OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2007. Publication of a book "Soviet Naive Art" had become the first stage of the new project. It offered the reading audience a comprehensive glimpse of a unique phenomenon in the USSR culture of 1960-1990-ies of the last century, "the Soviet Primitive", reported the press-centre of Interros.

Doctor of Art History and author of the "Soveit Naive Art" book Ksenia Boguemskaya points out "that it embodied the dreams and fantasies of Soviet people, their daily life and humdrum, and, what is more important, the original perception by the amateur artists of the world, where slogans are wed to proverbs, absurd to realism, folk art to political propaganda".

The album contains over 300 artworks by amateur artists, who have not had academic education. Their art reflected artistic reality, which coexisted with the official "sotsart".

More than 130 artists are represented in the album, including the unknown authors from collections of the State History, Architecture, Arts and Landscape Museum Reserve "Tsaritsino"; State Museum and Exhibition Center "ROSIZO", Folk Art House, Kostroma Art Museum. The bulk of the book contains artworks from private collections that are made public for the first time.

The 380-pages album has 67 topical parts: from "family", "vitamins" and "polyclinics" to "socialist hostel" and "perestroika". The compliers used the same principle, which is being used for all books of the "Interros" Publishing Program within the framework of the series "Russia.XXth century": artwork is accompanied by documents of the Soviet era, i.e. standards, official instructions and educational recommendations. Such a juxtaposition provides a specific sociological ectype of the era. The book "Soviet Naive Art" opens just another, new viewpoint on the Soviet reality and gives an opportunity for a multilateral discussion of artistic value of "Soviet primitivism".

In 2008 the "Soviet Naive Art" project will be complemented by special events and exhibition program in Moscow and in the regions.

Soviet Naпve Art, Moscow, "Interros" Publishing Program, 2007. 384 pages, illustrated.