“Exhibition Making” as a Shared Practice. Enrico Crispolti on Lev Nusberg and the Artists’ Collective Dvizhenie

The article examines the role played by art historian Enrico Crispolti (Rome, 1933-2018) in circulating in Italy the work of Lev Nusberg (Tashkent, 1937) and the artists’ collective Dvizhenie (Movement), founded in Moscow in 1962. Crispolti included their projects within the extensive group-show Alternative attuali 2 (L’Aquila, 1965), embedding their work in a comparative international framework. After Nusberg’s emigration in 1976, he was able to invite Nusberg to Venice at the Biennial of Cultural Dissent. The text will shed light on Crispolti’s strategies in framing Dvizhenie’s art on the convergence between Soviet official and unofficial art, between the historical legacy of the Russian avant-garde and the broader context of contemporary European art.