Color the Picture

// Zhanna Vasilyeva, Itogi, vol. 10 (560), March 5, 2007
5 march 2007

The Moscow Biennale will go on for more than a month. Just as in 2005, practically all the Russian capital will become its venue, including the TSUM shopping center and even the unfinished Federation Tower. The latter two venues house the display of the main project denoted by the international group of curators as Footnotes: Geopolitics, Markets, Amnesia. Just this part of the art festival presents more than a 100 artworks from 30 countries of the world. The names of the Biennale special guests are in every conversation. They promise the visits of such stars of contemporary art as Matthew Barney, Jeff Wall, Valie Export, Robert Wilson, Yoko Ono… The range of special projects is also impressive: it covers such varied spheres as Sots-Art and Thinking Realism at the Tretyakov Gallery and the Urban Formalism at the Contemporary Art Museum; from Populated Centers by Alexander Brodsky that had already been displayed at the Architecture Biennale in Venice to the new confrontation at the Ugra river near the Nicola-Lenivets Village (the Asiopa action)… And don’t forget the parallel programs.

He Who Has Ears…

The opening ceremony of the Second Moscow Biennale has confirmed one fact: contemporary actual art has become not just an attribute of a good, or democratic, to be more exact, manner in a civilized society, it has formed a part of an image of the new Russia. In other words, this country is regarded now as a component of global cultural space designated by a standard set of “border posts”, such as multiculturalism, non-conformism, openness. Generally speaking, that was partially understandable already in 2005 after the Russia! show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York which one clever radical artist called “An Exhibition of National Achievements on a tour”. To be short, today actual art is to perform approximately the same function Socialist Realism had in recent past. But the latter presented a polished visage of “popular” Utopia, while actual art displays fashionable antiglamourism of capitalist reality. The only consolation – quite a weak one, to be sure – is that we are not alone in this situation. We march in step with Europe, Asia, America… It is a not real Left March! For the Red Marines our poet praised, but ...

Surely most artists are not happy with this situation. And not just because they are so radical. As a matter of fact, there are two ways to accept a high level of creation. One of them is commercial. That is, when your work is sold at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, for instance. The other one is non-profit. It is when your painting or sculpture has been selected for the display of some biennale or other significant events. Both criteria are not absolute. But the latter has a higher rating. It is believed to balance the momentary art market situation with independent statements of curators and art experts. Their authority is to guarantee the uniqueness and actuality of an art object. Its independence, if you prefer it that way. Strange as it may seem, but this has the highest value in the market. In other words, the independence and lack of engagement on the part of the creator increases the value of his or her work. What can an artist do in this trap? Naturally, to stake on non-conformism is his or her business. It is in an infinite distancing both from the government ideology, and from the market. Or he or she will be of no interest to neither of them.

There is another question. What can the curators of a biennale of actual art do in the situation of a government order? And it is not just a matter of 52 millions of budget rubles which are to be used and which all the media presented like some gold rain that poured over Danae. An order for non-conformism is something to rake your brain on. Joseph Backstein, the Russian curator of the Biennale, suggested a brilliant solution outlining the concept of this Biennale as Footnotes: Geopolitics, Markets, Amnesia. What could that mean in a universally understandable language? In the past art has pretended to create a special world. The author was its creator, its Demiurge. At the start of the 20th century artists came out with a Utopian idea of changing the world by means of art. The world has been transformed by the end of the century, but the Demiurges in question were not asked if the transformation went right. Every person is his or her own producer in this new post-informational world. If you have regarded yourself as a king and a God, what can you do then? The only way to follow is to distance yourself from the text which is not your property any longer. You can take up the role of a commentator (political analyzer, probably), or an expert editor, if you like. The text is surely to be urgent, of course. It is to contain actuality. It is about something that concerns everybody, like geopolitics, markets and memory. That is why the scientific conference organized within the framework of the Biennale was not a marginal end-up to its main and special program, but its central part. Its focus. It was not by chance that practically all famous Russian artists, to say nothing of art critics, curators and Western journalists, attended the lecture of Giorgio Agamben, the Italian culturologist of world fame. It is not by chance that at the fourth storey of the TSUM shopping center, where American video art is displayed, one could also watch a video recording of ten lectures delivered at the international conference in November during the first stage of preparation for the Biennale. It is not just a funny gesture. The Renaissance epoch had started once with the philological studies performed by experts in antiquities. An unknown epoch waiting on the threshold also starts in the university lecture halls, not at bank offices. It is a well-planned message to hide a lecture hall in a nook of the fourth storey of a gorgeous shopping center. The new world is growing in the storage rooms or attics of the consumer society.

Behind the Glass

Well, this is fine, but even 10 lectures cannot replace one show. And if you have footnotes you must also have the main text. The idea of the main text emerged quite recently. Its title, strange as it may seem, is the Federation Tower. An unfinished skyscraper. The better for it. It seems to unite a dirty construction pit and sparkling lights of the future, the stark flesh of construction and the glamour of office space. A construction site where one must get a pass to enter is a symbol of working, non-capitalist life, and, simultaneously, of new modernization. It’s a pity that the visitors will not be carried upwards by construction elevators as journalists were. They promised to put ordinary elevators into operation by that time. Nevertheless, the main project of the Biennale housed by the 19th, 20th and 21st storeys bets on extreme. On the extreme exterior, if you excuse this pun. It wasn’t for nothing that a half of the journalists rushed to photograph Moscow views from the helicopter height, while the other half photographed the construction worker hanging in stage outside the glass and working on external seams of the building.

This worker also had something to look at. A geopoetical performance by Yuri Leiderman was developing on the other side of the glass from him. Three black males wearing snow-white shirts were drinking rum at tables and watching white-and-black documentary of the WWII period. These black were also recorded on video. On the other window-pane Dan Perzhovsky from Romania was making drawings illustrating his improvised comments upon the theme of geopolitics and markets with indelible marker. A skyscraper had already appeared in the corner of his picture with an inscription “outsider art” to comment it. The best thing was that anyone could feel as an outsider in this tower, be it a gastarbeiter or a black from Guinea-Bissau, to say nothing of radical artists. Everyone could equally discover himself as a participant of the show. Well, common experience is the first step in a search for a common language.

Everything I said above does not mean that there is nothing to look at at the shows of the main project. On the contrary, it is supposed that the viewer would be prepared to watch artworks contemplating the most acute issues of the globalized world. Sometimes these works literally use poster style, like the TPS group of leftist Argentine artists. Sometimes the message is in the minimalistic language of a memorial board like that of Gianni Motti who presented the list of the Guantanamo Bay prison victims. Sometimes it is in the poetic style of Iranian documentary like those of Shodja Azari. Sometimes it is in the brutal and swift video performance, such as that of El Perro group from Spain. Five projections placed in a narrow room registered a teenager rushing on his skateboard through ruins of a semi-destroyed house in the center of Madrid. This building can be crushed and broken. Until you are too tired to do it. The fact that it doesn’t change anything is a different matter. The T-shirt and the skateboard of the guy feature “democracy” as a slogan.

It is quite understandable that, despite all the variety of artworks presented in the Tower, one feels the impression of a looped video. Nonconformist art makes a statement of social crisis and of the inability to overcome it. It looks like nothing can be done about it, except speaking. The situation resembles the one we had during the stagnation period of the Soviet system, when intellectuals had long discussions on their life at private kitchens.

It is not surprising that the way leading out of this blind alley must be about the same as the one of 1970s. The stagnation period gave birth to the Moscow conceptualism focusing on reflection concerning the language of art. Today we also see the Urban Formalism displayed at the Contemporary Art Museum in Yermolayevskoye within the framework of the Biennale. Nine Russian artists represented here are engaged in the contemplation of form. It is quite a fascinating spectacle, by the way. You can’t find a single privileged thing here. All the works have passed the test. Take, for instance, the Expectation video installation by Vladimir Logutov and the Train by the Blue Soup group which leave the viewer under a spell.

A fusion of statements is another way out of the situation. But here the criteria are technological rather than thematic. This is, by the way, how the show of American video art has been arranged at the TSUM shopping center. It also rhymes with a M’ARS show which has already housed Art Digital 2006. Marginal State, the festival of Russian video art four times. It is an ideal diagnosis of the Moscow Biennale situation. And they say that the marginal state can last for an indefinite period, by the way.

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