IZO

More car wars. Interesting to see the activists here, it seems from the Nashi youth movement, adopting roughly the same "civil position" as a Voina art-extremist (IZO, earlier).

The Chanel Mobile Art project, which began a year ago in Hong Kong and includes video art by the Blue Noses, is to close in New York; problems of funding mean that the tour to London, Paris and Moscow will not take place (Kommersant, in Russian).

Marat Guelman knows why he was beaten up in October 2006 (IZO, earlier, at end of post) (galerist, in Russian):

Not for internationalism, not for the exhibition of a Georgian artist at the time of an anti-Georgian campaign, and not because the Blue Noses depicted Putin naked and Christ next to Pushkin. But because I allowed [Eduard] Limonov to hold his book presentation in my gallery.

Off-top: a while ago the Blue Noses caused a scandal by demonstrating many similarities between works by famous Russian contemporary artists and those of Western artists. Their thesis was that Russian contemporary art is essentially derivative. But I suggest that the appearance of strikingly similar works by different artists is not a Russian-related phenomenon: it's a kind of a zeitgeisty thing, or maybe these are Platonic Forms? Below, an example of close resemblance between the works of two non-Russian artists: Zoe Leonard's Tree (1997), consisting of a chopped-up tree imported into the white gallery space, bolted back together and held up by cables; and Anya Gallacio's that open space within (2008), consisting of a chopped-up tree imported into the white gallery space, bolted back together and held up by cables.

Satirical Blue Noses take the familiar path ;) They're now on the job for Chanel in Central Park (NY Times) (thanks, MK).

Price-point for the kissing policemen: 14000 euros (John Varoli/Bloomberg). Price-point for smallest work by Osmolovsky from his show at Guelman Gallery (below): 5000 euros.

Interview with TG director Valentin Rodionov, mainly about the Maison Rouge Sotsart show (here and IZO passim) (Kommersant, in Russian). Rodionov:

When Sarkozy visited President Putin, he mentioned the fact that an exhibition from the Tretyakov Gallery was travelling to France and 17 works had been removed on censorship grounds. Putin replied immediately: "We don't have censorship."

I understand that Rodionov's lawsuit against Minister of Culture Alexander Sokolov protesting the allegation of "corruption" has again been delayed by a move to another court.

Video at Zoo

The age of video art seems to be well and truly here. Of five works I sold on the first day of Zoo, three were video pieces, including the most expensive, a work by Blue Noses that I sold a year ago and which the buyer asked me to re-sell on his behalf. Today three more video works were reserved. Maybe this is all a function of the brand new 46-inch 100 mhz LCD screen on which I am showing things, but I don't think so. People today regard the screen almost as their natural habitat.

Forbidden Art

Paul Abelsky in Russia Profile takes a thoughtful look at the Sakharov Museum's Forbidden Art show (registration required) (pdf) and the events and issues surrounding it.

“In Russia the fighting is rougher, tougher and dirtier, but the debates themselves are not unique to Russia,” Bown said. “ Also, I think it’s wrong to assume that the Russian bureaucracy is monolithic in its attitudes. There’s clearly a difference of opinion between the Ministry of Culture, which provides export licenses and museum wall-space for the Blue Noses and others, and the Customs’ authority and FSB, which holds up and confiscates their work.”

Biennale: first day

16.00: The exhibition of Sots Art at the Tretyakov Gallery is a fascinating one-off compilation unlikely to be repeated in the near future. It is pleasantly inclusive and discursive, treating Sots Art as a tendency - and a very loosely-defined one at that - rather than a movement with a narrow range and fixed chronology. So we get contemporary works by Blue Noses, Oleg Kulik and Diana Machulina, and also abstract works from the 60s by Lev Nussberg and others, as well as Francisco Infante’s staged photos, here presented as large illuminated transparencies. Komar and Melamid are physically and conceptually at the heart of the show. There is an array of their early works, including the double self-portrait Sots-Art. Their The People’s Choice, recently sold to a Moscow collector for a reported $1.5 million, is displayed in its entirety. Manhattan-based Leonid Sokov’s work is everywhere, epitomising the core movement’s buffoonery and social acerbity. The catalogue, if, as and when it appears, will be a must-have. Business-is-business aside: I was glad during the private view to broker the sale of four works by rising star Diana Machulina from the Overcoat Gallery of Alexander Petrelli (yes, that's a gallery he keeps in the inside of his overcoat) to a well-known London collector. Below: works from the Sots Art show by
- Ilya Kabakov and Erik Bulatov
- Komar and Melamid (banners)
- Komar and Melamid (The People's Choice)
- Komar and Melamid (Sots Art)
- Rostislav Lebedev, No Exit
- Dmitri Vrubel and Grisha Bruskin
- Blue Noses, Kitchen Suprematism

18.00:The unveiling of official projects of the Biennale at the Shchusev Museum. A  survey of Jeff Wall’s photoworks and a superb exhibition by Pipilotti Rist, including a beguiling projection and an installation; Cologne dealer Alec Lachmann buttonholed me on the staircase to insist that this was contemporary art at its very best; he's probably not far off.

19.30: The opening of the new commercial spaces at the VinZavod complex. Most of them still lack a final fit-out, but they are impressively-sized. In the unilluminated towering space of the new Aidan Gallery an audio work by Elena Berg. In the equally dark Ridzhina, video projections (by an artist whose name I couldn’t find advertised on the walls) of considerable beauty. And at Guelman a show-stopper, or show-starter: giant portrait paintings by Ilya Chichkan surmounted by basketball nets attached by the Blue Noses, loud music and a mass of loose basket-balls. Watch gallerist Guelman as he helps a distressed visitor, meets, greets, weaves, shoots...

22.00: An after-party organised by Aidan Salakhova at a swish embankment venue called The Apartments. A world away from the slushy walkways and unfinished spaces of the VinZavod. Here, at table after table, sat the high fashion and heavy money on which this scene depends. Downstairs, as I left, I saw an artist in jeans and a t-shirt engaged in a hapless effort to get past the security.

New Blue Noses

Brian Droitcour's review of the just-opened Blue Noses show at Guelman Gallery is up. A meme that recurs here (I saw it in yesterday's Russian press, although maybe it originates in some cunning gallery pr or other?) is that the Noses are the Moscow art scene's version of Borat. What does this tell us? Well, that we human beings like to understand things by analogy, I suppose. I saw the show today and was, frankly, for all my admiration for the Siberian wunderkinder (who sell well in my gallery), ever-so-slightly disappointed: the mixture of old and new work, conceived obviously as a riposte to the attack on Guelman and his gallery last year, seemed to me to lack some of the customary exuberance. But maybe I was simply feeling under the weather; certainly Tretyakov Gallery curator Andrei Erofeev's assertion that the Blue Noses are the most "impressive phenomenon" in 21st century Russian art is arguable. It is interesting note to what extent Guelman's, and more broadly Moscow artists pass around motifs and ideas among themselves: monkeys, for example, have over the past few years appeared as surrogate humans in work by Oleg Kulik and Dima Gutov and now again here.

Pants!

A Blue Noses saga, Italian-style (pdf).

Saatchi on the case

In the last few days the Saatchi Gallery blog has reprised the Blue Noses confiscation. Meanwhile, on his blog, Marat Gelman reports that the next Blue Noses show, entitled ебаный фашизм (I'll leave the translation to someone more, er, articulate than I) opens in his gallery 15th January.

Released!

Natasha Milovzorova at Guelman Gallery emails me a letter to sign, on the basis of which the eleven Blue Noses' works held at Sheremetevo Airport are to be released into Guelman Gallery hands. No word at present of any charges. Does this bear out my instinct that the whole event was a bureaucratic vagary of the customs/airport police? On a related, perhaps, topic: Masha Lipman of the Washington Post looks at the controversy around the movie Borat in Russia. Her assertion that the reluctance to distribute Borat is "the first time the post-Communist Russian authorities have banned a piece of creative expression in years" may or may not be strictly correct, but it overlooks the problems faced in recent times not only by me with the Blue Noses but also by exhibitions such as Look Out! Religion!

Post-arrestum

Gif.ru reports (in Russian) that the confiscated Blue Noses' works will be held for 10 days by the prosecutor's office.

Post-arrestum

The Blue Noses page is up on the Matthew Bown website, together with a description of the  events surrounding the show, including links to worldwide press comment.

UPDATE: here are some of the links, I'll add more as they appear:

The Art Newspaper
Culture Kiosque
PDN Online
Publius Pundit
ArtNet
International Herald Tribune
St Petersburg Times
Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Guardian Unlimited
Moscow Times
Kommersant
New York Times
The Scotsman
ArtDaily
ABC (Australia)
Reuters
Sunday Times (UK)
Axis
Newsru.com
NY Arts Magazine

Post-arrestum

I feel it behoves me to report that I was treated in civilised fashion during my detention at Sheremetevo airport, installed in the First Class Lounge, plied with tea and cake. It was of course a fairly dramatic event, being removed from the plane minutes before take-off. The little room where I was questioned is decorated with quaint Soviet-style posters warning against bribery etc., but my interrogators (there were several) didn't seem mired in the past and professed surprise that plainly absurdist works such as the Blue Noses' should have been the cause of my detention and a minor skandal. My statement was punctuated by calls from Reuters, Ekho Moskvy radio station and other news outlets who had been alerted to the story by Marat Guelman's LiveJournal and press campaign. The journalists' thesis seemed to be that my arrest signalled to re-introduction of wide state censorship of the arts. I'm not sure if I buy that. The entire exhibition has however been confiscated in Moscow, and although I believe it will be released, it is unclear to me when that might be. For the time being at least I understand that charges are being considered, although exactly for what, and against whom, I was not told. I have given an undertaking to return to Moscow as and when required.

UPDATE: I have a text from Julia Guelman: Marat has been assaulted, his gallery smashed. Maybe this puts a different complexion on yesterday's events.

Moscow contemporary lowdown

Where is Russian contemporary art at? The genius of the 90s, Oleg Kulik, now comes across as an old master, making works that are ever-more elegant. The provincials have invaded Moscow: the Blue-Noses, film-makers and performers from Siberia, are probably the notable artists of the last year. The 'South Russian Wave' from Rostov-on-Don, including Valeri Koshlyakov, Sasha Sigutin, Yuri Shabelnikov has also made an impact. Koshlyakov is a gifted 'painterly' painter whose work has  enjoyed a particular vogue in the context of the worldwide 'back to painting' movement; he has been assisted by  superb support from his Paris-based dealer Olga Golovanova. But most influential today, perhaps, are Vinogradov and Dubosarski, whose colourful vulgar technically adept canvases have earned them a small fortune over the last couple of years, penetrating bastions of western taste-making such as the Saatchi collection. Many young artists, recent graduates of the Surikov Institute et al, are churning out paintings influenced by V and D; in this context an original young thinker such as Viktor Alimpiev is rare and should be watched.