100 years GAKhN. Artistic research between art and science

The goal of the articles in this special issue is to introduce the history and the theoretical significance of a rigorous (i.e., “scientific”), artistic, and cultural project, one that was also political and that emerged a hundred years ago in the early Soviet Union. In recent decades, its significance in European intellectual history has gradually become clear. This project is the State (the Russian—until June 1925) Academy of Artistic Sciences/Artistic Research (GAKhN). It was founded as an institution with the aim of conducting “comprehensive research into all types of art and artistic culture” (§1of the Academy’s statutes [Biulleteni GAKhN 1927, p. 78]) in order to serve as an expert advisory body of Narkompros (People’s Commissariat for Education) in cultural and political decisions. The activity of GAKhN spanned from 13 October 1921 (the date of the convening of the Academy’s board with its president Petr S. Kogan) until 3 January 1930, when, as a result of an ideologically motivated “purge,” it underwent a total reorganization and was finally disbanded on 10 April 1931 (cf. Yakimenko 2005). The idea of the Academy stemmed from the spirit of “synthesis.” It was developed in the sessions of the Scientific and Art Commission [Nauchno-chudozhestvennaja komissija] of Narkompros, convened by People’s Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, which met in June–October 1921. Artists (Wassily Kandinsky, Konstantin Juon, et al.), scientists and philosophers (Alexandr Gabrichevskii, Alexey Sidorov, Gustav Shpet, Semen Frank, et al.) and cultural policy administrators (Anatoly Lunacharsky, Petr Kogan) worked together on the Academy’s conceptual and institutional foundation. They agreed to create a new institution that would bring together science, art, and cultural policy (cf. Kogan 1927).

Translated into English by Thomas Nemeth. This article was created as part of the research project "Artistic Research in Between Stenogram and Encyclopaedia. Strategies of Gaining and Documenting Knowledge at the State Academy for Artistic Research (1921Research ( -1930" (DFG,Grant # 386757512).
N. Plotnikov nikolaj.plotnikov@rub.de 1 Lotman-Institute for Slavistics and Russian Culture at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany As a research institution, the Academy was conceived to be a forum for the development of a "new science of art" (novaya nauka ob iskusstve) (cf. Gabrichevskii 2002), in which all types of scientific engagement with art (in the cultural, social, and natural sciences as well as in philosophy) would be connected. In addition to traditional research on the history of the fine arts, this unified science, understood as a "synthesis" of the artistic sciences ( §3 of the GAKhN statutes), also included studies on arts that were not yet academically recognized (such as dance, theater, book design, film, folklore), contemporary art, as well as applied art and design. The Academy, however, was to provide not just an institutional, but also a methodological framework in which experimental research could be connected to historical and theoretical reflection on art.
In the sphere of artistic practice, the Academy was assigned the task of coordinating the cultural institutions and organizing exhibitions. Both at the Academy itself as well as with its support, large national and international exhibitions of art and of applied art were held. These presented contemporary revolutionary art in the Soviet Union and in the West, for example, the "All-Russian Exhibition of Applied Art" [1923], "Revolutionary Art of the West" [1926], "The Art of the Peoples of the USSR" [1927], "The Art of Movement" [1][2][3][4][1925][1926][1927][1928], etc. In total, GAKhN took part in approximately 100 exhibitions (Kogan 1925) in Russia and abroad. In addition, efforts were also made in other artistic spheres to systematically develop art criticism on a new basis through its connection with science and the practice of art (for examples from the theater section of GAKhN, see Gudkova 2019).
Finally, the Academy, as an expert authority in matters of art and culture, was also founded with the intent of effecting cultural policy that would be available to the Soviet government, which explicitly proclaimed the formation of a "new man" as one of its chief goals. With this educational goal, art, which should have an immediate effect on the masses, is given central importance in achieving a "transformation of morals" (pererabotka nravov) (Lenin). However, as Lunacharsky stated at one of the founding meetings of GAKhN, the development of art as a task of cultural policy requires the elaboration of a scientific aesthetics that would have to establish that "the art presented is really art, and not a substitute, and moreover is art that the masses need" [chto prepodnosimoe iskusstvo dejstvitel'no iskusstvo, a ne surrogat, i pritom iskusstvo, nuzhnoe massam] (Lunacharskij 1921).
The productive tension in the relationship between these different forms of knowledge and cultural practices was already inherent in the paradoxical term "artistic sciences" (chudozhestvennye nauki) or, to use the current translation, "artistic research," which aroused astonishment and criticism even among contemporaries. This expression, first mentioned by the People's Commissar Anatoly V. Lunacharsky (Lunacharskij 1921), most clearly noted the different tendencies of the project of the Academy. While Lunacharsky dreamed of an "exact science" of art, which at the same time would serve as a guide to political action in the sphere of cultural and educational policy, the vice-president of the Academy, Gustav Shpet, understood this term in the sense of Husserl's phenomenology as a "rigorous science," having the meaning of a "general theory of art." On the other hand, Kandinsky developed the vision of a "science of the artist," which would make it possible, based on the results of precise psychological and scientific knowledge, to establish art itself as a knowledge sui generis (Kandinskii 2020).
Institutionally, these different ideas concerning the relationship between art and science were combined in the organization of the Academy, which consisted of three departments: a physical-psychological, a sociological, and a philosophical department. The first department was to explore "the inner positive [i.e., the psychological and physical] laws by which the works of art are produced in each individual sphere of art" (Kondrat'ev 1923, p. 415). Under the direction of Kandinsky, who left for Germany at the end of 1921, a wide range of experimental psychological research on the production and reception of art was developed in the department, which extended to the analysis of art-related mental processes in children, the mentally ill, and "primitive peoples." The Sociology Department (headed by the sociologist of art Vladimir M. Friche and then later by Lubov Axel'rod), aimed to "investigate art from the standpoint of its social genesis and significance" (Kondrat'ev 1923, p. 417), this study being a transfer of Marxist class analysis to art history. Friche's concept envisioned explaining the function of art from sociological laws and in this way determining it to be a means in the social struggle for existence. Here, too, the desired sociology of art is constituted on the model of the exact nomological sciences. "If it is possible to develop a sociology of art, it will be as exact a science as chemistry or physics. It will be able to trace the history of art back to a set of 'mathematically' exact laws that govern art in its statics and dynamics" (Friche 1924, p. 4).
The Philosophy Department, headed by Gustav Shpet from February 1922 until 1925, was to analyze "questions of principle as well as methodological questions of the science of art in general" (Kondrat'ev 1923, p. 419), i.e., questions of the philosophy of art and aesthetics on the one hand, and the problematic of a "general science of art" as the scientific theory of art research on the other.
Behind this combination of institutional units of GAKhN and the research directions located within it was the idea of achieving a "synthesis" of theoretical disciplines, reflection on the practice of art, as well as art education and the presentation of art. Following the model of a "synthesis of the arts," the Academy's project subsumed under the term "art" the entire spectrum of the arts, including literature, the spatial arts, theater, music, and film, but also dance, the production of art and book design.
The central link that connected these different research directions and approaches in the Academy and that established the idea of a synthesis of art and knowledge was the idea of language as the medium of all the arts and sciences. From this perspective, art, science, and philosophy were conceived as different languages. The idea of language as a link between art, the artistic sciences, and philosophy found its organizational implementation in the central project of GAKhN-to compile an "Encyclopedia of Artistic Terminology" (Enciklopedija chudozhestvennoj terminologii [Biulleteni GAKhN 1925, p. 29]) that would critically review and resystematize the entire body of traditional terminology used in discourses on art. Already the original conception of the Academy, which Kandinsky had developed, envisaged as its central task "the review of existing terminology and the defining of specific new terms" (Kandinskii 2001, p. 73). This task then gave rise to the Academy's encyclopedic project of subjecting the traditional conceptual apparatus in all fields of art research to critical examination and redefinition. The project, which became significantly more differentiated in the course of the work and attracted more and more researchers, was not completed due to the breakup of the Academy and survives only in fragments in the Academy's estate (cf. Chubarov 2005 and2017).
However, this encyclopedic project did not just mean supplementing the terminology of the artistic sciences by including philosophical concepts as well as the technical terms of the new arts. This project also triggered a broad theoretical debate at GAKhN about the principles of the conceptualization of the artistic sciences and thus the epistemological function of cultural studies in general, which accompanied the work on the "Encyclopedia." The study of the "Encyclopedia" as well as the practice of conceptualization at GAKhN was the subject of a research project at the Lotman Institute of Russian Culture entitled "Art Research between Shorthand and Encyclopedia. Strategies of Knowledge Acquisition and Documentation at the State Academy of Artistic Research in Moscow (1921Moscow ( -1930." 1 The central hypothesis of the project was not that the essential achievement of GAKhN should be seen as a closed product, such as the "Encyclopedia of Artistic Terminology," but rather that it consisted precisely in the communicative process of the production and documentation of knowledge. This is most clearly reflected in the practice of the numerous discussions about basic aesthetic concepts. Accordingly, the focus of the investigation was directed at the state of the discussions at GAKhN. They are understood as a form of "communicative thinking" that manifests itself both in the constant exchange of ideas and in the dynamic, ever-changing structure of the Academy (Khenning 2021). This form characterizes GAKhN in general as a "thought collective" (Ludwig Fleck) that was not only methodologically innovative, but also outlined the contours of a social utopia of "community knowledge," the approach of which was conceptually modeled on Gustav Shpet's critique of Husserl's egological theory of consciousness.
The individual contributions to this special issue document various aspects of these discussions, which initiated a broad field of research and, at the same time, of initiatives in the practice of art in the early Soviet Union.
The two contributions by Nikolaj Plotnikov examine the project of the "Encyclopedia of Artistic Terminology" in the context of the European history of ideas as an example of a remapping of knowledge about art in the age after the metaphysical aesthetics of the beautiful. The study also focuses on the history of discussions about aesthetic terms and the influence of these discussions on the shape of the "Encyclopedia" as a whole.
From the perspective of contemporary artistic research, Anke Hennig analyzes the archive of the Academy (or the remaining fragments of it) in order to focus on the increase in knowledge classified as faulty that accompanies the process of the production of knowledge. Using the theoretical approach of a "critique of archival reason," she shows the fragmentary nature of the archival material that is available for research and that shapes today's reception of GAKhN. At the same time, however, it invites us to perceive the multilayered errors of the archive material of GAKhN (errors in logging, deciphering, and understanding by the archive's staff and researchers, etc.) not as a fatal deficiency in the source material, but as historical traces on a metalevel that show an unbridgeable conceptual and historical distance from the GAKhN project. It also, however, serves to motivate a reinterpretation of this project today.
Irina Sirotkina investigates the constitution of a new discipline (choreography/dance studies) by the "scientific secretary" of GAKhN Aleksei Sidorov. In an intensive exchange with the "free dance" groups in the Soviet Union and using laboratory experiments with human movement, he developed a "grammar of dance" and made it the basis for a scientific analysis of the art of dance.
Maria Silina's contribution investigates the conception of an experimental aesthetic by Anatolij Bakushinskij (he acted after Kandinsky as head of the physicalpsychological department of GAKhN) who, based on his work as a museum educator (in the Tretjakov Gallery) and his engagement with applied art, used the results of his investigations into the perception of art. Silina reconstructs the close integration of scientific research with the organization of museum practice that characterized Bakushinskij's work and shows that such an integration was embodied in the institutional structure of GAKhN, thus enabling the theory of art to have a significant impact on the practice of art.
Alexander Dmitriev shows the influence of the debates within GAKhN on the discourse concerning the theory of art in the Soviet Union in the 1920s using the example of studies on the artistic, philosophical, and political significance of Leo Tolstoy. In the postrevolutionary period, Tolstoy's work became a field of an intense discursive struggle to define the relationship of the new Soviet culture to the classical heritage of Russian culture. In particular, the GAKhN anthology on Leo Tolstoy's Aesthetics contains (in addition to Mikhail Bakhtin's early writings on Tolstoy) an attempt at an integral interpretation of Tolstoy's theory of art, philosophy, and literary work, which was conceived as an alternative to the Marxist image of Tolstoy constructed at the time.
Another example of the debate at GAKhN, which had a broad impact on cultural sciences in the Soviet Union during the 1920s, is the discussion about the cultural significance of myth. It was triggered in the course of the reception of the neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of culture and his interpretation of language, art, and myth as "symbolic forms" and led to an intense discussion by the researchers at GAKhN (both among the supporters and the opponents of neo-Kantianism) of the theory of myth. Aleksei Losev's The Dialectics of Myth is the best-known product of this. A newly found archival document from 1923/24-the unpublished review by one of Shpet's students and a coworker in the Philosophy Department of GAKhN, Nikolay Zhinkin, on a treatise by Ernst Cassirer-is published here in translation from Russian. It is the earliest evidence concerning this debate at GAKhN on the cultural and epistemic function of myth.
The collective multiperspectivist search for knowledge about art becomes even more apparent when the examination of the texts and documents of the discussions at GAKhN is not done solely by studying the archive. In a reenactment organized as part of the project "Re-enacting Post-revolutionary Theory" (directed by Anke Hennig) at the Berliner Theater Volksbühne (16 May 2019) an attempt was made to bring the discussions at GAKhN about the term "theater" to life. Despite their fragmentary nature, these documents show an inner dramaturgy of the cognitive process, which has the formation of scientific concepts as its central subject. The tension that arose between the artistic and the scientific view of the "essence" of theater becomes particularly clear in the discussions at several meetings of the theater section of the GAKhN (the video of the reenactment can be found at the URL: https://youtu.be/ZwRwt4lsVC4).
Another attempt to construct the institutional environment of GAKhN by means of modern artistic research was presented as part of the project in the exhibition "GAKhN Displaced" (Conception: Anke Hennig; curator: Nikita Sazonov) which took place in March/April 2021 at the Moscow gallery "Fabrika" (as part of the "Year of Germany in Russia" with the support of the DFG and the Goethe-Institut-Moscow). The exhibition reflected the current experience of the dissolution of boundaries between image and concept, between art and science, by using reality to visualize selected terms from current discourse on art as artefacts (see Sazonov and Khennig 2021; documentation of the exhibition: https://gachn.de/de/main/40).
In the book accompanying the exhibition "Synthesis of the Present. The Ruins of GAKhN and Postdisciplinarity" (Sazonov and Khennig 2021), which Tatiana Mironova reviews in this issue, the concept of the exhibition is presented and explained in detail. In addition to a theoretical articulation of the idea of synthesis in contemporary science, philosophy, and art, the book contains some experimental attempts by means of artistic research and AI to reconstruct, as it were, the synthetic project of GAKhN with the means of artistic research and AI.
Two important sources of the synthetic project of GAKhN are presented in additional book reviews. Anna Yampolskaya analyzes the new edition of Kandinsky's famous treatise O dukhovnom v iskusstve [On the Spiritual in Art] by Nadia Podzemkaia (Kandinskii 2020), which consistently takes into account all revisions, additions, and changes to the text made by Kandinsky. A large collection of documents from the period of his stay in Russia until 1921, which is included in the second volume of this edition, brings new knowledge about Kandinsky's impact as a founding member of GAKhN and the conceptual foundations of his work in the Scientific and Artistic Commission.
In his review (of Collenberg-Plotnikov 2021), Patrick Flack discusses the scientific initiative for the development of a "general science of art" in Germany in the first third of the twentieth century, which was developed by Max Dessoir and Emil Utitz. This initiative was realized in the founding of a "Society for Aesthetics and a General Science of Art" as well as in several international congresses where the theoretical foundations of knowledge about art were discussed. Its central concern was to depart from the categories of the metaphysical aesthetics of beauty in order to develop a new science of art. This idea was received with great approval by the protagonists of GAKhN, especially in the circle around Gustav Shpet, which is why the concepts of the representatives of a "General Science of Art" met with intense interest in the research at GAKhN. The movement of a general science of art was suppressed in Germany during the era of National Socialism from 1933 onward. Three years earlier in Moscow, GAKhN suffered a similar fate, smashed by the Soviet government for ideological reasons and erased from the official history of science. Therefore, the study of the theoretical heritage of GAKhN today is at the same time a work on a historical memory and an image of the history of science anchored in it, which must always be critically checked and corrected.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Grant # 386757512).

Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
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