Boris Groys

Boris Groys read Philosophy and Mathematics at Leningrad University and worked at various scientific institutes in Russia before leaving for West Germany in 1981. He subsequently took up guest professorships in the USA at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Since 1994, Boris Groys has been Professor of Philosophy, the Aesthetics of Art and Art Theory, and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe State College of Design. He came to prominence in Germany primarily as a result of his essays on intellectual and art history in 20th century Russia and through his interpretation of Soviet culture as »Stalin's total art work«. 

Groys' key publications include: »Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin«, Munich 1988; »Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie«, Munich 1992; »Die Erfindung Russlands«, Munich 1995; »Die Kunst der Installation« [with Ilja Kabakov], Munich 1996; »Unter Verdacht. Eine Phänomenologie der Medien«, Munich 2000; »Politik der Unsterblichkeit. Vier Gespräche mit Thomas Knöfel«, Munich 2002. His recently published book »Topologie der Kunst« takes the relationship between museum space and its profane surroundings as the point of departure for a new look at where [contemporary] art stands.

[2006]