Contemporary Art in a Hauntological Perspective: Projected Passages

Immerse yourself in a study of forgotten utopias and reflections on the coming future through a unique work by Iryna Kulyk.

An extensive study of world and domestic contemporary art.

By the end of the twentieth century, the vision of the future that inspired art and society was no longer perceived as “bright”—it began to cause either anxiety or indifference.

“Hontology” is a term introduced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida and reinterpreted by the English pop-culture researcher Mark Fisher. It refers to the search for a lost concept of the future within the forgotten utopias of the past.

“Designing Drives. Contemporary Art in a Hontological Perspective” is the first study of hontology in the context of contemporary Russian and international visual art. Among its characters are Ilya Kabakov and Robert Smithson, Pierre Huyg and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jeremy Deller and Aleksandr Gronsky, John Rafman and Taisia Korotkova, Daniel Lopatyn and Andrey Tarkovsky.

“Iryna Kulyk’s book is a rare and happy exception in art literature. It is the work of a person who values art more than herself within it. The book touches on an important theme: the idea of the future and the search for new utopias that are necessary for the development of society and the life of each person. At the same time, it is an extensive study of world and Russian contemporary art, allowing you to see its internal logic and providing the attentive reader with a key to understanding art,” — Olga Sviblova, curator, founder and director of the Multimedia Art Museum, Honored Art Figure, academician of the Russian Academy of Arts (RAH).