New Blockheads Cooperative Archive

The archive of the New Blockheads Cooperative encompasses the history of the group, which was active from 1996 to 2002 and organized over seventy actions and performances. 

The original members included Vadim Flyagin, Igor Panin, Vladimir Kozin, Sergey Spirikhin, Inga Nagel, and Alexander Lyashko, who were later joined by Elena Neverdovskaya, Oleg Khvostov, and Maxim Raiskin. The artists, writers, philosophers, critics, and others related to the group shared a “blunt” perspective on reality as a reaction against the social and cultural turbulence of the time, which inspired spontaneous and absurdist practices. 

The archive contains video recordings of performances, handwritten drafts for the series The New Blockheads Pay Tribute, photographs documenting their trips to Europe, several projects by Vladimir Kozin (Home History of Arts; Mother‑in‑Law) Alexander Lyashko and Vadim Flyagin’s photographic project Camouflage, works by and personal belongings of the artists, press cuttings reflecting the reception of the group’s work in St. Petersburg art circles, as well as a collection of ephemera for events they took part in. The archive also includes issues of the samizdat magazine Maksimka, founded by Maxim Raiskin, small‑edition publications, and early works by Sergey Spirikhin created using the pseudonym Mao Meviao. Part of the archive comprises correspondence, in particular Spirikhin’s letters to poet Alexander Ilyanen.