Moscow Gave Itself up to Artists

// Igor Grebelnikov, Friday, March 2, 2007, vol. 37 (1811)
2 march 2007

Contemporary art demands that the viewer makes a certain effort, and it is not exactly liked for it. It is not something like a movie or a theatre where you have learned about the experience of personages, recognized yourself in them, cheered up or went sad, and that is all, this is the end, you are free to go. And it is not something like a museum of classical art where paintings, generally speaking, are pleasant to see, even when they depict nightmares. It is believed that the viewer has to rake his or her brains to realize what the artist wanted to express with his or her work when we deal with contemporary art. Nothing of the kind. Take, for instance, an exhibit from the main project of the Biennale at the Federation Tower, a cage with a young man wearing an expensive suit inside making telephone calls every minute. It is The Broker by Gianni Motti, a “living” sculpture. And the funniest thing is that this broker is real. So what is this work about? It deals with the virtuality of large-scale business, of the total dependence on the market, of personal non-freedom, and of something important developing right in front of us. No matter how many interpretations are emerging, no matter how comic the broker looks, we deal with an important issue – according to the standards of contemporary art, at least.

The theme of the Biennale sounds quite highbrow – Footnotes: Geopolitics, Markets, Amnesia. It outlines the world we live in, where borders are changing, the market is becoming global, the notion of time is determined by the level of technological development, where life is frozen. What is next? It is no surprise that the After Everything show opening at the unfinished Federation Tower is prefaced with a quotation from John Lennon’s Imagine: “You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one”. It is no harm to dream, but it is more and more difficult to do it, and the Biennale registers precisely this trend.

Over the Borders

The genre of “footnotes” contemporary art allocated for itself at the Moscow Biennale does not imply just questions or just answers. The artists do not have anybody to pose their questions to, and few people use their answers for authorities and business are believed to have “paid a ransom” to art with the very opportunity to hold such major expensive art shows. (The Moscow Biennale, by the way, with its budget of 2 million euro is not the most expensive one in the world, the last Venice Biennale cost three times as much). The theme of the Biennale is dealt with not only in the shows of the main projects (there are five of them, four shows at the Federation Tower, and one at the TSUM shopping center), all other art shows of the festival are also responsible for its interpretation.

The borderline is one of the key notions of contemporary culture, and those who break borders, i. e. marginal personalities, seem to be its main characters. Geographic borders have changed in our lifetime. The USSR, Yugoslavia are no longer with us, Europe is uniting. Perhaps, borderlines are conventional? Maja Bajevic, a female artist from Bosnia, erected a sound installation titled Forward, the People! where 30 loudspeakers begin to blare the songs of various ethnic groups when viewers approach them producing an awful, absurd cacophony. The maps of the world by Russian artist Ilya Trushevsky feature light panels with familiar multi-colored shapes of countries. These political maps light up for several seconds and then black flies emerge through the surface turning them into morbid still lives with insects.

The work by Federico Herrero from Costa Rica is also about borderlines in art: he is covering everything he could except the canvas – the floor, the walls, window panes – with abstract painting.

It is hard to trace the borderline of the black and white in the performance by Nedko Solakov from Bulgaria where two men are painting the walls of one room white and black, taking turns, continuing this work during the exhibition (and not a single one for this performance was launched in 1998). So, if you see wall painters painting walls black and white in the unfinished Federation Tower, don’t forget – it is a famous artwork.

Farewell to Arms!

Pacifism still gains powerful support both on the part of the governments waging wars, and from the young artists.

Afghan artist Lida Abdul is shooting videos, mainly devoted to the topics of her motherland devastated by war. A couple of years ago she made a famous White House performance where she, wearing a Muslim veil against the background of a sunlit landscape, was painting ruins white to the accompaniment of sad melody symbolizing either mourning, or truce. Her 16-minute video titled The War is Over. What We Saw when We Woke up will be displayed in Moscow. In this video Afghan men wearing ethnic costumes are pulling ropes fixed on the wall of a destroyed house.

Amal Kenavi, a female artist from Egypt, uses her fantasy to imagine what could color the walls of a military hospital – her video installation is about reminiscences and dreams in the environment of war and pain.

Gianni Motti, an Italian artist, reminded the world of Abu Ghuraib prisoners: he seated himself on the VIP seats of Roland Garros with a yellow paper sack on his head, and his action was broadcast by all the leading TV companies of the world. Now we can see it on video.

A post-war absurdity can be found in the performance by Yelena Kovylina (it is displayed at the Lenin Museum): the artist wearing a soldiers tunic hung up with military awards is drinking vodka and inviting everybody who comes handy for a dance. A drink of vodka is followed by a dance, and so on, until she is senselessly drunk.

For Sharks of Capitalism

The most favorite targets of artistic criticism are consumer society, advertising, brand power, consumerism.

A container with a stream of cheap plastic commodities pouring out of it is a true dumping site (an object by Liu Jianhua from China). Monica Bonvicini produced a light installation with two giant inscriptions that resemble an advertisement, exposing it: Desire and Built for Crime. Luca Pancrazzi has driven a Maserati glued over with broken glass to Moscow – you can never pat its hood complacently. He also produces furniture in this style.

Daniel Pflumm from Switzerland displays light-boxes of brands.

A huge pink and violet word “Aurora” displayed by Carmela Gross, a female artist from Brazil, also looks like a sign, but it is not clear what it advertises: is it the Goddess of the sunrise, a cruiser, or a São Paulo street where prostitutes make their business?

A pack of cigarettes called “No Smoking” was invented by Jon Kermeling from the Netherlands.

Well, hardline opponents of consumerism and the producers of advertising will find something interesting for them here.

Human Factor

Neurosis, cruelty, violence, old age also concern contemporary art. All sorts of “children” produced by Bilyana Djurdjevic, a female artist from Serbia, are very much like “Kids” by Larry Clerk, but they are painted. Of age, underage, they sorrowfully model for the artist who took another effort to reveal the mysteries of sexualities and fears of children to the viewer.

The Last Supper, a film by Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström from Sweden, is about a prisoners’ custom according to which those who are facing capital punishment can choose their last supper for themselves. The artists spoke to the cook, to prison warders, former inmates.

A sorrowful video installation by Darren Almond titled If You Were by My Side is devoted to deceased grandmother of the artist. Display screens are set out in the underground storage facilities of Vinzavod, the former wine factory, fragments of her life are projected on them in slow motion accompanied with quiet piano music. Wandering around the objects of this installation produces an unexpected effect, and the darkness of exhibitional space enhances the gloom.

Playing Classic

In order to balance artistic forces, young artists participating in the Biennale are generously interspersed with classics of contemporary art. The issues that fascinate young people have not emerged yesterday.

Even today, when the time is much freer, one couldn’t help feeling astounded by the radicalism of the 1960-70s feminist actions of Valie Export from Austria. The same refers to Yoko Ono’s uninhibited installation titled The Odyssey of a Cockroach when aged artist equipped herself with photo and video cameras and crawled along several New York streets.

And Drink My Ocean, an installation by Pipilotti Rist from Switzerland, is like living magic water that washes all the painful, tormenting and gloomy impressions of the Moscow Biennale. The projections of the beautiful female artist dabbling and singing in azure Sea would bring back into life the flaking ceilings of the Apothecary Department at the Architecture Museum.

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