The Temporalities of Soviet and Postcommunist Visual Culture: Boris Groys and Petre Petrov in Conversation

This discussion took place on April 21, 2010 in the Humanities Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Over the course of two hours, we, Robert Bailey and Cristina Albu, posed to Boris Groys and Petre Petrov a series of questions about temporality and visual culture in the Soviet Union, contemporary Russia, and other formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe. Our hope was to identify the paradoxical instances when multiple temporalities coexist or compete for control of time, or where different forces impose their respective narratives, chronologies, or histories on the same moments and events. We are grateful to Professors Groys and Petrov for their careful and considered answers to our questions. Thanks are also due to Professors Jonathan Arac and Todd Reeser at the Humanities Center for facilitating the discussion, as well as to Contemporaneity editors Heidi Cook, Amy Cymbala, and Rachel Miller for their help with transcription.