Russian train graffiti: a history of performance

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the “performative” aspect of graffiti on Russian trains during the late 1990s and early 2000s. “Performative” here refers to Judith Butler’s understanding of performance as comprised of repeated acts without an essential "core." Graffiti on trains proliferated in Russia at the turn of the millennium through Russian writers’ repetition of imagery from books, magazines, and videos from the United States. This recurrent mimicry is shared with the history of public art in Russia, which was also characterized by collective and programmatic transnational performance. Drawing on archival material including books, magazines, films, photographs, and interviews with former writers, the article charts the history of art on trains in Russia over the past century. I argue that performativity links graffiti, street art, and public art in Russia in a manner that renders these categories mutually informing and inextricable.

KEYWORDS:

• Graffiti
• public art
• mural
• performance
• Russia
• trains

Acknowledgements

I thank Alex Partola and Anton Polsky for generously sharing their time and experiences with me. I am also grateful to Christian Omodeo for his advice and for allowing me to make use of his extensive collection of graffiti magazines. Finally, I would like to thank my friends, family, and advisor, Maria Gough, for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Fresco,” from the Italian for “fresh,” or “wet,” refers to painting applied to wet plaster so that the image becomes integrated into the support.

2 Many Russian crews from the early 2000s have three-letter names. These letters are arbitrary; they do not stand for anything. An exception is RUS, which was formed to develop a Russian style of graffiti. Anton Polsky, email message to the author, April 11, 2022.

3 Translated from the Russian in subtitles accompanying the film.

4 Polsky mostly follows Schacter, who claims that the period of street art’s greatest creativity lasted from 1998 to 2008, adding some specifications for the Russian context.

Additional information

Funding

Work on this article was supported by a David E. Finley Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, a Maurice Lazarus Graduate Research Travel Award from the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program/Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Notes on contributors

Davida Fernández-Barkan

Davida Fernández-Barkan is a Ph.D. candidate in History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and David E. Finley Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. She writes about public art internationally during the 20th and 21st centuries.