Mikhail Karasik. The Tower of Babel of the USSR

St Petersburg, 2010. 575 × 475 mm

In The Tower of Babel of the USSR Karasik focuses on the design, from the early 1930s, of the Palace of Soviets by Boris Iofan (1891–1976), the architect favoured by Stalinist regime. In this book he continues the theme of the Soviet Atlantis which the artist introduced in 2006 with The Palace of Soviets. Iofan’s megalomaniac project of a 100-metre-high statue of Lenin, was never materialized and literally drowned when the construction pit became an open-air swimming pool. Karasik shows us Iofan’s mythical design in 15 colour lithographs printed on separate sheets in a 15 copy edition in two different versions: 4 on white Arches paper; 11 on cream Rives paper. A smaller book-edition with 10 illustrations was printed in 20 copy edition. Both editions with an introductory text are bound with metal covers.