Balagan!!!

"BALAGAN!!! is a popular and much used exclamation in contemporary Russian that describes, with celebratory gusto, a farce, the most unholy of cock-ups. By turning the world upside down, in order to see its failures more clearly, it also stands for a modern and contemoporary artistic strategy, rooted in medieval Mystery Plays, puppet theatre and pantomime, that brings together the struggles of contemporary life with a desire for a new, hopefully better, life. Curated by David Elliott for Momentum and the Nordwind Festival ... this exhibition includes 150 artworks by 75 artists from 14 countries in the former 'East' that reflect this this approach. The book fully illustrates and describes the work of all the artists in the exhibition, devoting a special section to the work of the Russian performance artist, painter and provocateur Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, 1969-2013, who is represented here in a mini-retrospective. It also tracks, in a series of essays, eyewitness acounts and quotations, the historical developemnt of BALAGAN from the early Renaissance and the many ways it is manifested in the art of the present." -- Inside flap.