"Exhibition making" as a collective practice. Enrico Crispolti on Lev Nusberg and the artists’ collective "Dvizhenie"

The article analyzes the critical reception of Lev Nusberg and the artist collective Dvizhenie (Movement) in Italy, and more precisely. A dominant aspect in the outer reception of Nusberg is given by his characterization as a descendant of the Russian and early Soviet avant-garde – and more specifically of kinetic art - which later on contributed to the categorization in the broader market-oriented label of the “Second Russian Avant-Garde”. Lev Nusberg and the artist collective Dvizhenie did not completely work in the framework of non-official art, as they cooperated with official Soviet institutions, which allowed for an understanding of their aesthetics as a new progressive Soviet cultural approach. Despite sporadic contacts and shortage of reliable sources, Enrico Crispolti included a selection of Dvizhenie’s projects within the extensive group-show “Alternative attuali 2” (L’Aquila, 1965), thus framing their work in a broader, pan-European context and analyzing it from a comparative perspective. Shortly after Nusberg’s emigration in 1976, Crispolti was able to invite him personally to Venice at the Biennial of Cultural Dissent, hence provoking, on either side of the Iron Curtain, a lively debate about Nusberg’s legitimacy as a “dissident”. Our contribution intends to shed light on the West- and East-European reception of Nusberg’s and Dvizhenie’s art as a relevant case study of cross-border migration of ideas within divided Europe during the Cold War. Finally, we are interested in the interactions between the individual activity of art historians on one side, and their practice as “exhibition makers”, occasionally affiliated at renowned institutions on the other. The paper is based on first-hand sources from private archives (Crispolti Archive, Rome) and the related art institutions (Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts of the Venice Biennale).