Georgy Frangulyan: Off-Modern

Georgy Frangulyan (b. 1945) creates monumental, classical figurative sculptures including many public works. This monograph is the first book to consider the life and work of this “Off-modern” artist; that is, one who exists on the margins of modern art history and at the margins of error of major philosophical, economic, and technological narratives of modernization and progress. It considers his work in light of the context of Social Realism, the Cold War, the avant garde. The core of the book is a survey of 30 monumental works and sculptures as well as a thorough exploration of craftsmanship in his work, his training at the Stroganov Academy, the oldest university of applied and industrial art in Russia, his use of bronze, and the way the work exists on the periphery of the global market.

Frangulyan’s sculptures are in many collections: the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, both in Moscow, at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Museo Dantesco in Ravenna, the Municipal Library of Colmar (France), the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, museums in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Berdyansk (Ukraine), the museum collections of Sochi, Tambov, and Kaliningrad (Russian Federation), as well as private collections in Italy, the US, France, Sweden, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. The artist is based in Moscow, working in a studio housed in an antique wooden villa, located in the center of the city, which features a foundry and a gallery of sculpture, paintings, and drawings.

The book includes prefaces by two curators associated with the Garage in Moscow, Ruth Addison and Valentin Diaconov.