin
Artwrit, December 2012
Research paper thumbnail of The New Uncanny: Winston Chmielinski and the Unlikely Heirs of Freud
The New Uncanny: Winston Chmielinski and the Unlikely Heirs of Freud
Artwrit, January 2012
Research paper thumbnail of Mere Mortals: Myth and the Mundane in Pasolini's Neorealist Film
Mere Mortals: Myth and the Mundane in Pasolini's Neorealist Film
Artwrit, Summer 2011
Research paper thumbnail of John Cage, Silent Partner
John Cage, Silent Partner
Artwrit, Winter 2011

Talks by Anna Khachiyan

Research paper thumbnail of Discipline and Publish: Censorship and Falsification in Aleksandr Rodchenko's 10 Years of Uzbekistan
Discipline and Publish: Censorship and Falsification in Aleksandr Rodchenko's 10 Years of Uzbekistan
In 1984, historian David King was combing through the Rodchenko family archive when he made the d... moreIn 1984, historian David King was combing through the Rodchenko family archive when he made the discovery of his career: "10 Years of Uzbekistan," a lavish jubilee album published in 1934 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the republic’s formation and hastily taken out of circulation in 1937 at the height of Stalin’s Terror. Inside were the portraits of nine local Party officials that had been inked over by the hand of Aleksandr Rodchenko himself. His motive, while inhospitable, is hardly ambiguous. To invoke the memory of a denounced person was a crime punishable in kind. Rodchenko’s only means of protecting his legacy was, ironically, to deface his own work. The genre itself, meanwhile, is a more complicated matter. Designed using high-end imaging and printing technologies and typically issued in limited edition, photobooks were a coveted item among the nomenklatura. Yet this very fact makes them incongruous with the realities of an industrial, postwar economy and even more so with the principles of socialist ideology. Under such circumstances, most, like the present example, would fall out of favor and into obscurity on the heels of the people and events they depicted.

My research attempts to reconcile this remarkable piece of ephemera with the culture of uncertainty and absurdity that produced it. I argue that the Soviet photobook industry represents the appropriation of Constructivist visual strategies and capitalist commodity structures as a gateway for the shift to traditional Stalinist aesthetics. To do so, I identify the layers of misinformation operating simultaneously in the form, from official state censorship, which included not only the redaction of text and the doctoring of images, but the wholesale purging of writings, artworks, people and attitudes from the realm of public life, to the self-censorship of individuals, both ordinary citizens and artists, to the subtle art of lying through photomontage. What emerges is the need for a reframing of the historic opposition between avant-garde and socialist realism in terms of a continuity. Rodchenko’s infelicitous gesture reveals its own “third meaning” as well as that of the original photographs: the personal agency behind the totalitarian state’s repression of radical artistic practice and ethnic identity. Surviving in a handful of copies, the Uzbekistan album stands as an unlikely document to an alternate history of coercion and compromise.

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