book

This intriguing book on the so-called 'Moscow Schizoids' explores the deranged psycho-spiritual imagery that flowed into 'alternative' Soviet art in response to the oppression of the State. The eccentric, and at times deranged, artists whose works are discussed here experienced fantasy as reality and felt that, collectively, their lives resembled 'a competition in madness'. However for them there was no alternative - the standards of the totalitarian state were even more terrifying than insanity itself. The Moscow Schizoids lived in two worlds at the same time - the physical and the imaginary - but both dimensions were equally real in different ways. For these artists creative expression provided a path culminating in liberty and 'truth' - an escape from social oppression to a visionary realm beyond.