IZO

Art in Russia: Under Attack (Konstantin Akinshin/Art News).

So, did they have an intern on the job for an hour, or what? At time of writing, Amnesty International has got all of ten celebrities to sign a letter in defence of Andrei Erofeev and Yuri Samodurov (Amnesty International). The Russian LJ community ru_art_free (motto: in art we free!) follows the state crackdown on Russian culture (ru_art_free, in Russian).

Last week in Berlin I attended an evening lecture given by Mikhail Ryklin. Ryklin has the reputation of Russia's leading philosopher in the city (note: he was also the husband of the late artist Anna Mikhalchuk,  IZO), and so I went along in some anticipation. But I was disappointed. His talk (delivered in German) was a matter of polemics rather than philosophy. He began with the hoary notion that Moscow aspires to the status of the Third Rome, using this as a connector between Stalin and Putin-Medvedev regimes. Then he focused on the state of art censorship in Russia today, with particular attention to the Forbidden Art trial (IZO). The major artist-hero of the resistance, in Ryklin's view, seems to be Alexander Kosolapov, author of the painting This Is My Blood, which juxtaposes Jesus and Coca-Cola. What Ryklin had to say wasn't so much controversial as - coming from a leading academic and intellectual - superficial and boring. It was a rehash of the dissident analyses of Soviet power in the 50s-80s with emphasis now on the repressive tendencies of the Church rather than the Party. At one point Ryklin juxtaposed two events: the receipt by Ilya Kabakov of the Order of Friendship from President Medvedev, and criticism of a work by Kabakov by church activists, and stated that he couldn't logically reconcile these two events. Well, of course he couldn't, because he posits an old-style monolithic Establishment in which there is not a sliver of light between the political and the religious elites, the FSB and the Church. But this is plainly not the case. And Ryklin didn't mention the influential liberal-oligarchic establishment - much of it Jewish - in the form of such figures as Abramovich (who sponsors the Garage), Mamut (owner of LiveJournal), Lebedev and Prokhorov (publishers), Yuri Milner ("owner of half the Russian internet") etc.

The Forbidden Art prosecution of curator Andrei Erofeev and human rights activist Yuri Samodurov re-commenced on Friday 29 May and was adjourned for a week. The hearing was marked by a demonstration from the art-group Bombily (Gypsy-Cab Drivers) (Kommersant, in Russian):

One, dressed in a white sheet and with his eyes bandaged, holding pink weighing scales and a foam-board sword, representing the Greek Goddess Themis, headed the procession. She was driven forward by a young man with an armband bearing a swastika, holding a long branch. With this flail he was mercilessly beating the back of the figure in front while loudly reciting poetry. At the end of the procession young people held a banner with the slogan "The prosecution of artists is violence against justice".

Recent articles by John Varoli

Some of these appear in the May issue of The Art Newspaper but are not necessarily available on the internet. Full texts below the cut.

The Forbidden Art trial (IZO), which was put on hold because of an attack on Andrei Erofeev, has been restarted (kovalev-org, in Russian). I note that in different reports Andrei Erofeev wasn't beaten up, he fell down the stairs.

Ilya and Emiliya Kabakov comment on the Forbidden Art affair (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian).

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).

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.

The Sakharov Museum, whose director is facing prosecution for the Forbidden Art show of March 2007, has decided it will not continue with the planned series of annual exhibitions of censored art (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Since being sacked by the Tretyakov Gallery, Andrei Erofeev has been approached by more than one rich person asking him to assemble the works for a museum of contemporary art.

At a recent round-table in the Tretyakov Gallery, gallery director Valentin Rodionov agreed to write to the prosecutor in the Forbidden Art case and request a second expert opinion on the works in question (Kommersant, in Russian). Andrei Erofeev explains why he was sacked by the Tretyakov Gallery (Kommersant, in Russian):

Because I wrote and spoke out about the Tretyakov Gallery's institutional crisis. It is primarily a crisis of the administration. The Tretyakov is run by unprofessional people who do not support the interests of the museum art historical community, who are afraid of living art and of society's cultural dialogue with this art (...) The empty spaces at Krymski Val are reminiscent of the Kremlin sanatorium "Forest Reaches": huge windows, flowers in the winter-garden, Yugoslavian chandeliers, aimlessly wandering policemen - and no visitors. It's the biggest museum building in Moscow and has 80 visitors a day.

A long video interview with Marat Guelman about the museum-funding question, the Erofeev affair and Olga Sviblova (galerist, in Russian). Meanwhile, on the Forbidden Art question, Igor Markin thinks that (art4ru):

Without a doubt the time will come when Erofeev will be asked to return to the Tretyakov Gallery on a white horse,
soon Rodionov will despatched on the heels of the former Minister of Culture Sokolov direct to Hell
very soon

Having sacked Andrei Erofeev, the Tretyakov Gallery now says it will help him defend himself in the Forbidden Art prosecution (Utro.ru, in Russian):

Rodionov rejects any connection between the pending court case and Erofeev's sacking, while the Russian art-world sees a direct relationship between the two events.

Forbidden Art: apparently eight of Erofeev's co-workers at the Tretyakov Gallery have handed in their resignations (Artforum). Yuri Samodurov, the Sakharov Centre director, has given an interview to Deutsche Welle (dw-world.de, in Russian).

Andrei Erofeev, curator of the politically controversial Sotsart show at the Maison Rouge in Paris and also of the Forbidden Art exhibition at the Sakharov Centre, both last year, has been sacked by the Tretyakov Gallery for "breaking museum rules" (нарушение музейного порядка); the New Directions department which he headed will be reorganised. (Gazeta.ru, in Russian). Erofeev fears that the fledgling collection of contemporary art at the TG will be dismantled and dispersed (Kommersant, in Russian). Meanwhile, the investigation into Forbidden Art, in 15 volumes, has been completed and handed to the prosecutor (Polit.ru, in Russian).

Ekaterina Degot provides comprehensive history and analysis of the show Forbidden Art at the Sakharov Museum (IZO, passim) and the subsequent prosecution of its organisers, Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Erofeev (Open Space, in Russian). She asserts:

Anyone who has been paying attention will be in no doubt that contemporary art here is merely a cover for ultra-right forces who weant to destroy the Sakharov Museum.

She deals with the question of intimidation, by the example of prosecution, of curators and museum directors; but, of course, no-one admits to actually having been intimidated. Although it's happening, for sure. For example, Elena Kovylina's film Dying Swans, a bloody piece of minimalist baroque in which a killer stalks a ballerina, shown recently at Rabouan Moussion Gallery in Paris, was commissioned originally by the Contemporary City Foundation in Moscow, whose director, when he saw the finished product, refused to show it, citing fear of reprisals.

Degot also offers a grown-up sweep at the scandal-artists such as Blue Noses, PG Group and Voina, who use sex as part of their shock tactics:

As the art historian Catherine Millet wrote in her book, The Secret Life of Catherine M, when as a young woman she couldn't think of anything intelligent to say, she usually proceeded to oral sex.

Oh, the old oral sex get-out, I'm so tired of it...

Beneath the cut: an article of mine, Shut The Duck Up, that was printed in the March 2008 issue of the journal Index on Censorship  (for some mysterious reason, Index doesn't publish its articles on the internet). It covers some of the territory as Degot; it's out of date now (Alexander Sokolov is no longer Minister of Culture, for example), but may be of interest. UPDATE: it just so happens that that particular issue of Index on Censorship (March 2008) last night won the Periodical Award at the Amnesty Media Awards (Jeremy Dear).

Nobel Prize-winner Vitali Ginzburg has published an open letter in support of the organisers of the show Forbidden Art (IZO, passim); he argues that to prosecute the organisers is to flout the constitution, which guarantees freedom of belief (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

The leader of the Congress of Russia's Jewish Religious Communities, Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, believes that the authors of the Forbidden Art exhibition  (IZO, passim) are "provocateurs" (Interfax):

According to the rabbi, this exhibition was "mocking at Orthodox symbols, icon, ideals" and provokes its visitors to aggression towards the Orthodox Church and to anti-Semitic demonstrations. (...) "Why all of us have to suffer for idiocies of the high-handed!" the rabbi exclaims.

On 29 May in the Aidan Gallery at Vinzavod there was a discussion of the charges laid against Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Erofeev in the Forbidden Art affair (IZO, passim). The Voina group have provided a useful survey of the situation, with links (scuko_ebetsya, pdf download, in Russian). Below: a view of the meeting, decorations by Voina, slogan Censorship Sucks.

Andrei Erofeev, head of the New Directions department at the Tretyakov Gallery, is the second person to be charged in connection with the show Forbidden Art (IZO, passim); he is accused of breaking a law against the inciting of "racial, national and religious enmity" (Lenta.ru, in Russian). A photo-reporton Erofeev's arrival at court for questioning on 22 May and the picket outside is on the Russian Street Art blog, whence the below pic.

Yuri Samodurov, head of the Sakharov Centre, has been charged over the exhibition Forbidden Art (IZO, passim) (The Other Russia).

Forbidden Art

The Sakharov Museum was searched today in connection with the prosecution of the 2006-7 show Forbidden Art; apparently the policemen didn't take anything away (Gazeta.ru, in Russian).

News round-up

As usual, IZO is first with the showbiz news ;)

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Sotheby's evening sale results: over top estimate, so a very good result, but a fairly high unsold rate (I counted 14 lots, Varoli says 12, out of 57). Interestingly, the prices are now stretching even the oligarchs:

[Andrei] Ruzhnikov [a partner at Aurora Fine Art Investments, a fund owned by oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg] said he only bought a "few things'' at the sale because he prefers to buy directly from owners because prices have become "too high'' at auctions.

Kommersant on Sunday's charity sale of contemporary Russian art; more info here in Russian. Price points: Zvezdochetov, 2007, $45,000; Shekhovtsev $4,000; Monastyrsky, collages, $15,000 each.

The day before yesterday Andrei Erofeev was interrogated by the FSB in connection with the show Forbidden Art. A third party tells me that he likened the interrogation by a young investigator, including allegations of anti-Russian activity, to something out of the 1930s.

Russian art round-up from Artnet.

News round-up

Marat Guelman is unhappy (in Russian) with his landlords at Vinzavod; seems like rent increases, service charges etc are being introduced now that the place is a success.

One source tells me that the Tretyakov Gallery office of Andrei Erofeev, organiser of the Paris Sotsart show, was searched recently by the FSB in connection with an earlier show he curated, Forbidden Art. However, there doesn't, on a cursory search, appear to be any confirmation of this in the media.

Today I visited the Kandinsky Prize show at Vinzavod. To an extent it seems like a pr exercise, designed to ingratiate the prize with as many different parties as possible: a large number of artists have been invited (far more than, for example, the 5 or 6 on the Turner Prize shortlist) and the net cast wider than the usual suspects represented by the other usual suspects (gallerists Guelman, Aidan, Ridzhina, XL). My choices would have been different, but it's a very handy survey of recent Russian contemporary art.

Sitting up until past 1 am to attempt to buy the painting below by Julian Schnabel at Christies, I realise that the Moscow-NY time difference is probably one important reason why the Russian sales in NY don't do as well as those in London. I was tempted to forget the whole business and go to sleep.

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.”

News round-up

A criminal inquiry has been opened against the organisers of the show Forbidden Art, staged in the Sakharov Centre, Moscow, last year; see The International Herald Tribune or the BBC (in Russian).

RIA Novosti reports on negotiations for the return of the artworks removed by Captain Baldin from Germany in 1945. Apparently a favoured idea now is for the works to go back in return for a 'storage charge' of 2 million euros. Not bad: over the period 1945-2007 that equates to more than 32,000 euros a year for the space under Captain Baldin's bed... ;)

Finally, a couple of old geezers, er, I mean, geniuses. Alexander Solzhenitsyn getting the State Prize from President Putin (via LJ user dmitrivrubel), and Boris Mikhailov in the Ukrainian pavilion, Venice.

Innocence and experience

A recent article in Specnaz.ru (pdf; in Russian) ("Newspaper of the Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terror Unit") identifies Marat Guelman (incorrectly) as curator of the show Forbidden Art (see here, here) and indeed mounts a concerted attack on him as the figurehead of all that is wrong with contemporary Russian art. It includes an analysis of the political situation in Russia that may be close to the truth - the only choice today is between different forms of the nationalist idea - and what could, considering the recent assult on Guelman, be interpreted as an exhortation to attack him, or worse: in a discussion of differences of "taste", it comments that

All you can do is kill a person ... with whom you have real and profound difference of taste. If not physically, then socially, by alienating yourself from him, by putting yourself and him into different social universes.

So, in the High and Far-Off Future Times, will Russia 2007 look as innocent as the old USSR does to us?  Notwithstanding the ongoing struggle, sometimes violent, between nationalists and cosmopolitans, westernisers and slavophiles, the outcome of which we can only guess, it may well do. Time sweetens things; not just the official press but even the non-conformist artists and cutting-edge art curators are lyrical these days about the Brezhnev years. Although, I don't know, maybe they really weren't so bad compared to the struggle for fame and fortune in Manhattan, Paris or Tel Aviv.

In an attempt to bolster the thesis that dreamy nostalgia will trump the bare facts of history, I offer below a couple of films from nearly 30 years ago. This is the stuff they're watching on YouTube, not documentaries on the Evil Empire. The Korgis' Young and Russian (1979) was apparently screened on British TV preceding the announcement that Sir Anthony Blount, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, was a Russian spy.

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And the closing ceremony of the '80 Olympics features a giant inflated, somewhat scary Misha.

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Lawsuit as expected

The Baltimore Sun reports that the Andrei Erofeev-curated show Forbidden Art is now the object of a lawsuit.

Forbidden art?

The Moscow Times reviews (pdf) the show Forbidden Art at the Andrei Sakharov Museum.

"The curator has simply broken the law," church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin said. "Defacing a religious ­symbol such as Jesus Christ is not art. It is a civil crime."

Curator Andrei Yerofeyev countered: "Chaplin just wants to make a name for himself." Saying it is not for the church to decide what is art, he added: "Only an artist knows how to portray ­Jesus."