Mikhail Karasik.
THE ATLANTIS OF THE USSR

This publication has been produced for the exhibition “Mikhail Karasik. The Atlantis of the USSR”,
Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, 2013.
Articles by Alexander Borovsky, Mikhail Karasik, Irina Korobina
English translation by Paul Williams
Compiled by Marina Orlova
Design by Mikhail Karasik
St Petersburg: Timofei Markov Publishers, 2013
Printed in “OOO NP-Print”, St Petersburg, 2013
148 pp. with colour illustrations. 235 × 285 mm
In an edition of 500 copies
ISBN 978-5-906281-05-0

Perhaps the most unpredictable artistic objects arise in the “border zone” between architecture and other arts. Within that group a place apart is occupied by Mikhail Karasik’s hand-made books, the results of the mutual interpenetration of art, design, book illustration, lithography… Mikhail’s creative approach is close in spirit to visionary architects, but in contrast to them he does not plan but researches. The topic of research presented at the exhibition “The Atlantis of the USSR” is Soviet pre-war and post-war architecture, as well as designer culture in various manifestations. With an artist’s insight Mikhail selects the most emblematic objects of various scales that precisely convey the aura of the Golden Age within the Soviet era. They include Communism’s Tower of Babel – the famous Palace of Soviets designed by Boris Iofan, Leningrad Constructivism, fragments of the urban environment and agitation design… These are relics of a past civilization, a whole world that no longer exists.

Irina Korobyina, director of the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture