Mikhail Karasik

Бабилониская башня СССР

The Tower of Babel of the USSR

St. Petersburg. 2010

575 x 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.