IZO

A NY Times reader's follow-up to that paper's piece on Dasha Zhukova (Peter Roussak/NY Times):

Would The Times have published a similarly flattering article a week after Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia describing how a senior Nazi official’s’ daughter, backed by money stolen from the state, was making waves in the art world, based apparently more on her looks and money than on knowledge of art?

And I would love to know what besides “perseverance” enabled this well-connected oligarch’s daughter to “take over” the lease from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, and how the federation feels about the takeover.

Well, in possible relation to the second question, one of the Moscow synagogues contains a plaque commemorating a large donation by Roman Abramovich.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov are planning to open a Kabakov museum on Long Island. Apparently, until prices rose dramatically last year, they were buying works back (Open Space, in Russian). The Kabakovs are not unique in this: I recently got an email from someone representing Julian Schnabel, who wanted to buy back a painting I have.

Photo-correspondent Pavel Kassin believes that the German Spiegel magazine is not printing his photographs of Tskhinvali for pro-USA political reasons (lenizdat.ru, in Russian).

Russian art shows in Lund, Sweden: Eisenstein, Muratova, Mikhailov, Chernysheva (e-flux).

In St Petersburg on 27 August a print-run of the artists' magazine Chto Delat was seized by police and the editor, artist Dmitri Vilensky, arrested: they were caught up apparently in a crackdown on an opposition printing-press (Mute). More (Lenizdat.ru, in Russian).

Computer game Ghost Recon, released in 2001, predicted the Russia-Georgia war? (A Dark Topography and ghostrecon.net)

Karen Shakhnazarov, head of Mosfilm studios, talks at length about the Russian film business today (Kommersant, in Russian):

Pirated copies are incredibly harmful to our cinema. In western budgeting, the cinema screening only brings in about 17% of the income, the rest is from DVD sales. ... Representatives of firms who produce legal DVDs [say] that in Russia about 80% of DVDs are pirated copies.

Russian clowns in Macau (Macau Daily Times):

The Family is about a ceaseless power struggle between an alcoholic father ever threatening to leave, a pregnant mother ever threatening to deliver, and their four children threatening to clobber both parents for their failings, whilst paying a tribute to both contemporary and traditional clowns.

The Forbidden Art court case was due to start today, but Andrei Erofeev fell down the stairs and injured himself, causing a postponement, I hear. UPDATE: the case was delayed at the request of Erofeev's lawyer because of her client's illness (Rosbalt, in Russian).

The growth in internet usage in Russia is the highest in Europe: up 27% in a year (Kommersant, in Russian).

Russia's New Isolation (David Riff/Open Space, in Russian). There are multiple perspectives: it will be impossible to compete with the Chinese (Iosif Backstein); that's all I needed! (Volker Diehl); the intellectuals are to blame (Keti Chukhrov); history is coming too close (Tereza Mavika); Russia's cultural isolation is already a fact (Viktor Miziano); self-absorption is the normal way for Russia (Boris Grois); and a few more. My answer was:

I don't expect the political situation, i.e. physical conflict in Georgia and war of words with NATO, in its present form to substantially affect cultural policy within Russia or the development of Russian contemporary art worldwide.

So far, I don't envisage any putative "new political isolation" affecting my work. Obviously, things might change.

If there is a negative shift in western sentiment about Russian art it could, for example, affect the American market in Soviet realism. But most of the secondary market is founded on patriotic Russian buying. The fight in Georgia is also interpreted in patriotic terms: by heightening the patriotic mood, it could even be a reason for Russians to buy more Russian art, however perverse that may seem! In theory, if the NATO-Russia conflict sharpens, Russian buyers might boycott the Western auction houses, just as they have recently (with government encouragement) boycotted the London Economic Forum. I've wondered about the possibility of this happening before the current crisis: obviously, all that would be required is a word from on high. If there was such a boycott, prices would fall.

If there is a downturn in the contemporary market I think that will be because of a downturn worldwide. As far as exhibition and curatorial activity is concerned, I think that the contemporary art-world is sufficiently international and autonomous of politicking to continue on its way. No-one is going to blame Alexander Kosolapov, Blue Noses, Dima Gutov or Alexei Buldakov for recent events (I admit, probably someone will blame Marat Guelman). All the more so, perhaps, because there are many different opinions about the rights and wrongs of the situation in Georgia.

God's way of teaching Americans geography? (via ravens-doll). Actually, the joke may contain a grain of truth.

I was recently asked by Russian culture portal Open Space my opinion on the extent to which the Russia-Georgia war would impact the art world; I'll link when the survey is published but basically my answer was: contemporary exhibitions and market - not much; secondary market - to some degree, possibly. Anecdotally there is an effect on the cultural space in the form of censorship. In Moscow for example, Bakur Bakuradze, Georgian director of award-winning movie Shultes, has been told by a couple of publications that now is not the time to publish interviews that he gave recently. In Georgia, Vladimir Gusinsky's RTVi TV channel was summarily taken off the air after it broadcast an interview with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Works from the Francois Pinault contemporary art collection will be shown at the CCC-Moscow Garage in February 2009 (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Ekaterina Degot on the new high fashion for contemporary art and where logically it might lead (Vedomosti, in Russian):

Maybe Mr Sarkozy will curate a show in the Pushkin Museum for Olga Sviblova's Photobiennale, maybe he'll hang the show himself... let's say, it's of photos of his girlfriend. ... Is that too fantastical? Not really.

In response to Degot, and the current mass delusion that all contemporary artists live high on the hog, Imperator Wawa writes (imperator_wawa, in Russian):

There are more or less well-known artists with a long exhibition career who have EITHER NEVER SOLD ANYTHING OR WHO HAVE SOLD BUT A SINGLE PICTURE maybe by accident during the perestroika era.

This is also true.The market is fashion-driven, although the auction houses will try to convnce you it's all about "quality", and fashions change dramatically. I bought a tremendous, big 1989 painting by Tim Head, who was a UK rep at the Venice Biennale in the 80s, for £500 at auction recently. Head is currently out of fashion: in the 80s he was one of British art's hottest names. As far as the UK art today is concerned, everyone buys Damien Hirst and then Hirst spreads the money around buying work by other British artists for his collection.  For example, the buyers of the major pieces at Mat Collishaw's recent Haunch of Venison show were, I believe, Messrs Pinault, Pinchuk and Hirst. For all I know Hirst has more money now to spend on art than Charles Saatchi.

A season of films by Russians, to accompany a forthcoming show of American Artists from the Russian Empire at the Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma (NewsOK.com)

President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity apparently drinking three litres of wine to celebrate his country's independence.

Worker and Collective-Farm Woman update: the restoration of Vera Mukhina's famous sculpture will now be completed in 2010, "provided that there are no problems with financing" (Russia-IC):

[Head of the restoration group] Vadim Tserkonvikov noted that about 150 million rubles [$6.5 million] were allocated for the monument restoration, but the whole amount went to subcontractors at once.

Olga Sviblova's appointment as curator of the Russian pavilion at the next Venice Biennale has been annulled and an "open competition" announced? (galerist, in Russian).

The new brand image for Perm Potatoes by well-known designer Dmitri Kavko (via pavlix, in Russian).

Flirting with art? More on Dasha Zook-OH-va (Guardian).

Flirting with Stalin (Prospect). Somewhat impressionistic, inaccurate when it comes to art (it dates the origin of Sotsart to the 80s), and totally inadequate in its analysis of the struggle of the liberal intelligentsia who are dismissed merely as "losers"; but maybe worth a read if you have nothing else going on.

Our Saviour's Transfiguration Church, destroyed in Moscow in 1964, is to be re-created (Russia-IC).

As anticipated some time ago on IZO, legislation has been introduced in the State Duma to create a public council which will check morality in films and on TV (Russia-IC):

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes that “the council must not forbid anything, but should formulate an opinion, which will be brought to the viewers’ notice. Film director Pavel Lungin, in his turn, assures that “if the council will decide what amount of blood can be used and what not, then it is hopeless”.

Viola player Yuri Bashmet will "take the baton" from Valeri Gergiev and play a concert in battered Tskhinvali (Rossiisskaya Gazeta, in Russian).

Full details of the extensive Ilya and Emilia Kabakov show which opens in Moscow on 16 September (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

The growth of the Russian fashion-pack (Daily Mail).

A Russian oligarch, Arkadi Gaidamak (he's the author, I believe, of a book on the Russian Empire style), has trouble repeating his success in the transparent business environment of the West (Haaretz.com).

Yuri Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Centre, has resigned (gazeta.ru, in Russian); a further hearing in the Forbidden Art case, in which Samodurov is accused of stirring up racial hatred, is due on 29 August, I read somewhere.

Vladimir Sorokin has published a new collection of short stories, Sugar Kremlin (Сахарный Кремль), apparently a sequel to Day of the Oprichnik  (Kommersant, in Russian):

It's about contemporary Russia, which stands at the tipping-point of the XX and XXI centuries. A century of high technology but Soviet mentality - that is contemporary Russia. I wanted to say my word abvout this. It's a phenomenal situation, that Russia cannot shake off sovietism and devises more and more new forms of it. 

The Litvinenko story is analysed in Alan S. Cowell's The Terminal Spy (NY Times).

Pocket-size DJ "scratch-pad" by Russian designer Art Lebedev: impress the girls or what?

It turns out that Cy Oggins's cover was - art dealer (inRich).

At the Rock For Freedom concert in St Petersburg on Friday police attempted to arrest Mikhail Borzykin, lead singer of the group Television, when he performed a song about the war in Georgia, which he described as "revolting" and "ugly". The police accused Borzykin of using obscene language. The crowd apparently prevented the arrest (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

More on what may replace the Central House of the Artist (ANN, in Russian).

Thoughts on Valeri Gergiev's concert last Wednesday Thursday evening in South Ossetia (Times); Gergiev is himself an Ossetian and a confidante of Prime Minister Putin. One of the pieces played was Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony (Kommersant, in Russian): a possibly incongruous appeal to the Stalinist wartime spirit.

Sylvester Stallone will star in an advertising campaign for Russian vodka (Times of Malta):

"The advertising campaign concept was based on the fact that the actor has Russian roots," Synergy said in a statement, referring to Mr Stallone's great-grandmother, Rosa Rabinovich, from the Ukrainian town of Odessa.

Marat Guelman has apparently received death-threats from someone who figures in one of his diary posts (galerist, in Russian). Igor Markin has an idea who the aggrieved party might be (art4ru, in Russian); presumably his suggestion is based on an earlier post by Guelman which deals with the arrest of the former Moscow Region Minister of Finance, Aleksei Kuznetsov (galerist, in Russian).

On a multi-family holiday in Sweden over the last week I made the acquaintance of a young Moscow graffiti artist. His nickname I cannot reveal, but the group, which numbers over a hundred members, is called Зачем (What For?) and is headed by a 62-year-old gentleman known as Frost. The son of one of Moscow's leading gallerists is also a member: graffiti seems in fact to be an occupation of the capital's gilded youth rather than angry proles.

An exhibition about A-Ya, the emigre magazine through which many, including me, became acquainted witrh Russian underground art (Moscow Times).

In The Shadow Of The Bronze Soldier: as the author, Mark Almond Oxford, says, an affair that may be worth revisiting in the light of the Russia-Georgia conflict (Mark Almond Oxford).

A preview of Fifty Years of Loss, a German show about artworks taken by Russia during WWII and returned to Germany in 1958; the article also considers what has not come back (Bloomberg):

One gaping loss is a Rubens masterpiece, "Tarquinius and Lucretia,'' that was cut out of its frame by a Soviet officer before the arrival of Stalin's Trophy Commission. He kept it rolled up and stored in his attic until his death in 1999.    

A private collector then purchased it in Moscow for $3.5 million and paid for a costly renovation before trying to sell it back to Germany for $60 million. The German government turned down the offer and sued to try to recover the picture. A Moscow court rejected the claim, saying the current owner had acquired it "in good faith.''

I guess some of the many missing pieces are still floating around on a shadowy market. In the early 90s someone in Moscow offered me a Van Dyck portrait which he was toting around in a plastic carrier bag: he had all the info on it, old German museum catalogue etc. And at roughly the same time someone I know spent a large amount of money - all she had - on a purported war-booty Corot that turned out to be fake.

Deep Purple will perform in September at the Yugra music festival, which celebrates the oil industry in Khanty-Mansiisk (Vek, in Russian).

A couple of readers have been in touch to point out a recent profile of Dasha Zhukova (New York Times) (thanks, MLV and YT). I was aware of it but for some reason couldn't link to it on the blog by mobile phone from an island in Sweden. For good measure here's a bit more: Zhukova is refusing to sell Italian designers in her Moscow boutique, preferring Russians and Brits (My Fashion Life).

Photo reportage from the war in South Ossetia; some gruesome images included (navoine.ru, in Russian).

A look at the Russian-Georgian propaganda war on the internet (Media Channel).

The actors seem to have won the fight for their building on the Arbat; an order transferring its ownership to Rossvyazokhrankultura has been withdrawn (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport, a star in Italy, will lead the opening ceremony of the Venice Film Festival (gazeta.ru, in Russian)

I'll be on holiday in Sweden for a week, beginning today, so won't be posting news regularly.

The Gagosian Gallery exhibition in Moscow in September will include work Hirst, Koons, Serra, De Kooning, Murakami and other post-war art-stars. Alpha Bank, which collaborated on the first Gagosian Gallery show in Russia, held in Barvikha earlier this year, will not be supporting this event: negotiations were broken off a few days ago (Kommersant, in Russian).