[spectre] WWW: Platform dedicated to Soviet Nonconformist Art

[Andreas Broeckmann LEU]

Zimmerli Art Museum Launches Global Resource for Soviet Nonconformist 
Art Dedicated Platform Expands Access to Renowned Dodge Collection.
From: Katerina Romanenko
Date: Jun 08, 2026

https://dodge.zimmerli.rutgers.edu

The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick is proud to 
announce the launch of a new website (dodge.zimmerli.rutgers.edu), 
dedicated to its internationally renowned Norton and Nancy Dodge 
Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, the largest 
collection of its kind in the world. This new digital platform provides 
access to the Zimmerli’s comprehensive visual and archival materials, an 
invaluable tool for everyone working in the field of Soviet and 
post-Soviet cultural history.

"The works in the Dodge Collection are testament to an entire generation 
of artists who understood, at considerable personal risk, that form 
itself was a political act,” said Maura Reilly, director of the 
Zimmerli. “For too long, the narratives surrounding this work have been 
fragmented and under-contextualized, and many of the artists and 
cultural communities represented here have received far less visibility 
than their work deserves. This new database will change all that.”

Developing this unprecedented resource would not have been possible 
without an international team of contributors. In addition to museum 
staff and digital specialists, 10 research managers, 21 translators, 11 
editors and more than 150 scholars contributed their time and expertise. 
This initial iteration features hundreds of biographic entries about 
artists from 10 countries, and some 1,200 related works of art. Research 
articles explore the origins of the Dodge Collection, as well as 
defining moments in nonconformism in Armenia, the Baltics, Belarus, 
Latvia and Ukraine.

The new site was introduced during “Art and Dissent,” the conference 
held at the Zimmerli on April 30 and May 1, 2026. Fifteen scholars 
joined museum representatives to highlight the global significance of 
the Dodge Collection as a primary resource for research, teaching and 
the reexamination of Soviet‑era art through a contemporary lens. In 
addition to the launch of the new website, the conference featured 
several roundtable discussions, with a keynote by Madina Tlostanova, a 
decolonial theorist and professor at Linköping University in Sweden. 
Research managers—including current and former Dodge Fellows—discussed 
diverse topics featured in articles that spotlight Armenia, Baltic 
countries, Belarus, Central Asia, Georgia, Ukraine and Russia. The 
agenda and scholars’ biographies are available in the conference program 
and videos of sessions are available on the Zimmerli’s YouTube channel.

The Dodge website and conference were made possible by the generous 
support of the ADWT Endowment and Operating Fund, with additional 
support from the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund and the Trust for 
Mutual Understanding. Special thanks to the Armenian General Benevolent 
Union (AGBU) for their informational sponsorship of the conference 
program. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the New Jersey 
State Council on the Arts offered additional support.


Reference / Quellennachweis:
WWW: New Art-Historical Resource on the Web. In: ArtHist.net, Jun 14, 
2026. <https://arthist.net/archive/52708>.