Monuments Askew

Monuments Askew: An Elliptical History of the Factory of the Eccentric Actor presents a cultural history of the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS), an avant-garde collective of Ukrainian artists whose unique approach to monumental history generated a new kind of cinema for a modernizing Soviet era. Often lost in the shuffle of this period, FEKSs vibrant and experimental cinematic output initiated a youthful and cheeky overhaul of Soviet revolutionary culture. Monuments Askew reveals the foundational role of this understudied group of artistsincluding Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Traubergand uses their own theoretical contributions to undo the foundations of our understanding of Soviet media and arts. As a counter to a solely cinema-focused conceptualization of this era, I develop a transnational media theory of eccentricity. Defining eccentric circles as warped, irregular orbits that force a realignment of centers, Monuments Askew shows how FEKSs body of work inspires an eccentric realignment of the pillars of Soviet visual culture, and indeed of monumentality itself.