Trips Out of Town archive and MANI Buchgalterium Anthology

The archive holds a unique collection of materials relating to the activities of the group Collective Actions. The members of the group, which was founded in 1976, varied from project to project and included a number of Moscow artists, writers, and musicians. In 1989 the members decided to pause their practice, resuming in 1995.

An important part of the group’s work involved the creation of the Moscow Archive of New Art (MANI) in 1980, when Andrei Monastyrski edited the first volume of Out of Gown. The archive, transferred to Garage in 2020, includes original copies of eight volumes of Trips Out of Town (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 6, № 7, No. 8 and No. 9) and the Buchgalterium anthology of Moscow Archive of New Art.

Each volume was published in four copies. Andrei Monastyrsky, Ilya Kabakov, Anatoly Zhigalov and Natalia Abalakova each had a copy, with one copy belonging to different people at different times.

About Collective Actions

The group was founded in 1976. The original members were Nikita Alexeev (until 1980), George Kiesewalter, Andrei Monastyrski, Elena Elagina, Igor Makarevich, and (in 1985) Sabine Haensgen. In 1989, the participants decided to put the group’s activities on pause, resuming their practice in 1995. Collective Actions took part in the Biennale of Dissent in Venice in 1977 and returned to Venice in 2011 during the 54th Biennale with the exhibition Empty Zones: Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions.

About the founder

Paruyr Davtyan (b. 1976, Leninakan (now Gyumri), Armenia) is a performance and installation artist and collector and the youngest representative of the analytical branch of Moscow Conceptualism. He graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow in 2010 and has been a member of the art collectives Edelweiss, Tsar Gory,and Kupidon with Yuri Albert, Victor Skersis, and Andrey Filippov. He lives and works in Moscow.