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Piling Station
The Second Biennale of Contemporary Art in Moscow
// Sergey Khachaturov, Vremya Novostey, Vol. 38 March 05, 2007
5 march 2007
As a matter of fact, there is nothing to feel proud about here. When a biennale of contemporary art is organized in the country, it just confirms that the country is civilized and open to the world. Can one be so proud just because he or she washes hands before dinner and uses a handkerchief? The biennale explores the socium, ethics and aesthetics, makes a diagnosis of the society. And the organization of such a festival is an ordinary, normal process.
The Second Biennale turned out to be better than the first one. This is a fact. The main project of it displayed at the Federation Tower was really good in the quality of installation using the complicated and problematic space of an unfinished skyscraper. The project dealing with the theme of Footnotes: Geopolitics. Markets. Amnesia was shared by several curators from different countries. As it usually happens, the show features artworks of good reputation, even masterpieces, and mediocre ones. Yet, the spectacular, stage-like idea of touring the curvature of the Tower culminating in installations and combined with the contemplation of the textured construction site of the Moscow City through the glass walls of the building was quite a success. The conceptual component of the project demands for a separate discussion. We would deal with it latter. Even now one could say that standard reprimands addressed to any hyper-project with a huge budget, crowds of administrators etc. could refer to the Federation Tower. They still got a parade of separate ideas, rather that a common message or discussion devoted to a certain topic (and the formula of it was conspicuously ambiguous – try to grasp it!) Yet, it is a must to visit the Tower, just to take part in the attraction of ascending the 19th storey in the worker’s hanging stage crawling up the façade of the building under construction, or to enjoy the best artwork of the show, a miracle room and magic mechanisms of Donna Ong, a female artist from Singapore.
Besides the Federation Tower, we also recommend to visit three more venues of special projects on weekend. The most important of them is Vinzavod, the former wine factory where you can see the boxes of famous Moscow galleries (Aidan, Regina, XL) which moved to the new premises. Here you can also visit a large-scale social project titled We are Your Future devoted to the art of third world countries of Asia and Latin America. At the same venue young Russian artists headed by Stas Shuripa made a spectacular show titled Matter and Memory. If you want to press your cheek against fragrant fresh grass in the March slush, find the ecologically clean panel by Maksim Rusakov at the show! The same venue also houses a sequel of the “believe therapy” organized by Oleg Kulik.
The second venue of importance is the Contemporary Art Center which displays the archive of good old actionism of 1960-70s, of charismatic feminist Valie Export. At the same Contemporary Art Center you can hear the quiet sounds uttered by earphones set up around bookshelves with musical notes at the sophisticated show titled The Things We Hear, the Things Looking at Us. The participants of the show include classics of conceptual music and visual art, such as Vladimir Martynov, Brian Irvine, Vladimir Tarasov, Ivan Sokolov. The center of the hall offers an installation by Vadim Zakharov, a piano wrapped in black is standing there, and TV sets showing depictions of statues of Chinese emperors are set up at the edges of the wrapping. The emperors are listening to Chopin.
And, at last, the third venue one shouldn’t miss is the Tretyakov Gallery at the Krymsky Val. Its halls house a large-scale display of Russian and Chinese Sots-Art. If anybody skipped this topic, don’t forget to learn more about it, the project has been made with academic thoroughness and fullness (curators Andrey Yerofeyev and Xin Dong Cheng). The Russians present all the heroes of the moment: Komar & Melamid, Sokov, Orlov, The Nest Group, Kosolapov etc…
The general impression of the Second Biennale, for me, at least, is associated with a railway station near St. Petersburg bearing a funny name of Navalochnaya (Piling) station. Huge heaps of art have been poured over the heads of the confused viewer with a minimum of explanations and comments, while the structure of the show is amorphous and falling apart. And problems are inevitable: despite the heroic effort of the press-centre, it is very difficult to purchase the catalogue; works of Chinese artists have not been delivered upon the opening day of the Sots-Art show – they had problems at the customs; a passage to the Federation Tower turned into a true performance on the opening day when you had to stay a two-hour queue (in the wind and wet snow) among the divas of European art community wearing fur mantles and fur coats. They never knew that the hanging stage crawling up the façade of the Federation Tower cannot take more than ten people at once!
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