Khudozhestvennaia volia [Artistic will], no. 7 (1993) and no. 6 (1994) (of seven published) by Khlobystin, Andrei

St. Petersburg: self-published, 1993-1994. Quartos (28 × 20 cm). Original staple-stitched illustrated wrappers; [46] pp. and [56] pp. Illustrations throughout. No. 6 hand-colored and signed by Andrei Khlobystin. Very good. First two issues (intentionally miss-numbered) of a mock-periodical of the St. Petersburg underground art scene edited by the artist, curator, critic and art historian Andrei Khlobystin (b. 1961). In the conceptualist and "sots-art" tradition the publication combines found text and images of communist print culture and propaganda, with contemporary philosophy and art criticism, including absurd acronyms, musings on science and pseudo-science, preoccupation with production and productivity, and an appended four-page list of typos. The issues include articles by artists and art critics who defined the unofficial art world of 1980s and 1990s St. Petersburg, such as Margarita Tupitsyn, Viktor Tupitsyn, Pavel Pepershtein, Ivan Chechot, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Viktor Mazin, Alla Mitrofanova, and Timur Novikov. The publications were part of two performances titled "Khudozhestvennaia volia: Mikrobiologia" [Artistic Will: Microbiology] and "Khudozhestvennaia volia: Konservirovanie" [Artistic Will: Conservation] held at Khlobystin's studio and at Gallery 21 in St. Petersburg in 1993-1994. At the "Microbiology" exhibition, a piece of bread covered in mold was displayed as an artifact. Khlobystin presented the bread as a work of art by his wife, the art critic Alla Mitrofanova. During the "Conservation" exhibition, canned sprats with bottles of beer were placed on folding chairs positioned around the gallery and offered to the audience with KhV (Christ has Risen) leaflets. Confessional booths, including one with a typewriter, were also presented to the audience, in the event that someone wished to confess in writing. Both exhibits and the appended publications capture the experiences and preoccupations of the transitional period and the move to capitalist economy in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Born in St. Petersburg, Andrei Khlobystin graduated from St. Petersburg State University in 1983 with a degree in Art History. In the mid 1980s he joined the "New Artists" group, curating and participating in countless exhibits in St. Petersburg. In 2000 he founded The Museum of Nonconformist Art at a former squat turned art-space at Pushkinskaia 10. He also assembled an archive of the nonconformist publications and artifacts including issues of this publication, which is held by the St. Petersburg branch of Garazh. Rare. As of June 2020, KVK and OCLC show a single issue at the British Library and an extensive run at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.