Through first-hand accounts, curators, artists, and writers share their behind-the-scenes experiences, which are further elucidated through rare installation documentation, articles, and press coverage of the exhibitions and events they organized. The book concludes with an archive of selected texts that conveys the zeitgeist of the emerging art scene, as well as a chronology of key exhibitions and socio-political events. Contributors include: Ruth Addison, Mikhail Bode, Andrei Erofeev, Kate Fowle, Boris Groys, Alanna Heiss, Jean-Hubert Martin, Andrey Misiano, Viktor Misiano, Sasha Obukhova, Simon de Pury, David A. Ross, Tair Salakhov, Aidan Salakhova, Sergei Serp, Lisa Schmitz, Mary Angela Schroth, Zelfira Tregulova, Margarita Tupitsyn, and Carl Michael von Hausswolff Exhibit Russia is the first in a new series of books by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art on research and materials in Garage Archive Collection.

EXHIBIT RUSSIA: THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DECADE 1986–1996

Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986–1996 is the first publication to explore how the Russian art scene connected to the rest of the world during the turbulent decade following perestroika. Focusing on the exhibitions and events which propelled Russian artists to international attention and introduced Russian publics to Western art stars—Exhibit Russia provides a unique perspective on the dawning of the contemporary global art world.

EXHIBIT RUSSIA: THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DECADE 1986–1996 EDITED BY KATE FOWLE AND RUTH ADDISON

PREFACE Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986—1990 is the first in a new series of books by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art providing access to the research and materials in Garage Archive Collection. A unique public resource for unofficial Soviet and Russian contemporary art, the Archive Collection is the largest holding of its kind in Russia, containing thousands of documents, images, and videos that attest to artists’ practices from across the country since the mid-1950s. This book captures the zeitgeist of a critical period: the decade that followed Mikhail Gorbachev’s introduction—in 1985—of a series of reforms, which included the policy of glasnost (openness). In the art world these changes heralded unprecedented opportunities for international artists to show their work in the Soviet Union and, perhaps more importantly, for Soviet artists to show their work in, and eventually travel to, the West. The implications of these developments are revealed through fifteen little-known, but seminal, exhibitions and events, which have been selected for the specific perspective they add to the overall picture of the decade. Included are projects that embraced the new opportunities for “official” cultural exchanges; grass roots, collaborative exhibitions; the first international shows to capture the character of the Russian underground art scene; the first forays into the art market and into building a public collection of Russian contemporary art; and contemporary surveys of historic movements such as the Russian avant-garde or Socialist Realism. Initiated by a diverse group of curators living and working in Russia, the US, and Europe, together the various projects reveal much more than the theme and content of their respective subjects, capturing a shared, international desire to come to grips with constituencies of the art world that—for nearly seventy years—had little public profile. My thanks go to the many artists, historians, and curators who shared their insights, personal archives, and knowledge of the era to enable this book to come to fruition. Their contributions have made it possible to produce a volume that includes newly commissioned texts, as well as a great deal of contemporaneous material, some of it previously unpublished and much of it, until now, overlooked. In selecting the fifteen case studies, the Garage team considered a great number of exhibitions and events, all of which are cited in the chronology, but—given the chaotic nature of exhibition making during this period and the lack of attention to the recent history of contemporary art in Russia—there are undoubtedly relevant exhibitions that we have unwittingly omitted. We hope, therefore, that this book will be considered a first account of the period, but additionally act as a catalyst to uncovering more documentation on, and writing about, overlooked exhibitions of the time and that Garage Archive Collection will, as a result, be able to reflect an increasingly nuanced and complex view of this fertile moment in Russia’s art history. Anton Belov Director, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art 2

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface | 3 Anton Belov The New International Decade 1986–1996 | 6 Kate Fowle

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01

Sots Art | 36 New York/Calgary/Syracuse, 1986–1987

02

Sotheby’s Auction. Russian Avant-Garde and Soviet Contemporary Art | 50 Moscow, 1988

03

ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/Берлин-Москва | 58 Berlin/Moscow/Stockholm, 1988–1990

04

Central House of Artists | 74 (Günther Uecker, Francis Bacon, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, Gilbert & George, James Rosenquist, Jannis Kounellis) Moscow, 1988–1991

05

Mosca: Terza Roma | 94 Rome, 1989

06

Tsaritsyno Museum Collection | 110 (To the Object, In Rooms, The Artist Instead of the Artwork) Moscow/Amsterdam/Bratislava, 1990–1994

07

We to Rauschenberg, Rauschenberg to Us | 132 Venice, 1990

08

Territory of Art | 144 St. Petersburg, 1990

09

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism | 156 Tacoma/Boston/Des Moines, 1990–1991

10

APT-ART International | 166 Moscow, 1991–1993

11

The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde 1915–1932 | 184 New York/Amsterdam/Moscow/St. Petersburg, 1992–1994

12

Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956 | 198 New York, 1993–1994

13

Fluchtpunkt Moskau | 208 Aachen, 1994

14

Kunst im Verborgenen: Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995 | 218 Ludwigshafen am Rhein/Kassel/Altenburg, 1995

15

INTEЯPOL | 230 Stockholm, 1996

From the Archive | 248 Chronology 1986–1996 | 322 Contributor Biographies | 346 Selected Bibliography | 350 Name Index | 358 Acknowledgements | 368

5

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DECADE 1986–1996

For centuries, the term “glasnost” has been used in the Russian language to refer to or call upon a public process of justice or governance. Variously translated as “openness,” “transparency,” or “publicity,” its closest meaning in E ­ nglish is “freedom of speech.” When Mikhail Gorbachev became the Communist Party General Secretary in March 1985, he introduced the term as one of three slogans promoting his campaign to reform the Soviet Union, calling for “glasnost” in public discussion, “perestroika” (restructuring) in the economy and political system, and “novoye mneniya” (new thinking) in foreign policy.1 Together these concepts became faltering steps toward a civil society, not least setting off an explosion of activity and change in contemporary art from 1986, when glasnost took hold. Ultimately, however, the reforms failed to reinvigorate the Soviet system and became the precursor to its c­ ollapse in 1991, which then momentarily focused an international spotlight on Russia as a significant new market for business and culture. Although fleeting, this moment ushered in what could be termed as the new international decade in art from 1986–1996, the results of which can be best understood through the exhibitions and events that it spurred in Russia and abroad.

THE OPENING UP OF AN ART SCENE In the cultural sphere, two of the earliest outcomes of glasnost were the proliferation of media outlets (if not freedom of the press) 6

and the reduction of cultural censorship. These developments in turn gave rise to an increased political profile for the arts, as both the potential weapon and Achilles heel of the Party’s mission to demonstrate the liberalization of power and information. Already on October 7, 1986, atthe annual celebrations for the October R ­ evolution, Secretary of Ideology Yegor Ligachev used art as a cautionary example of the perils of taking too much ­creative license with the truth: “At the center of discussions at the moment is the issue of the truthfulness with which reality is reflected in art. Soviet people are in favor of truth, but this must be the whole truth and not a one-sided truth; the truth of life in all its variety. . . . ­Naturally, this means that masters of culture and our creative young people must have, first and foremost, a precise political orientation in their world outlook, a responsible attitude both toward themselves and toward their cause, and a genuine spirit of the people and party.”2 Then, at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) plenum in January 1987, Gorbachev also focused on art, but instead suggested culture was being held back by the crises in the system, as if retaliating against Ligachev: “The ideology and mentality of stagnation were also reflected in the sphere of culture, literature, and the arts. […] Criteria for

assessing artistic creativity declined. […] Along with works that raised serious social and moral problems and reflected real-life conflicts, there appeared a good many mediocre, faceless works that provided nothing for either the mind or the senses.”3 Although ultimately doing little to directly secure future freedoms for the arts, by dismissing the creative climate of pre-glasnost culture, Gorbachev edged open a door through which many intellectuals were able to step. Accordingly, from 1986 through the early 1990s, a surge of creative activity greatly increased the spectrum of contemporary artistic production rising to broad public attention. While the battle for literature was waged in the publishing houses, the war for the visual arts played out in exhibitions, which were instigated by an increasing number of art world figures and officials during the glasnost period, both in Russia and further afield.

Khrushschev’s late-night “secret” speech, in 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, which denounced Stalin and his oppressive regime. Khrushchev’s subsequent reforms led to the first international trade and cultural exchanges since the 1917 Revolution, as well as a more lenient policy toward Soviets traveling abroad and foreigners visiting the Soviet Union. In July 1957, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students reportedly welcomed over 30,000 foreign visitors to Moscow, where they attended events including a show in Gorky Park of more than 4,500 works by young artists from fifty-three countries. The Festival introduced the concept of postwar abstraction to Soviet artists, specifically through a workshop and a seminar called “Art and Life,” which involved both local and international practitioners.5 Two

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS To comprehend the significance of exhibitions and events that unfolded in the decade after 1986 it is relevant to look back at the political circumstances that facilitated their fruition, and to provide a context for glasnost’s effect on the promotion of contemporary art in Russia into an international phenomenon. From 1932 (under Stalin) until the 1980s, exhibitions were permitted only as part of the official dissemination of state-sanctioned art. Termed Socialist Realism, this art was produced by state-sanctioned artists who were under the jurisdiction of the Union of Artists and ultimately the Ministry of Culture.4 So-called “unofficial” artists—those who did not adhere to the mandated glorification of communist ideals—were given no opportunity to exhibit publicly, insofar as their production had no perceived social purpose or value. There were a few exceptions to this impasse, the first of which took place as a result of the thaw ushered in by Premier Nikita

The American National Exhibition, Moscow, Summer 1959 Digital still, The American Exhibition in Moscow, United States Information Agency, Photo: George Kiesewalter Courtesy Masey Archives

years later, works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Arshile Gorky were included in the 1959 American National ­E xhibition, in Moscow, which was the first formal presentation of Abstract Expressionist and Surrealist artists from the United States.6 This is today regarded as one of the most influential exhibitions for the establishment of a new Soviet avant-garde—comprising proponents of an unofficial form of modernism—which gained momentum through the participating artists’ shared interest in Western European and American modernism, and particularly abstraction.7 7

This brief moment of improved international relations8 temporarily elided the divide between official and unofficial Soviet artists and contributed to the rejection of Socialist Realism as “truth.” But the détente was brought to an end by the exhibition Thirty Years of Moscow Art, held at the city’s Manege exhibition hall in December 1962, for which Vladimir Serov, president of the Academy of Fine Arts, selected Socialist Realist works to be presented alongside those by unofficial artists. According to reports, on touring the exhibition, Khrushchev was o ­ utraged by much of what he saw, and particularly the general irreverence for Socialist ­Realist doctrines and the emphasis on abstraction. While in the exhibition, he is quoted as declaring, “[…] we are going to maintain a strict policy of art. […] Gentlemen, we are declaring war on you!”9 The next significant documented public display of unofficial, or “nonconformist” art was an abortive open-air exhibition on September 15, 1974, known as the “Bulldozer Exhibition.” Organized by artists Oskar Rabin, Lydia Masterkova, Vladimir Nemukhin, and Evgeny Rukhin, with around thirty other participants, the event took place in a remote field in the urban forest of Belyaevo, in Moscow. Within hours of the works being installed—predominantly paintings propped up on the grass, or presented on easels—a government bulldozer tore through the displays, destroying them, while high-pressure hoses dispersed the crowds. Joseph Backstein, a curator who was present at the time, has written about the event: “If it weren’t for the strong international reaction, the bulldozer exhibition would have been forgotten. As it turned out, the organizers invited every foreign correspondent they knew and all of them turned up, making it one of the most documented events in the history of Russian contemporary art. The New York Times put the bulldozer story on their front page along with some Komar and Melamid paintings. These artists woke up the next day to find themselves known around the world.”10 The recent expansion of media outlets fed this international press attention, causing 8

enough discomfort to the authorities to lead to a second, similar event which would become known as Izmailovo, an officially sanctioned, unofficial, open submission show named after the open-air location in which it was held. Thereafter, a number of sanctioned exhibitions took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Kharkov in the late 1970s, and were reportedly regularly attended by Western diplomats and journalists who spread the word about the emerging scene. Involving poetry readings, performances, and debates, these events demonstrated the loosening of the Party’s

The First Fall Open Air Show of Paintings (“Bulldozer Exhibition”), Moscow, September 15, 1974

hold on the presentation of unofficial art, but were fraught with numerous encounters with law enforcers, who were quick to close down events or arrest participants when too many liberties were deemed to have been taken.11 Even before the “Bulldozer Exhibition,” the young artist-duo Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid was becoming known, particularly for coining the term Sots Art, which is a riff on Pop Art, using “Sots” as shorthand for “socialist” (as in Socialist Realism). Sots Art encompassed the practices of a number of unofficial Moscow artists, including Erik Bulatov, Alexander Kosolapov, and Leonid Sokov, as well as Komar and Melamid themselves, all of whom together comprised the first underground avant-garde movement to actively challenge and deconstruct the tenets of Socialist Realism and Soviet mythology, rather than unintentionally producing political

work through referencing the traditions of Western Modernism and abstraction.12 In the 1970s there were a number of attempts to present Sots Art in Moscow, which not only failed, but also led to Komar and Melamid’s expulsion from the Youth Section of the Union of Soviet Artists. Ultimately, it wasn’t until the duo had emigrated, via Israel, to the United States in 1978 and 1977 respectively, that they were able to gain any traction for the concept of Sots Art. By press accounts, it was their fifth show in New York at Ronald Feldman Gallery in 1982, that brought the artists mixed acclaim, but great attention.13 Meanwhile, in Moscow, in spite of the loosening of State exhibition policies, many of the younger artists—those who were not self-styled Soviet modernists but who became known as the Moscow Conceptualists14—did not exhibit publicly in the 1970s. This is not to say that these artists did not share their practices, but rather that they did so through clandestine assemblies between friends, in apartmentstudios, fields, or forests, with shows that lasted only as long as each respective gathering. These activities marked the beginnings of a particular style of exhibition-making that was unique to Soviet art, and that in part reflected the prioritization of conceptual propositions, rather than the production of physical works. Artist Vadim Zakharov, who was one of the youngest Moscow Conceptualists, describes the process as follows:

Map of how to get to Izmailovo Park from the Moscow Metro, 1974

Visitors to the exhibition at Izmailovo Park, Moscow, September 29, 1974

“At times one can regard exhibitions as correcting mechanisms within a system. With this in mind it does not matter how long an exhibition lasted, whether one hour or two days; thirty minutes was enough for an insider to receive information, to analyze it, and for this particular exhibition to clamber into its own historical niche.”15 By 1982, the younger group of underground artists including Zakharov, Yuri Albert, Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Dmitri Prigov, and Sven Gundlakh “formalized” their meetings through establishing the APTART Gallery in the apartment of artist Nikita Alexeev. According to

Visitors to the exhibition at Izmailovo Park, Moscow, September 29, 1974

9

in unofficial Soviet art, which they were able to experience first-hand through the APTART shows or similar events, rather than subsequently through hearsay or press. The (semi) public displays—as transient as they were—and the newly established studios, spurred the production of objects, paintings, and performances, which emerged as a new Soviet art. This surge of exposure also rapidly impacted the dialogues, ambitions, and attitudes of both the artists and the foreign visitors, ultimately defining the selection of artists that rose to prominence, and the kinds of works that took to the international stage. To quote Tupitsyn again:

The first exhibition in the APTART Gallery, 1982 Photo: George Kiesewalter

curator, critic, and historian Margarita Tupitsyn, by turning a “twenty-year-old tradition into a conceptual spectacle,” the protagonists of the APTART Gallery “redefined the idea of the public exhibition.” In other words, by making semi-public the “illegal” gatherings of artists that had taken place in apartments for years, a new form of exhibition was born: one without white walls, labels, and promotion, but no less central to the potential of making an artist’s reputation within the circles that paid attention. In effect, the creation of the APTART Gallery, and the recognition of the underground system and network it represented, was a significant evolution in how these artists were able to articulate their respective practices, which in turn produced new art forms: “They also gave a new edge to the chronic deficiencies of alternative art, such as 10

small canvases and poor materials, when they stopped trying to solve the technical problems of painting (previously the main concern of Soviet modernists) and began to assimilate those deficiencies within the media in which they chose to present their ideas, including shabby installations and objects found in Moscow rubbish. In general, all Apt-artists shared a casual approach toward artistic materials, widely incorporated mass imagery in their work, saturated visual elements with verbal ones, and subjected many issues to parodic treatment.”16 It was into this context that glasnost was introduced by Gorbachev in 1985, permanently changing the relationship between the underground art scene and official culture. As a consequence, a new generation of foreign curators and journalists started to show an interest

“With a leadership backing Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, the rigidity of exhibition policies finally began to crumble, and by late 1986 former Apt-artists were faced not with the questions of where to exhibit, but rather with the dilemma of where to produce their large scale works. Most ex-members of the Apt-art community found working spaces in abandoned art nouveau apartment buildings located on Furmanny pereulok (lane). These studios, which closed down in late 1989, due to the building’s reconstruction, functioned from early 1986 on, as the key places for foreign dealers who saw Soviet art as a profitable product for the Western art market, for collectors bewildered by Sotheby’s triumphant auction, and for curators asked to put together hasty exhibitions. In the words of the artist Konstantin Zvezdochotov, if ‘Apt-art was one kind of socio-cultural psychopathology,’ the glasnost period created “a different type.” Zvezdochotov’s close friend and colleague Vadim Zakharov stresses the difference between the two epochs of late Soviet ­alternative art: ‘The fact is that three years ago there were only thirty of us in the whole Soviet Union. Now the situation has radically changed. A period of seduction has set in. A mass of new names has appeared, people of ­a completely different formation.”17 Tupitsyn characterizes this transitional period as marking an evolution, from a close-knit

Erik Bulatov, Revolution-Perestroika (1988) © Erik Bulatov

community into an eco-system, in which different versions of contemporary art could exist independently of historic allegiances. However, philosopher, theorist, and art critic, Boris Groys, suggests that this period represented something more final, in that it signaled the end of an era, but did not necessarily usher in any concrete alternative: “Gorbachev’s Soviet Union of the glasnost period has discovered a new sphere of power: that of the media and international fashion. Despite a notable difference in their points of departure and aims, the interest in this new sphere in which to apply aesthetic power is common to both Gorbachev and his entourage and the unofficial art of Moscow and Leningrad. Whatever the future destiny of this trend, it can already be said with certainty that an entire era (which, for Russian culture, can be somewhat arbitrarily defined as the period stretching from Suprematism and Constructivism, through Socialist Realism, to Sots Art), along with its orientation toward a unique artistic and aesthetic project, has passed and hereafter belongs to the past. It is thus that we have the right to approach it as a completed phenomenon that can be examined in its entirety.”18 11

When this was published, in the exhibition catalogue for Contemporary Russian Artists19 (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Prato, 1990), the fragile infrastructure of the unofficial system established by artists was already showing signs of erosion and the official system was also coming under intense scrutiny, particularly in the case of the mandate of the Artists Union. Whether understood as a time of transition or as a rupture, what has become evident is the speed and force of the changes effected and experienced in this period—such as the new exhibition models and opportunities, or the increased national and international audiences—left little time for methodical examination and documentation, and it is this which, even today, renders the activities of the time and the work of artists who participated largely absent from the annals of art history.

NEW OPERATING SYSTEMS From 1986 onwards, the introduction of contemporary Western art to Russia, and Russian contemporary art to the West, followed three parallel trajectories: official, unofficial, and émigré. Despite the differences in each approach and the advantages and disadvantages for the respective protagonists, a measure of unity was provided in that it was shared connections and chance meetings that led to realizing exhibitions, rather than any formalized strategies geared toward satisfying the burgeoning demand for access. This ad hoc state of affairs was further complicated by the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and with it the total, if temporary, collapse of all its bureaucratic protocols. In all, the period produced a chaotic, competitive, and illogical system, rather than the beginning of a sustainable infrastructure for exhibitions and cultural exchange. Zakharov described his reactions at the time: “Attempts are now going on to mix different structures, and it must be said, these attempts are not without success. The policy is being stubbornly, rudely, and blindly persisted with, and most amazingly it is taking place as much on the official 12

side as on the Western side. […] [But] was it necessary to do it in this way, so stupidly? Nobody consulted us, neither those who had oppressed us nor those who opened doors and windows to the world market. It was the cruelty of some and the indifference of others.”20 This frustration becomes evident in reading the accounts by artists that appear in the contemporary press, at the time, as outlined in many of the chapters of this book. Moreover, the continuous pressure on artists to explain their practice and provide social and political insight to confused curators and journalists, created a self-consciousness that was unthinkable during their time as underground practitioners. A clear example of the impact of such exposure is the 1988 Sotheby’s auction in Moscow, which was the most influential event to drive the Western hype of Russian contemporary art (see chapter 2). Its resounding success took both Russian and Western art worlds by surprise, establishing—albeit fleetingly—a market for Russian artists. Perhaps more importantly, however, this event caused the ­collapse of the stark separation between official and unofficial systems through a mutual attraction to the increasingly available money in the art world, as well as prompting a new wave of emigration by artists eager to benefit from the auction’s domino effect. Such increased professional interest in Russian artists held potential for a previously ­unimaginable life. Many exhibitions produced from 1986 to 1996 could be seen as motivated by notions of diplomatic and professional exchange, but the Sotheby’s auction remains unique as the most successful example of commercial cultural exchange to occur in the Soviet Union. As described by Tupitsyn, in the wake of the auction “bewildered” collectors traveled to the Soviet Union in the hope of visiting artists’ studios; other sources, such as Andrew Solomon’s book The Irony Tower, or the film USSR ART by Barbara Herbich and Jamey Gambrell, reveal the confusion and competition created among Russian artists and curators as they came to terms

Aidan Salakhova, Alexander Yakut, and Evgeny Mitta, the founders of First Gallery, photographed by Helmut Newton, Moscow, 1989 Courtesy George Kiesewalter

with their expanded art world. At the same time, Western journalists, such as Jamey Gambrell,21 started paying attention to the effect the auction had on the Union of Artists and other official channels of the Ministry of Culture, which fast recognized the benefits of foreign interest in unofficial art, and particularly noted the surge of foreign currency it brought into the country. The first exhibitions of Western art in Russia were accordingly prompted by an increased official interest in developing international networks. According to Tair Salakhov, the

First Secretary of the Artists Union, in 1989, 100 exhibitions of “art from foreign countries” took place in the Soviet Union and the works of Soviet artists were “exported” in a similar quantity. At least, this was what he told a some­what skeptical, but intrigued, journalist from the Los Angeles Times during one of his missions to initiate contact between US artists and galleries and the Union’s exhibition program in Moscow (see chapter 4). When it was suggested that the resulting shows were “eclectic,” that the wide-ranging quality of artists revealed a lack of curatorial direction, and that “Russians [were] not 13

discriminating,” Salakhov coolly responded that the “program merely reflects a crush of conflicting interests and a system that accommodates political favors.”22 Western institutions could in turn be accused of following a similarly undiscriminating programmatic path, particularly when they were intent on securing favor with the Ministry of Culture in order to gain access to previously inaccessible treasures in state museums. In fact, it was for this reason that the now defunct state agency InterCultura and curators from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas attended a series of meetings at the Ministry, in Moscow, in February 1988. According to the US envoys, during “a wide-ranging discussion of various exhibition exchanges,” they had “expressed interest” in organizing a show of young Soviet painters, in addition to historical surveys. This prompted, “a whirlwind studio tour lasting two days,” led by Soviet officials. The day after, “a formal protocol on this exhibition and several others had been drafted and, after tea and cookies, was signed.”23 The outcome of this seemingly spontaneous decision-making process was 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters—the first show of unofficial Soviet artists in the United States, which traveled to more major institutions in America and Russia than any other contemporary exhibition at the time. As intimated in the title, 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters24 presented works by ten American and ten Soviet artists. In their statement for the catalogue, the cocurators—Pavel Khoroshilov, the head of the Ministry’s newly-established “art export salon,” and two representatives of the American host institutions—defined their goal as selecting works that “represented current aesthetic interests and would further be of interest to new audiences in each country.”25 As if to underpin this formal approach to curating, in the accompanying catalogue essay, art historian John Bowlt uses terminology that perpetuates the East-West rhetoric of the time: “What strikes us in this confrontation of East and West is a curious ‘homogeneity of heterogeneity,’ a 14

shared complexity of artistic investigation at all levels—thematic, stylistic, and ideological.” In a book that is clearly made for an Englishlanguage audience, where no essays focus on the American artists’ work or the situation of American art, Bowlt, who spent years writing and researching Soviet art in depth, goes on to hint at his unease about the premise of the show, albeit using terms more suited to an anthropologist than an art historian: “However, there are reasons why we should still regard the Soviet ten in the vertical context of their indigenous culture and not simply relegate them to an indeterminate place in the everythingist façade of Postmodernism. Even though they might enjoy being associated with the chic behavior of the international art scene, they do belong to a specific artistic development and should not be removed totally from the continuum of their predecessors.”26 As the exhibition that most successfully utilized the official channels in Moscow, it is perhaps not surprising that the entire premise of 10+10 ultimately sidestepped specificities of the participating artists’ practices. Instead, it promoted bilateral cultural diplomacy that, while piquing public interest on a sociological level, did little to establish the Soviet artists as contenders on an international art stage. This is reflected in the press around the show, which repeatedly contextualizes the participating Soviet artists against the political turmoil of the Soviet Union, while comparing their work to their American counterparts as if to suggest there was nothing unique about it.27 Around the same time in Europe, West German artist Lisa Schmitz embarked on a personal crusade to develop ИСKUNSTВО. In contrast to 10+10, her project utilized unofficial networks to create an exhibition that eventually took place in Berlin, Moscow, and Stockholm. It began when the artist chose to study sculpture in Moscow after being awarded a grant, and evolved into the largest experiment developed by a foreigner during the glasnost era.

Like 10+10, the project was initiated under the auspices of bilateral relations, but it developed with a very different understanding of the benefits of cultural diplomacy. Schmitz involved both German and Soviet artists, as well as collaborating closely with curator Joseph Backstein, who was central in determining the success of many visitors forays into underground artist circles in Moscow. Instead of works being selected for a touring show, the idea was that artists would travel to produce work on site. This not only offered the advantages of saving money and bypassing the official red tape complicating the export of works, but also made for an exercise in international artistic relations. Schmitz’s determination to facilitate like-minded artists entering into dialogue was informed by her belief in the productivity of people “coming from very different social, political and cultural backgrounds.”28 Additionally, she wanted the concept for the exhibition to develop as a “work-in-progress” through these interactions, rather than to embody a preconceived curatorial statement. The first major hurdle, then, was bringing the Soviet artists, and Backstein, to Berlin. While travel was, in theory, possible, in reality the flow of artists in and out of the country came under the jurisdiction of cultural officials, such as Pavel Khoroshilov and Tair Salakhov. As described in more detail later in this book (see chapter 3), Schmitz had to use her German institutional connections to get introductions to both, but they in turn rejected the idea of providing visas for the artists, because they had not controlled their selection and did not approve of her choices. In the end, a less official solution was suggested by the artist Irina Nakhova who told Schmitz that she had recently been granted a visa to visit a relative living abroad, rather than having to solicit an official letter of invitation from an approved foreign institution. Testing this new loophole in the law, each artist was able to successfully use letters of invitation from their German counterparts in the project to secure visas for Berlin.

Between these official and unofficial paths to exhibition-making lay another, more convoluted, way: that of the émigré. On the one hand, émigrés had the advantage of understanding both Soviet and European (or American) cultures, but on the other they straddled two worlds that each prioritized localized identities, while ultimately belonging to neither. By 1986 there were very few people in artistic circles who had found a way to leave the Soviet Union, apart from those who used Jewish heritage channels. For those that succeeded, assimilation was complex and communication with friends and colleagues back in the Soviet Union was limited. The ability to remain current vis-à-vis an underground art world was, therefore, very difficult. Margarita Tupitsyn emigrated to the United States with her husband in 1975 and was living in New York by the early 1980s. She describes the city as very closed at that time, “uninterested in any kind of art by outsiders, unless it was fashionable.” In 1986, she succeeded, through the connections of her graduate-school friends and colleagues, in persuading the New Museum to present her show Sots Art, which is the focus of the first chapter of this book.29 But, this opportunity only arose, she says, through peer support, rather than a particular interest in Russian art. Her network, as well as the broader art public, were also divided on the value of her exhibition—with its focus on artists who critiqued Soviet culture and politics—in light of the more localized urgencies of America’s own prevailing culture wars. Ultimately, even though the political and social tensions building internationally were often reflected in the work of artists, the contemporary museum was not yet the place where such cultural debates on politics could be played out. And just as with the many other exhibitions of art from unfamiliar places that proliferated in this period,30 contextualization was necessary in order to help audiences reach beyond their immediate frames of reference. While imagery or objects referring to an aspect of society or politics in the 15

Soviet Union were clear to home audiences, to those unfamiliar with the context, they often remained mystifying and any attempted explanation, or translation, inevitably opened the possibility for further confusion. This slippage in meaning affected not only the potential resonance of an artist’s work but also of exhibitions, such as Between Spring and Summer (focusing on Moscow Conceptualism), Stalin’s Choice (focusing on Socialist Realism), and The Great Utopia (focusing on the Russian avant-garde), all of which are explored in subsequent chapters in this book. As becomes evident through the press (or lack of it) for each show, these exhibitions fell victim as much to minimal popular knowledge about art historical moments in the Soviet Union, as to a tendency, exacerbated by Cold War rhetoric, to try to understand them as shorthand for social or political commentary. In the case of Sots Art this situation was aggravated by the fact that, as an independent curator, Tupitsyn did not have an “institutional voice” to lend her thesis weight. She has explained: “They looked at me differently because they were always suspicious that émigrés can never really tell the story. There is a conviction that we are conservative; that we always hate the country that we left.” After perestroika, however, when it was possible to return to R ­ ussia, the curator claims she gained increased authority: “There was more trust: you became more authentic.”31

CULTURAL TRANSLATION, INTERNATIONALISM, AND COLONIAL ATTITUDES Questions around authenticity also arose in the firsthand accounts of artists at the time, as well as in the art press, as can be discerned through the selected articles included in the From the Archive section of this book (see pp. 248–321). Even for Ilya Kabakov, who is by far the most well-known Russian émigré from this period, the struggle for legitimation was as important as the issue of cultural translation. 16

In 1992, Kabakov settled in New York, having left the Soviet Union five years earlier.32 That winter he was featured in Parkett, which published the first interview in English between the artist and his longtime friend, Boris Groys. The philosopher’s first question addressed the notion of translation: “I remember that when you showed your works in Russia, their meaning and humor were immediately grasped by viewers of the most diverse cultural levels. Usually only one perplexing question would arise: is this or isn’t this art? In the West it is clear to everyone that this is art. But is the dimension of content, which is so rich in your work, equally clear?” Kabakov responded that he initially experienced two kinds of discrimination: “all of the content an Other might propose is quickly and almost automatically reduced to a very elementary formula which the viewer or listener usually possesses ahead of time. […] [and] the second reaction consists of a rejection of value: you haven’t even managed to open your mouth yet, and already all that you can say turns out to be elementary […].” While the simplifications of what were otherwise alien experiences and ideas on the part of the listener or viewer were perhaps intended as an act of social inclusion, to negate unknown references in the name of acceptance is ultimately another guise of exclusion.

layer of reactions in the West.” As a result he had looked to more classical, archetypal, or universalizing subjects and situations as content, to illicit visual—as opposed to dialogical or intellectual—responses through which to communicate to his Western counterparts.

Groys went on to outline how he perceived Kabakov to be operating on a couple of different levels in his paintings and installations—both in producing objects and creating responses to them through various characters he inte grated into his work—but he noted that the characters’ dialogues were more typical of a Russian, than a Western viewer. When asked if a Western perspective would become a third layer in the work, or remain completely external to his process, Kabakov responded that in Russia the material and emotional aspects of the work were “a pretext for potential discursive reactions,” but that he was less familiar with the “intellectual or reflexive

Despite the cultural limitations or differences that Groys was probing, from the outset of the 1990s Kabakov’s artistic relevance was underscored through his inclusion in numerous seminal exhibitions, from Jean-Hubert Martin’s Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1989), to Robert Storr’s Dislocations at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1991), Jan Hoet’s Documenta 9 (1992), the Russian Pavilion at the 45th Venice Biennale (1993), the Whitney Biennial (1997) and Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950–1980 (1999). In all, from 1988 to 1999 Kabakov (initially working by himself, and then in collaboration with his wife Emilia) averaged thirteen shows

Ilya Kabakov, 1984 Photo: George Kiesewalter

a year—participating in twenty-three in 1993 alone—across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. To put this international attention into perspective: from 1958 to 1986 Ilya Kabakov exhibited between at most one and four times a year in Europe and Moscow, with no formal shows recorded between 1959 and 1965. Perhaps most poignantly, during his conversation with Groys, the artist remarked, “In Russia being involved in art was for me a vital, existential thing, not a professional endeavor.” This state of affairs could be attributed on the one hand to the restrictions on artists under the Soviet regime, but on the other, to a decisive, shared stance that united the underground scene and uniquely kept it alive. By contrast, of his experiences living in the United States he claimed: “I understand my own functioning in the West not as a functioning in the midst of life, but as an existence inside of certain 17

connection, the word indicated a formal unification of workers that transcended national borders and religious denominations, through shared labor rights and socialist beliefs. After the Second World War, it came to imply “one world” between nations—the “inter” national—as exemplified by the ­formation of the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations that advocated for economic and political rights on a grand scale. By the 1990s, the idea of a “new” international embraced these historical meanings while acknowledging globalization’s zealous focus on “progress”—or, continuously seeking the new—through embracing the develop-ments of previously marginalized nations to create an ever-expanding world stage for Western ­ideals. But, this period also marks a time wherein the specificities of past internationalisms—official unions—became effaced by the ubiquitous use of the word as a descriptor for new academic courses, economic schemes, and professional pursuits focused on diplomatic relations, marketing, or business.

Jürgen Harten, Sowjetische Kunst um 1990 (Soviet Art c. 1990), exh. cat. cover. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1991

artistic institutions—galleries, museums, criticism and so on. […] [Y]ou involuntarily become foremost a Russian, a representative of your own culture—and all of your problems are not yours personally, but Russian problems.”33 During the 1990s, this was a widespread issue for practitioners who were entering the world stage for the first time from countries outside the established Western centers for art. A detailed account of shows in Europe and the United States, as well as of the proliferating biennials that introduced newly discovered artists from newly surveyed geographies, is 18

beyond the scope of this essay,34 but Kabakov’s story, as an artist privy to the transition of the globalizing art world, is a case in point. In effect, the forces of globalization in the nineties prompted a widespread search by the dominant Western art system for what Tupitsyn calls “authentic” artists and curators from “the outside.” Following this, it could be posited that the revived use of the term “international” in the 1990s art world was a catchall that elided the nuances of cultural translation, rather than an extension of the original notion of internationalism, which arose out of Karl Marx’s class-based ideology. In this

This was also the moment when the use of the word international began increasingly to replace the word “foreign,” as a more polite form of suggesting something, or someone, unfamiliar, or “other.” Alternatively when used as an affirmation—as in “International Curator”—the term suggested an astute understanding of the self in relation to a broad and open worldview: one which in its implied reach is in reality impossible to achieve. In other words, the term international came to be used as shorthand for how individuals experience, share, and understand (or not), multiple context-specific situations, regardless as to whether the complexities of such ways of experiencing the world were even partially comprehended. Harnessing the initial fervor for the new concept of internationalism in the early nineties, the first artworld conference on the subject was organized at the Tate Gallery in London in 1994, by the newly founded Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA) as

their inaugural event. Entitled Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, the conference started from the principle that “Postmodernity demands a different concept of internationalism.”35 Participating was a diverse cohort of artists, cultural theorists, and curators—including Rasheed Araeen, Jean Fisher, Hal Foster, Hou Hanru, Geeta Kapur, Sarat Maharaj, Gerardo Mosquera, Olu Oguibe, Elisabeth Sussman, and Fred Wilson—each of whom had experience of working beyond the traditional Western canon of art history and exhibitions, as well as concerns with the issues that such a way of working brought up within the frame of their newfound international arena. For example, in his paper Entropy: Chinese Artists, Western Art Institutions, A New Internationalism the Chinese-born curator Hou Hanru proposed that the binaries of Western Modernism versus Postmodernism, or colonialism and post-colonialism, did not have the same resonance in China and therefore could not be used as a lens through which to understand Chinese contemporary art. He posited further, using his own experiences of the art scene in Beijing, that the real problem with the notion of cultural internationality was a general lack of knowledge about the genesis of individual art communities and art practices. Hou recognized that the blind spots in the evolution of local art scenes into some kind of international art world were further exacerbated by the tendency of journalists or curators to substitute clichés for facts, or specificities of cultural contexts: “The writers of most articles on Chinese contemporary art, instead of discussing the artists’ creative efforts and the culturalintellectual values of the work, concentrate their energy and interests on revealing how the “unofficial” artists suffer from political pressure in the country, as if the significance of both artists and work can only be found in ideological struggles.”36 He went on to explain that it was this blinkered attitude that impacted internal 19

production on many levels, not least because when linked to rising market interests that came with international exposure, it resulted in certain types of works being favored for their perceived political or social value. Such an effect undermined the whole notion of what Hou termed “avant-garde research,” which motivated Chinese artists before the market-driven value system, influenced by Western priorities, started to develop. Furthermore, he suggested that the practices of many artists—who were increasingly concerned with being seen as “international”—were, ironically, frequently considered by curators or critics as purely emulative or Western-influenced, always bound by their “Chineseness”: “The problem is that the authors [critics and curators] understand multiculturalism as a kind of ‘regionalism’ or ‘nationalism’ while the artist understands it as internationalism, never refusing international exchanges and mutual influences.”37 The slippage Hou describes, between the artist’s intentions and critics’ or curators’ perceptions, was yet another indication that it was (and for the most part still is) impossible to concur that there is an international art world in reality, or at least there is only one that starts with Western modernist traditions as its core values. Recently Groys has offered a different reading of the central issues of internationalism and nationalism in contemporary art, which he suggests arise because of the widespread misunderstanding, and misuse, of the term “globalization.” According to Groys, the term should only be used in relation to the flow of capital and economy. People, cultures, and politics cannot circulate in the same way, because their origins are localized: “Marx saw this very clearly at the beginning of the globalization process and the First International was an attempt to create an alternative political “flow” between workers unions.” Groys goes on to equate the global ambitions of art institutions with the in-ternational worker movements, insofar as they are both working toward “alternative flows,” with no better results, because museums and academies 20

are ultimately also national enterprises. Consequently, as Groys suggests, curatorial projects such as biennials “have operated in the space of the absence of international political order,” perpetuated by what he terms as “the curator as romantic bureaucrat” who “serves a political system that doesn’t exist, or is only imagined” through the exhibitions they make. “In the moment you have a feeling— Yes!—the international exists, but in a flash it dissolves. It’s the temporary emergence of an internationalism that is actually absent.”38 Perspectives such as Hou’s or Groys’ evince first-hand experience of working within multiple contexts and the fleeting nature of mutual understanding, if it even exists at all. Conversely, with the rise of curators operating outside of their own cultural arena, the impression of internationality has increasingly provided a frame for what is otherwise foreign within one’s own knowledge or expertise. Insofar as the biennial and market booms, and the rise of the international curator, changed the art map, Westerners also were struggling to understand the expanded terrain. In 1994, the curator and director of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Jürgen Harten—who was working closely with Russian artists in the early 1990s39 —revealed the complexity of this predicament in an interview with art critic and historian Andrey Kovalev. Citing Harten’s exhibition, Binationale: Soviet Art Around 1990, which traveled from the Israel Museum to the Central House of Artists in 1992, as the first to present historical unofficial art in an official space in Moscow, Kovalev asked the curator—as someone with an international outlook—what new directions in Russian art he was interested in. Harten responded: “Moscow is a very good place for contemporary art. It reminds me a little of America at the end of the 1960s. However, Moscow artists are repeating what was done here twenty years ago: they didn’t have the chance to see it, so they continue doing work that looks old-fashioned and not contemporary. That said, there are several interesting and very strong figures.”40

Harten’s claim that Russian art was little more than a belated derivative of American art echoes the thoughts and words of many other contemporary reviewers and commentators, as touched on earlier in this essay. At the time, however Kovalev did not challenge Harten on his observations, but he did try to clarify the curator’s point about imitation: “Every phenomenon is only meaningful in context. Do you think that repeating the revolutionary gesture of the 1960s in today’s Russia can be considered imitation?” Harten’s reply underscores the impression of a somewhat blinkered perspective: “That’s a tricky question. The act of repetition is normal, but once done it exhausts itself, loses its innovative character and we see only endless wandering, endless citing, and endless references, which are of no interest.”41 At best, this response could be interpreted as the curator’s inability to consider art practices independent of the theories that were prevalent at the time. At worst, his postmodernist rhetoric indicates a refusal to accept that any culture can offer something new to the Western canon, other than novelty. Nonetheless, Ekaterina Degot, a writer and curator who was active as an art critic and historian in Moscow in the 1990s, describes Harten as “the serious one” who really had an opinion and took the time to understand the connection of Russian art to Western art history. Degot has indicated that he was not someone who was interested in Russian art because of its fashionable or exotic appeal. She says, “Of course it was the dream of Western left-wing intelligentsia that there was a different character to Soviet art. He knew that, and did not perpetuate such fantasies, which is why it was interesting to work with him, although we fought a lot.”42 She also reiterates that while Russian—similarly to ­Chinese—artists, critics, and curators were new to the international art scene, what was not more generally accepted is that in actuality the global art world was a new phenomenon for everyone. While appearing empathetic to Harten’s perspective, Degot is critical of what she sees as post-colonial “colonial” attitudes, which she

wrote about from a Russian perspective at a time when few others did (or even do now). In a 1998 article entitled, How to Obtain the Right to Post-Colonial Discourse, published in Moscow Art Magazine43 she writes: “We can find many cases in which the West usurps the right to represent the East, subjecting it to discursive exploitation. For example, it will prohibit a person from the East to express himself in theoretical terms and only allow him to speak about his region. It orders the Russian (or any other) artist to be authentic and exotic, thus placing him beyond the borders of the West; however when authenticity and independence are proclaimed at the artist’s own will, they are usually criticized as nationalism.”44 Degot clearly recognizes the contradictions that fueled the confusion during the internationalization of the Russian contemporary art scene, but she is also quick to point out that these issues were not the central concern of artists during that period, who instead remained preoccupied with art and giving form to their conceptual ideas. She remembers Yuri Albert as being among the first to stress that artists need not talk about social conditions or politics, or concern themselves with addressing these issues in their work: it was more important to focus on questions of art.45 In a way this emphasis by Russian artists on removing art from its socio-political context makes sense: under the Soviet regime, the motivation for finding ways to carry out an illicit practice was not to covertly protest the status quo, but to escape the reality of it. Making art unofficially was in itself a significant statement of intent and opposition. From the outside, however, this seemingly apolitical attitude in spite of evident political adversity is perhaps what created the most confusion among foreign audiences at the height of the international interest in Russian art. It also set Russian artists apart from those who, operating in many other emerging geographic art centers in the 1990s, drew on their locality for content and insisted on making social and political statements rather than evading them. 21

ART FOR ART’S SAKE From 1989 to 2014, artist Vadim Zakharov produced a video archive that today offers a unique perspective on the Moscow Conceptualists—as well as their predecessors and immediate successors—through recording their exhibitions. Comprising documentation of over 230 solo and group exhibitions that took place in Russia and the West, more than two-thirds of the entries—180 ­videos—document shows abroad in cities such as Berlin, Cologne, Paris, Rome, Milan, and New York. Containing footage of exhibition openings, detailed surveys of shows and the works included, as well as more intimate moments of the artists installing or celebrating after the openings, the archive offers an unprecedented, nuanced, and singular view of an era when exhibition-making became the primary lens through which Russian artists could communicate. Zakharov acquired his first camcorder in 1988 to use in his artistic practice, and a year later decided that it was also the ideal tool to capture his art world experiences. He has said that he understood the freedom of art as residing in choice, or his personal ability to make decisions. Rather than waiting for someone else to establish the mechanisms through which artists were to be historicized, for example, his instinct was to secure cultural autonomy by embracing the roles of artist, curator, writer, designer, publisher, and documenter. “There is a very specific and simple reason as to why Russian artists started to make collections, and archives, or their own structures during Soviet times: there were no institutions that were doing so. Yuri Albert, Andrei Monastyrsky, Igor Makarevich, myself— we all built collections, for example, because if we didn’t, who else was going to?”46 Free from any institutional burden, yet with an impetus to self-institutionalize, Zakharov’s video archive is fastidious on the one hand and subjective on the other, meticulously detailed, but lacking a distanced viewpoint. As a result, the collection of videos—the only 22

comprehensive exhibition history of three generations of this artist-community ever to be c­ reated—contains evidence of seminal projects, as well as lesser-known, but no less important episodes in the history of Russian contemporary art. In addition to featuring renowned practitioners such as Yuri Albert, Ivan Chuikov, Ilya Kabakov, Yuri Leiderman, Andrei Monastyrsky, Pavel Pepperstein, Viktor Pivovarov and Dmitri Prigov, artists who are now lost to history are also included, rendering this an invaluable historical document. After a quarter of a century, however, the ­function of chronicler became a chore rather than a passion, and the process of documentation stopped representing freedom of choice. In the manifesto he wrote after deciding to end his project, Zakharov proclaimed, “I liberate myself and others from the need to conceptualize and contextualize my work. I abandon all theory that could frame it.”47 Zakharov is here expressing frustration at the fact that his archive to this day remains unprocessed by art historians. His final statement on relinquishing the work of documenting an era evinces the lack of concern with context that he subsequently criticized in his artistic peers. Unintentionally reaffirming Degot’s comments regarding these artists’ negation of the social and political framing of their work, Zakharov has described how, in looking through the footage of these shows, he realized that few artists paid any attention to the contexts in which they were presenting their work. In fact they had a blatant disregard for trying to explain, or give entry points to an audience that might find the content of their work foreign. Yet, at the same time they were all very serious about taking part in the shows to which they were invited: “I started to film exhibitions to record the meeting points, rather than the private side of artists’ lives, like the studio, or travel. The exhibition format, or the performance, entails a public meeting of minds, which for me was very important. But looking back we gave no “key” to our audiences. When I was editing the films I could analyze what

Cover of the first issue of Moscow Art Magazine, 1993

happened and I realize we totally ignored the Western view. We weren’t interested in spectators who wanted to understand. We kept our distance. We were so full of our context we didn’t see that others had no entry point to it. We did not understand reality: we only had our own ­illusions— which is good—but these didn’t build bridges or create dialogue.”48

Ultimately, in the same way that producing work or exhibitions for each other had created a closed circle, in Zakharov’s opinion the shows they participated in across Europe and the United States served to facilitate only communication between each other, establishing what he had earlier described as a “historical niche” for a show or a work. For the most part—Kabakov aside—these 23

artists continued to make the same kind of art they had been working on before perestroika, as if nothing had changed, apart from the opportunity to exhibit more frequently and further afield. While this could be seen as a case of artists falling prey to the lack of cultural translation—the specifics of their underground context and the language that developed through their works as a consequence was so far from an outsider’s comprehension that it was daunting to know where to begin in explaining meaning—it could also be considered as a refusal to assimilate, no matter what the consequences for their international reputations or markets. In considering the ultimate outcomes of the exhibitions from this period—few of which have made any longterm impact on either the originating artists, or the venues in which they took place—it is interesting to consider more closely the meaning of the word “exhibition” insofar as for years in Russia it bore little relation to the operating mechanism prevalent in Western institutions, at least for unofficial artists. Art historian Terry Smith has recently explored the derivation of the word as follows: “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ‘exhibition’ acquired its current meaning in the early to mid-eighteenth c­ entury, the moment of modernization in Europe, of the Industrial Revolution, the invention of the stock holding company, the creation of the middle class, and the expansion of the British Empire. ‘Exhibit’ derives from the Latin habare, ‘to hold,’ and from ex, ‘out.’ Thus the meaning: to ‘Hold out or submit (a document) for inspection, especially as evidence in a court of law,’ or, more relevant to us, ‘Show (an item) publicly for entertainment, instruction, or in a competition; have (an item) on show in an exhibition.’ Curatorship of all kinds fulfills these definitions, as do all kinds of exhibitions, from a booth in a trade fair to an international biennial. 24

Let us, then, revisit the word ‘exhibition.’ Imagine ‘inhibition’ as its implicated opposite, and so reread curating as the process of removing the inhibitions from works of art, of freeing them into the space of the exhibition—that is, ‘exinhibiting’ them. Further, because an exhibition is a framework larger than any individual work or art, it is at the same time able to display art’s inhibitions, as after-effects of its having given each artwork its freedom—or, at least, the qualified freedom of the companionship of the other works in the exhibition.”49

capitalism, the science was fundamentally over. Working in a university as an art historian you were getting a salary of around $3 a month. When I started to write for a newspaper as an art critic, immediately my salary was $300 a month. So, you can see the difference. This is why everybody who could began to write for newspapers. It led to an interesting critical scene in the 1990s with vivid exchanges of ideas in the press, but in the university there was nothing; contemporary art was deemed irrelevant. So, critics were not writing the ­history and nor were the academics.”51

Following Smith’s line of argument, it could be determined that, for artists who underwent the transitions of perestroika during a critical time in the development of their practices, the early apartment shows were in fact a more fruitful form of “exinhibiting” artworks than any of the curated exhibitions that followed, particularly those that attempted to establish an international context for Russian contemporary art. As will become evident in the following chapters, by most accounts curatorial approaches had less to do with removing “art’s inhibitions” than identifying them as exemplars of a larger cultural movement: historical, political or otherwise. ­Furthermore, in retrospect it is evident that even those exhibitions, catalogues, and reviews generated by the Russian art academies did little to ensure the historicization of this new frontier—after the Suprematist-Socialist Realist-Sots Art “era” that Groys identified.50 In spite of all the attention at the time, even from further afield, barely even a rudimentary understanding of the nuances of Soviet art history from the period is evidenced in today’s international art world. Degot has articulated her perspective as to why:

As suggested by Degot and as evidenced by the lack of books or academic articles published—even in Russian—on or during this period, it is apparent that people were concerned with establishing their place in it, rather than witnessing it. During a time of rapid change, as is revealed in the interviews conducted for this publication, the consensus between protagonists of the time was that posterity could only be ensured through participation and firsthand accounts of the moment, rather than through the distanced, objective view of the art historical record. In the long-term this has contributed to an almost total lack of integration of Russian contemporary art in the international collections of museums today. Although, the first avantgarde—Malevich, Rodchenko, Tatlin—has been co-opted into the Western modernist tradition, the unofficial art exhibited from the mid-1980s onwards is seldom recognized as anything more than a footnote to globalization. This has become even more evidenced in recent museum exhibitions marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of 1989, such as A History. Art, Architecture, Design from the 1980s until Today at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, wherein collection shows of acquisitions from this period reveal large gaps in the holdings of work from prominent artists operating outside the American-European axis.

“There were many texts written and many catalogues published, but nobody has ­written the history, because this whole period was totally cut from art history. One has to understand that with the end of the Soviet Union, with the turn to

THE PROFESSIONALIZATION— OR NOT—OF THE RUSSIAN CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE This book predominantly focuses on exhibitions as a vehicle to tell the story of an emerging art scene because of what they reveal about both Russian and Western perspectives on Russian contemporary art at the time. After all, as a format that exposes more than the art and ideas they present, exhibitions necessarily embrace various forms of contextualization for the societies in which they originate. The failure of exhibitions, however, lies in their temporality: they do not create the infrastructure through which an art scene can develop over time. Institutions, collections, discourse, education, and networks do. This situation was well understood by a number of Russian artists in 1990s Moscow, who were behind many of the first galleries and art associations that were facilitated by the new laws promulgated during perestroika, and who occasionally embarked on durational ­projects, such as Zakharov’s video archive. It was also an artist, Aidan Salakhova—the daughter of the head of the Artist’s Union, Tair Salakhov—who established the association that became the first commercial gallery in Moscow. Aptly named First Gallery, it presented international contemporary blue-chip art, as well as enabling sales of the work of Russian artists abroad. In reality, these sales were rare, but more importantly the gallery provided a platform to introduce unofficial art in a new, official framework. These curatorial activities led to wider recognition for Salakhova, who was, for example, in 1990 invited to organize the first exhibition of contemporary Russian art at the Venice Biennale, as outlined in chapter 7. First Gallery and many other initiatives arose through a decree permitting Soviet citizens to form clubs. Issued on May 13, 1986, by the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, it provided for amateur associations and hobby groups to register with the executive committee (ISPOLKOM) and to engage in 25

independent activities, thereby enshrining their autonomous financial and contractual status. This mandate opened up opportunities for artists to self-organize and in so doing paved the way for the establishment of the first alternative or independent spaces. The Hermitage Society, for example, was ­registered on December 25, 1986, and united painters, graphic artists, designers, photographers, and architects working to “promote and study [the] visual culture” of the Moscow underground scene.52 Headed by critic Leonid Bazhanov (now director of the city’s National Center for Contemporary Arts) and supported by the collector and archivist Leonid Talochkin, members included artists Nikita Alexeev, Georgy Litichevsky, Gosha Ostretsov, and Vladislav Efimov, as well as paper architects Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin. Although the name referred to the Hermitage Garden, in Moscow’s city center, the association was registered at the Belyaevo local exhibition hall on Profsoyuznaya Street in south Moscow, where most of its shows were organized. Among these, Retrospective Works by Moscow Artists, 1957–1987, which took place in September 1987, officially surveyed the work of unofficial artists working in the 1960s–1980s, for the first time. This association, while short-lived (their last show took place in Amsterdam in 1988), attracted international press attention, in part because it provided an opportunity for intrigued foreigners to engage with its offerings in a way that related somewhat to Western structures. Another group that became a hub for journalists and visiting curators was the Avant-Garde Club (KLAVA for short), which was founded in February 1987. In Russian, “klava” is an old-fashioned name for a provincial Soviet woman, ironically implying that the organization—the first legal and social manifestation of the Moscow Conceptualist school—associated with the most repressed and conservative class in the Soviet Union. Registered at the Proletarsky exhibition hall on Peresvetov Street in southeast Moscow, the club 26

included Nikita Alexeev, Joseph Backstein (the executive director and curator), Boris Matrosov (the chairman), Sven Gundlakh, Elena Elagina, Vadim Zakharov, Igor Makarevich, Irina Nakhova, Dmitri Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, Andrei Monastyrsky and Andrei Filippov.53 In part because of Backstein’s continuous engagement with international visitors, and also because of the relatively well-known names—at least locally—of many of its other members, the Avant-Garde Club appeared larger than life. Its reputation also grew through accounts of the events it produced, such as that curated by Backstein in the Sanduny baths in January 1988, where artist and poet Dmitri Prigov reportedly urged those present to “cleanse themselves of clichés and stereotypes,” and “cast off the accustomed cloaks of artist, viewer and art critic.” While leaving little impact on the local scene, the event was mythologized through articles such as Jamey Gambrell’s “Notes from the Underground” in Art in America in November 1988, (see pp. 127 and 193) which offered one of the first substantial overviews of the activities in Moscow at a time when foreign access to information was still sparse.54 However, both the Hermitage Society and KLAVA provided little more than officially sanctioned venues for the artists, critics, and curators who wanted an outlet for their activities. They still had very little institutional ambition or structure. This was an issue that a number of curators in Moscow—Backstein, Andrei Erofeev, and Viktor Misiano in particular—focused on from the moment that glasnost impacted. Each used the opportunities they were afforded, primarily invitations to curate shows abroad, to accumulate the knowledge and resources that would help develop the foundations of an alternative institutional framework at home. Backstein was the first to establish a viable institution, in 1991, which he named Moscow Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), and which still exists today. This was inspired by his experiences of working with the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art and its curator/

director David A. Ross on the development of Between Spring and Summer, which was the first show in the United States of Moscow Conceptualists (see chapter 9). The Moscow ICA was founded to connect Russian contemporary art to the international art world through discussions about new tendencies in art and master classes, as well as an exhibition program—primarily of Russian art—that merged display and education strategies to create an international perspective and reach intended to compensate for the archaic academic institutions that existed in Moscow. Perhaps most importantly at the time, its presence signaled to an international audience that there were like-minded arts practitioners in Moscow. In spite of the difficulties (financial and otherwise) that encumbered professional practices in the city, Backstein could at least use the language and tropes of contemporary Western art infrastructures in the formation of his Institute. In turn, the ICA became a fixture and a point of reference for international curators. Around the same time, curator Andrei Erofeev parlayed his knowledge of international trends to bolster the development of the first collection of unofficial art in a state institution. As the newly appointed curator of contemporary art at Tsaritsyno Museum, Erofeev was charged with building a collection—without an acquisitions budget or facilities for display—that could fulfill the growing demand for historicizing the newly-sanctioned nonconformist movements. With no resources other than a basic storage facility and his own time, Erofeev recognized that exhibitions provided the best vehicle through which to achieve the accrual of works from artists, who would lend work that might conceivably become part of the collection subsequently. As outlined in chapter 6, a series of shows laid out the parameters for the kinds of art that would be included in the ill-fated collection, which reportedly constituted around 2,000 works, but which remains one of the most contested projects of this era. This is partly because of the resistance it encountered from artists who did not share Erofeev’s vision or approach

to building a collection and partly because it did not advance the generally held belief within the community that Moscow needed a museum of contemporary art. In spite of these criticisms, what remains relevant and unique about the episode is the way that Erofeev determined the founding focuses for the collection: the readymade (or object), performance, and installation. In part this was because Erofeev believed that the collection—and ultimately the new museum that he and others were imagining would be built around it—would not need to do the job of presenting traditional art, which would fall under the jurisdiction of The Tretyakov Gallery.55 Instead, he describes his vision as showing Russian art “in development” from the 1960s to the present through new genres: “For example, when working on the installation show I didn’t start with Kabakov, but instead with artists of the 1960s whose studios, in my opinion, were more important than the paintings they made. With each exhibition, artists I approached kept saying that they didn’t have objects, installations, or performances, but it was because these weren’t thought of as genres in Russian art. I tried to prove that they did exist and then I wrote about the works to introduce definitions that differentiated the Russian practices from those of the West. It was quite a difficult situation, because not a single historical text existed and no canon had been formed. There was a sense of complete chaos.”56 By selecting topics and genres that were central to American and European discussions around contemporary art history during the 1990s, Erofeev made what might be considered as the first attempt to provide a Western frame through which to contextualize contemporary Russian art, albeit one that gained little traction. Nonetheless, this strategy, in theory, could have made inroads toward the integration of Russian artists’ work within dominant institutional classifications, thereby allowing for recognition of the formal 27

attributes of certain Russian art practices. Fueled by his overarching intention, Erofeev organized a series of exhibitions that sought to historicize the recent past, including Kunst im Verborgenen, which is reviewed in chapter 14. This program also prompted him to start writing a focused history of Russian art from the close of the Stalinist era to the end of the Soviet Union, but lacking in institutional gravitas and resources, the Tsaritsyno project eventually ran out of steam by the mid-1990s and the works which Erofeev had assembled were never displayed as a collection, although a number of them now form part of the Tretyakov Gallery’s contemporary collection. As a representative of this new international decade, Viktor Misiano is the figure whose practice perhaps best encapsulates its successes and failures. A curator of the Pushkin Museum from 1980 to 1990, and the grandson of a prominent Italian communist, he was given unparalleled license to travel abroad from an early age, enabling him to establish an unprecedented network of professional peers. By the time Gorbachev’s reforms were instituted, Misiano was poised to become one of the key access points for both Russian and international artists, curators, and journalists, as well as the person who had the deepest understanding of the international language of contemporary art. In an interview, Degot cites an artist as saying, “The best door to the West was called Viktor Misiano.” She continues, “This is how artists felt about Viktor because he understood the situation very quickly. When I went abroad to any event people would say, “You are from Russia, do you know Viktor Misiano?” which meant they were checking whether I was the right person, because if I didn’t know him then I wasn’t.”57 In short, Misiano became both the “authentic” transmitter and expert cultural translator. However, his path was not entirely without difficulty, in part because of Misiano’s own awareness that his role ultimately blurred the discrepancies between Russian and international perspectives, and in part because of the 28

understandable envy his prominence in the art world occasioned. Despite his international profile, or perhaps in part because of it, few of his projects met with acclaim from his national community, as is described by the curator himself in his own writings. Misiano’s 1989 exhibition Mosca: Terza Roma (see chapter 5), which was presented in Italy, was the first to frame Russian artists through broader historical references in an attempt to, albeit loosely, contextualize the participating artists’ practices. The project met with much criticism in Moscow, however, not so much for its premise, but because the curator did not comply with what he describes as “the system of relations in the underground community.” Using his own selection criteria, Misiano suggests that the resulting clash between curatorial independence and group membership lay at the heart of many of the problems that first developed during perestroika: “There was this inevitable conflict between the figure of a ‘dependent’ curator who was collaborating with an institution, following museum logic, and institutional curatorial agency, versus being the activist in the artistic community where personal charisma, charm, and relations were central.”58 While this is not just a predicament of the Russian art community—this antagonism was as familiar in the West—Misiano describes this type of conflict as soon mutating into another, which was characterized by virtually the opposite logic, wherein his projects were argued to be too local or intimately engaged with individual artists’ interests. APT-ART International (1991–1993) for ­example, which Misiano initiated together with artist Konstantin Zvezdochotov and art historian Elena Kurlyandtseva (see chapter 10) enabled international artists to benefit from Apt-art’s exhibitionary strategies of presenting work in domestic, intimate settings. The initiative gambled on the intimacy of the Soviet underground experience of art at a time when white cube exhibitions were becoming important in the city, but, in Misiano’s words, they “always created

absolutely bizarre results because the infrastructure was not ready. It was clear that we could use Western spaces, and Western artists could use Russian spaces, but if we wanted our very small community to gain prominence; if we wanted to start doing something internationally important we had to use another context or infrastructure, and that in Russia remained the private one.”59 In other words, Misiano and his collaborators produced the first initiative to capitalize on the unique nature of the underground art scene as a strength, rather than deficiency, in an international context.

activities of the Contemporary Art Center as part of the Eastern European focus of the art fair, but in the end this exhibition never came to fruition in Germany, partly because of Misiano’s doubts about its relevance:

On the surface it would appear that APT-ART International addressed the concerns of artists who continued to privilege the integrity of the community and its legacies, but it, too, met with little support or interest locally, perhaps because the drive for “normalizing” the Russian experience was considered more urgent than promoting its difference. The project did, however, appeal to prominent Western artists such as Franz West and Jenny Holzer, as well as artistic groups such as IRWIN, from Ljubljana, who all participated in the project, understanding the symbolic capital of such a venture.

“It wasn’t so much that I was bewildered by the prospect of working on the international scene—the creation of exhibitions for Western institutions was something I had grown accustomed to by then—what was new in principle was the challenge of appearing on behalf of an institution and representing it through the means of an artistic exhibition. In fact, it seemed that the conditions for this kind of representation did not actually exist. It was all too obvious that the Contemporary Art Center was an arbitrary institution. As a fragile organization, bereft of economic stability, it was losing its social function and its public support; by 1993, the general enthusiasm of perestroika, which never came to fruition completely, was already rapidly disintegrating. The only resource that the CAC had access to consisted of a small circle of internationally-oriented artists, who saw it as one of few, if not the only, creative platforms in Moscow at the time.”61

By the time Misiano established the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Moscow in 1992, the issue of international versus locally perceived relevance was at its height. In particular, the scant resources and local orientation of the Center ran contrary to the expectations of the artists that the curator had come of age with: “The majority in Moscow had the Centre Pompidou in mind, in that it should be something impressive, shocking, spectacular, and institutionalized. Their idea of the West was not very articulated, it was just an idea they invented, that they wanted expanded on by me, through the Center.”60 This discrepancy manifested itself very clearly in Misiano’s 1993 Hamburg Project, which was the result of an invitation he received from Rudolf Zwirner, then director of the art fair in Hamburg. Zwirner wanted the curator to present a non-commercial show of the

Misiano has explained that it was his own recognition of these issues that served as the starting point for the CAC project that evolved out of the invitation. In order to clarify his thoughts about the Art Center and its purpose, he invited eight artists to the institution to discuss its functions, posing questions such as “how do you see the ideal artistic institution?” and “how should the CAC develop in the future?” He also asked them to consider the forms through which their ideals could be realized through asking, “can this ideal model of the institution materialize in an artistic project?” and “can this project be executed through collective effort, in dialogue, in peer-to-peer creativity?”62 Such institutional reflexivity, while common practice today, was only just emerging in Europe at the time, through the rise of new institutional practices deployed by curators such as Maria Lind, 29

at Munich Kunstverein. Although appearing cutting edge to those further afield who may have learned about it, the project doubtlessly appeared oblique in the context of the newly emerging institutional landscape of Moscow. A series of regular meetings involving all nine participants ensued over three months, followed by what Misiano calls a “projectbased” show, which opened on ­January 21, 1994. This exhibition lasted for four months, continuously transforming through the artists’ weekly interactions with the displays that they both created and changed, according to the shifting dynamic of the group. So absorbing was the process and so “engrossed” were the artists, “in their internal dialogue that they became indifferent to any dialogue with the outer world.” As an exhibition Misiano indicates it was unrecognizable to Moscow audiences, inciting much frustration within the broader art community: “The project produced enormous, very furious criticism, and in that moment I was not able to understand why. It was so modest, so unpretentious, so hermetically closed: who cares? But I think now that the real reason for the disgust and rejection was because it went so absolutely against that idea of the Western model that they thought we should adopt.”63 In the end the CAC closed in 1997, but it has remained as an important venue in many accounts of the Moscow scene of that time. While in the throes of establishing the art center, in September 1993, Misiano also established Moscow Art Magazine, which was the first art journal to adopt an international outlook and be translated occasionally from Russian into English. Distributed locally, and through Misiano’s own international network, the journal gave voice to many local artists and critics for the first time, and also raised timely questions and issues relevant to the Russian context. Misiano claims that he was influenced by Nicholas Bourriaud’s les presses du réel, and Georg Schöllhammer’s springerin, which at the time exemplified a new style of publishing that prioritized criticality over the promotion of art, rather than established art magazines 30

like Flash Art, or Art in America, for example. Although still in existence today, when it began the magazine also met with criticism locally, because of its esoteric impetus and blatant disregard for the mass-marketing and promotion of artists’ work.

from established. Instead of embracing the Russian artists’ and curators’ raw energy and enthusiasm, or recognizing their frustrations and naivety, more often than not the responses on the part of collaborators was suspicion and impatience.

In effect, Misiano wanted to create a permeable platform for debate that could connect with other similar ventures in Europe, but in that period in Moscow the popular desire was to focus exclusively on external promotion, which was also still sorely lacking. As is evidenced by the CAC, Moscow Art Magazine and other ventures of the 1990s, Misiano repeatedly initiated timely and relevant curatorial practices that made sense in the international arena and could have put Russia on the map. But, locally his thinking was out of joint with the majority of the community and the scale on which he was able to operate, as an individual with limited resources, was not enough to create momentum beyond his own international networks. Like all great innovators, he became a beacon for the inquisitive foreigner, while at the same time increasingly alienated from the community he considered his own.

By 1996, a decade after glasnost had come to pass, in spite of passion, networks, friendships, and a desire to integrate into the broader art world, doing so proved i­mpossible. For the Russian artists and curators who fueled the explosion of activity, as well as the ­Europeans and Americans who ventured into projects with them, making sense of both social and political experiences in the Soviet Union while navigating a new system for art that was only geared toward certain outcomes in terms of international exchange was too difficult to sustain. Instead, as is clear in many of the documents from the time included in this book, clichés and Cold War mythologies persisted, while ambitions for future projects and integration remained unfulfilled. Furthermore, the desire to Westernize or assimilate the West, as opposed to establishing alternative exhibitionary or institutional systems resulted in the widespread dismissal of Russian art as “uninteresting” by international standards, which seems to remain the widely held, if incorrect, assumption today. In this way the story of the evolution of the Russian contemporary art scene is just one example of the homogenization, or acculturation of art that emerged beyond the Western art world since the Second World War.

This book closes with a chapter on INTEЯPOL, a collaborative enterprise Misiano launched in 1996. The project perhaps best exemplifies the impasse to which the new international decade ultimately brought both Russian artists and their potential interlocutors, through the conflicts and genuine consternation it generated among the participants and press. As outlined in chapter 15, INTEЯPOL made evident that exhibiting discursivity, ­concepts, or new tendencies in art, even between friends and colleagues—what Misiano terms as the “institutionalization of friendship”—was impossible to internationalize. This was not least because of the very real fact that ultimately even artists, curators, and organizers who were willing to collaborate on projects with Russian artists were suspicious of their tactics and interests, and also because a basic shared premise of what an international presence in the art world meant was still far

In interviews conducted during the research for this book Alanna Heiss, Jean-Hubert Martin, Simon de Pury, and David A. Ross expressed affection for the time that they were engaged in Russia and producing exhibitions out of their research with artists in the Soviet Union. In fact each of them evinced a genuine interest in the fact that this book was to be written and finally the period was going to be explored in detail. Russian artists and curators responded similarly, willingly sharing their experiences and knowledge of the time, while also opening up their personal archives to contribute to what

has been a two-year process of excavating the little-known exhibitions and events that constitute an extraordinary h ­ istory of a generation of practitioners. While an in-depth survey of exhibitions from an era of dramatic change can do little to elucidate the reader as to the merits of individual artists and their practices, this volume has tried to retrieve, and in some case present for the first time, long lost, or overlooked documents. The importance of such a moment of transition still needs to be fully comprehended, not just for Russian contemporary art, but also for an art world that has yet to understand the meaning of being truly international in outlook and appreciation. To create the opportunity to look beyond one’s own frame of reference and to open up to differences, or confront one’s own values is, after all, one of the greatest attributes of being engaged in contemporary art. Whether experiencing glasnost and perestroika at the time, or witnessing it after the fact through the seismic cultural shifts that it caused, knowledge of the era might, at some stage, have some effect on our perception of the art world we inhabit.

Kate Fowle Chief Curator Garage Museum of Contemporary Art 31

Endnotes: 1 

See the entry for “Glasnost” in Carl A. Linden, Encyclopedia of Russian History, accessed October 15, 2015, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/ glasnost.aspx. 2  Joseph Gibbs, “From the Cultural Debate to the Yeltsin Affair,” in Gorbachev’s Glasnost: The Soviet Media in the First Phase of Perestroika, Eugenia & Hugh M. Stewart ‘26 Series on Eastern Europe (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 45 (quoted on Moscow television, November 6, 1986, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service: Daily Report Soviet Union, November 7, 1986, 0–12). 3  Ibid., 46–47 (quoted from “O perestroike i kadrovoy politike partii: Doklad general’nogo sekretarya TsK KPSS M.S. Gorbacheva na plenume TsK KPSS 27 yanvarya 1987 goda,” Pravda, January 28, 1987, 1–5. The translations cited here are from Current Digest of the Soviet Press 39, no. 4, February 25, 1987, 5). 4  “Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s the Union has continued to act as the practical extension of Party policy vis-à-vis the visual arts: it now numbers over 12,000 members, between 1969 and 1972 it placed commissions for over fifteen million rubles and every year it organizes about 4,000 art exhibitions. Obviously for material reasons alone, it is extremely advantageous for a Soviet artist to be a member of the Union; but although a voluntary body, its procedure of enrollment is a difficult one, consisting of a series of interviewing committees, rigorous examination of works according to realist criteria and testimonials from Union members,” in John E. Bowlt, “Socialist Realism Then and Now,” in Russian Art 1875–1975: A Collection of Essays (New York: Ardent Media, 1976), 177. (A custom-made book of readings prepared for the courses taught by the editor, as well as for related courses and for college and university libraries. MSS Information Corp, 655 Madison Avenue, NY.) 5  “Art and Life” was the semi-closed international art seminar held in the House of Architects in Moscow on July 6–7, 1957. For more information see Kädi Talvoja, Workshop of “Free” Art in Moscow in 1957. Archives in Translation. Exhibition in Kumu Art Museum. 7 March—29 June 2008, October 30, 2008, accessed October 7, 2015, http://kunstimuuseum.ekm.ee/ wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2014/12/kumu_vabakunsti-tootuba-moskvas-1957-eng.pdf; and Matthew Jesse Jackson, “Dead Souls,” in The Experimental Group : Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet

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Avant-Gardes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 24. For broader information on the 1957 International Youth and Student Festival see Max Frankel, “Polyglot Youths in Moscow Debate,” New York Times, August 2, 1957, 4; and Max Frankel, “Voices of America in Moscow,” New York Times, August 11, 1957, 169. 6  American Painting and Sculpture 1930–1959: The Moscow Exhibition was opened within the American National Exhibition in Moscow on July 25, 1959. It followed the Soviet Union’s exhibition in New York City. This was a cultural exchange between the Soviet Union and the USA during the height of the Cold War which attempted to cover the entire lifestyle of the two superpowers. Among the participating artists in the Moscow exhibition were Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. For more information see Jack Masey and Conway Lloyd Morgan, “High Noon at Sokolniki Park. American National Exhibition Moscow, USSR, 1959,” in Cold War Confrontations: US Exhibitions and their Role in the Cultural Cold War (Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2008), 152–283. 7  See Jane Sharp, “Abstract Expressionism as a Model of Contemporary Art in the Soviet Union,” in Abstract Expressionism: The International Context, ed. Joan Marter et al. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 82–98. 8  Further examples of American and European ­exhibitions in Moscow around this period include Paintings, Drawings and Ceramics by Pablo Picasso in 1956, British Painting 1700–1960 in 1960, the French National Exhibition in 1961, Graphics arts: USA in 1963–1964. 9  For a more comprehensive account see John E. Bowlt, “Socialist Realism Then and Now,” in Russian Art 1875–1975: A Collection of Essays (New York: Ardent Media, 1976), 178; and Joseph Gibbs, “From the Cultural Debate to the Yeltsin Affair,” in Gorbachev’s Glasnost: The Soviet Media in the First Phase of Perestroika, Eugenia & Hugh M. Stewart ‘26 Series on Eastern Europe (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999). For a detailed explanation of Khrushchev’s visit to Manege see Paul Sjeklocha and Igor Mead, “The Manege Affair,” in Unofficial Art in the Soviet Union (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 85–102. 10  Joseph Backstein, “The rebels: 40 years ago today an underground exhibition changed the face of art in Russia forever,” Calvert Journal, September 15, 2014, accessed October 7, 2015, http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/3090/

bulldozer-exhibition-moscow-soviet-union-josephbackstein. For Oskar Rabin’s account see Dalya Alberge, “Russian painters denounced as Soviet traitors exhibit in London,” Guardian, November 11, 2010, accessed October 7, 2015 , http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010 /nov/30 /russian-painterstraitors-exhibitlondon. Similar to the “Bulldozer Show,” another open air exhibition took place in the Izmailovo urban forest two weeks later on September 29, 1974. This new sanctioned exhibition of works of forty artists was held for four hours and was visited by thousands of people. 11  For a basic account see John E. Bowlt, “10+10,” in 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters (New York: Harry N. Abrams Incorporated, Leningrad: Aurora Publishers, in association with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 1989), 18. 12  For a concise overview of this history see Margarita Tupitsyn, “Sots Art: The Russian Deconstructive Force” in Sots Art, ed. Margarita Tupitsyn et al. (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1986), 4–15. 13  Ibid. Their first show at the Feldman Gallery was in 1976 when the artists were still in Russia. Between 1976 and 1982 they had five exhibitions at the gallery as well as their first solo museum show at the Hartford Athenaeum, Harford, USA in 1978. For more information about the Sots Art exhibition in 1982 see Robert Hughes, “Through the Ironic Curtain,” TIME Magazine October 25, 1982, 73; Kay Larson, “Kidding the Kremlin,” New York Magazine, October 11, 1982, 78; Ellen Handy, “Komar and Melamid “Sots Art,” Arts Magazine, December 1982, 32. 14  Among the Soviet modernists of the 1960s were such artists as Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Lev Kropivnitsky, Valentina Kropivnitskaya, Lydia Masterkova, Ernst Neizvestny, Vladimir Nemukhin, Dmitri Plavinsky, Oskar Rabin, Mikhail Shvartsman, Vasily Sitnikov, Boris Sveshnikov, Nikolai Vechtomov, Vladimir Weisberg, Vladimir Yakovlev, and Anatoly Zverev. 15  Vadim Zakharov, “The Necessity of a Museum of Contemporary Art Out Of Town,” in Contemporary Russian Artists, edited by Amnon Barzel and Claudia Jolles (Prato: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 1990), 69. 16  Margarita Tupitsyn, “U-turn of the U-topian,” in Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism, edited by David A. Ross (Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art, 1990), 35–36. 17  Ibid., 36–38. 18  Boris Groys, “The Russian Artist of the Eighties: or A Life Without an Oedipus Complex,” in Contemporary

Russian Artists, edited by Amnon Barzel and Claudia Jolles (Prato: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 1990), 87. 19  Participating artists: Erik Bulatov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics (Sergei Anufriev, Yuri Leiderman, Pavel Pepperstein), Ilya Kabakov, Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, Peppers group (Ludmila ­Skripkina, Oleg Petrenko), Sergei Volkov, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Curators: Amnon Barzel and Claudia Jolles. Venue: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato. Dates: 10 February–14 May 1990. 20  Vadim Zakharov, “The Necessity of a Museum of Contemporary Art Out Of Town,” in Contemporary Russian Artists, edited by Amnon Barzel and Claudia Jolles (Prato: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 1990), 69. 21  USSR Art, directed by Barbara Herbich, Jamey Gambrell, John Hazard, Joan Morris (Santa Monica, CA: Direct Cinema Limited, 2009). Andrew Solomon, “We came to Moscow,” in The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 32–34. Julie S. Berkowitz, “A Look into Glasnost’s Impact on the Soviet Art World,” in 11 LOY. L.A. ENT. l. REV 453, March 1, 1991, accessed October 17, 2015, http://digitalcommons. lmu.edu/elr/vol11/iss2/6. Also see Jamey Gambrell, “Perestroika Shock,” Art in America, February 1989, 124–135. 22  Suzanne Muchnic, “Leader of Soviet Artists Union Wrestling With Reforms Exchanges: Tair Salakhov jets around the world to develop opportunities to bring Soviet artists into the international community,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1990, accessed October 17, 2015, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-28/ entertainment/ca-1680_1_soviet-union. 23  Gordon Dee Smith, E.A. Carmean, Jr., and Marla Price, “Foreword and Acknowledgements,” in 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters (New York: Harry N. Abrams Incorporated; Leningrad: Aurora Publishers, in association with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 1989), 1–2. 24  Participating artists from the Soviet Union: Yuri Albert, Vladimir Mironenko, Yury Petruk, Leonid Purygin, Andrey Roiter, Anatoly Shuravlev, Sergei Shutov, Alexey Sundukov, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Participating artists from the USA: David Bates, Ross Bleckner, Christopher Brown, April Gornik, Peter Halley, Annette Lemieux, Rebecca Purdum, David Salle, Donald Sultan, Mark Tansey. Curators: Pavel Khoroshilov, Marla Price,

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Graham W.J. Beal. Venues: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, May 14–August 6, 1989; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, September 6–November 4, 1989; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, November 18, 1989–January 7, 1990; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, ­February 2–March 25, 1990. 25  Marla Price and Graham W.J. Beal, “Curators’ Statement,” in 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters, op. cit., 7. 26  John E. Bowlt, “10+10,” in 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters, op. cit., 14. For insight into press and participating artists’ reactions see Sylvia Hochfield, “In a Neutral Zone,” ARTnews, December 1989, 47–48. 27  Ibid., Hochfield, 47–48. 28  Details taken from an unpublished account by Lisa Schmitz (1986–1990) as well as an unpublished interview between Sasha Obukhova and Lisa Schmitz in Berlin on February 17, 2015. 29  Quotations and accounts taken from an unpublished interview between the author and Margarita Tupitsyn in Moscow on December 12, 2014, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since December 2014. 30  For example, Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989, or the 1993 Whitney Biennial in New York. For more detailed examination of this point see Kate Fowle, “Action Research: Generative Curatorial Practices,” in Curating Research. ­Occasional Table, edited by Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson (London: Open Editions/ Amsterdam: De Appel, 2015), 153–172. 31  Op. cit., Fowle/Tupitsyn, 2014. Tupitsyn curated The Green Show after going back to Russia in the fall of 1988 for six months on a grant to finish her dissertation, as well as working on Between Spring and Summer, and The Great Utopia exhibitions as a co-curator. 32  Ilya Kabakov first went to Austria on a six-month residency at Kunstverein Graz in 1987. Two years earlier in 1985 he had his first solo shows in the West: at Dina Vierny Gallery in Paris, and at Kunsthalle Bern curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, who was director of the Kunsthalle at the time. 33  Ilya Kabakov, “With Russia On Your Back: A Conversation Between Ilya Kabakov and Boris Groys,” in Parkett 34, Winter, 1992, 37–38. The description of Kabakov’s experience is extracted from a longer text on the artist by the author for the exhibition catalogue:

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“To See, or Not to See, That is the Question...,” in Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Pace Gallery, New York, ­November 2–December 21, 2013. 34  According to Sabine B. Vogel in Biennials— Art on a Global Scale, thirty-two biennials were instigated in the 1990s, in comparison to the twenty-seven that were founded between 1895 and 1989. Sabine B. Vogel, Biennials—Art on a Global Scale (Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 2010), 118–119. 35  Gavin Jantjes, “Preface,” in Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, edited by Jean Fisher (London: Kala Press in association with the Institute of international Visual Arts, 1994), 7. Speakers at the conference were Rasheed Araeen, Gordon Bennett, Jimmie Durham, Jean Fisher, Hal Foster, Hou Hanru, Gavin Jantjes, Geeta Kapur, Raiji Kuroda, Sarat Maharaj, Gerardo Mosquera, Everlyn Nicodemus, Olu Oguibe, Guillermo Santamarina, Elisabeth Sussman, Gilane Tawadros, Fred Wilson, and Judith Wilson. 36  Ibid., Hou Hanru, “Entropy; Chinese Artists, Western Art Institutions: A New Internationalism,” in Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, 79. 37  Ibid., 81. 38  Quoted and summarized from a public conversation “The New International or Post-Global?” between the author and Boris Groys at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow on July 2, 2014. 39  Among other shows, Jürgen Harten was, most importantly, curator of Binationale: Soviet Art Around 1990 in Germany, Israel, and Russia (venues: Stadtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, 12 April–2 June, 1991; Israel Museum, Weisbrod Pavilion, Jerusalem, September 3–December 9, 1991; the Central House of Artists, Moscow, 13 March–not known, 1992), and the head of the curatorial team of Berlin Moscow/Moscow Berlin 1950–2000 (Venues: Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 28 September 2003–5 January, 2004; The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 21 March–15 June, 2004). 40  Andrey Kovalev, “Interview with Jürgen Harten,” Segodnya, August 17, 1994. 41  Ibid. 42  Quotations and accounts taken from an unpublished interview between the author and Ekaterina Degot in Moscow on August 8, 2014, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since August 2014. Degot worked with Jürgen Harten on Moscow–Berlin from 1998 to 1999.

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Moscow Art Magazine is a Russian theoretical ­journal about contemporary art. It was founded in 1993 by Viktor Misiano. 44  Ekaterina Degot, “How to Obtain the Right to Post-Colonial Discourse,” Moscow Art Magazine, accessed October 17, 2015, http://xz.gif.ru/numbers/ moscow-art-magazine/how-to-obtain-the-right/ 45  Quotations and accounts taken from an unpublished interview between the author and Ekaterina Degot in Moscow on August 8, 2014, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since August 2014. 46  Accounts taken from a conversation between the author and Vadim Zakharov in Moscow on July 31, 2015, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since August 2014. 47  Vadim Zakharov, “VADIM ZAKHAROV P.S.,” in Vadim Zakharov: Postscript after RIP. A Video Archive of Moscow Artists’ Exhibitions (1989–2014), (Moscow: Artguide Editions, 2015), 125. 48  Op. cit., Fowle/Zakharov, 2015. 49  Terry Smith, “The Discourse,” in Talking ­Contemporary Curating (New York: Independent ­Curators International, 2015), 35. 50  Op. cit., Boris Groys, The Russian Artist of the Eighties: or A Life Without an Oedipus Complex, p. 87 51  Op. cit., Fowle/Degot, 2014. 52  Accounts taken from a public statement by the ­Hermitage group in Leonid Talochkin’s archive, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since December 2014. 53  The Avant-Garde Club still exists today with mostly the same members, but is virtually inactive. The last major exhibition was KLAVA Lovers curated by Boris Matrosov and Andrei Filippov in 2000 at the Art Moscow art fair. In one of his interviews, dated 2008, Matrosov said that he and other members (namely Elena Elagina and Igor Makarevich) had tried to revive the Club, but did not get further than a few small projects. Accounts taken from the exhibition video that was part of the Family Tree of Russian Contemporary Art exhibition at Garage, June 12–August 9, 2015, and exhibition texts by Garage Archive team. 54  Jamey Gambrell, “Notes on the Underground,” Art in America, November 1988, 126–136, 193. 55  In fact, this was the only collection developed at the time. In 2000 part of the Tsaritsyno collection was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery, forming the beginning of their contemporary art collection. 56  From an unpublished interview between the author and Andrei Erofeev in Moscow on August 11, 2014,

which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since August 2014. 57  Op. cit., Fowle/Degot, 2014. 58  Quotations from an unpublished interview between the author and Viktor Misiano in Moscow on July 16, 2014, which has been part of Garage Archive Collection since July 2014. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61  Viktor Misiano, “Hamburg Project: A Farewell to Discipline,” in Drugoi i raznie, edited by Viktor Misiano (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004), 67. 62 Ibid. 63  Op. cit., Fowle/Misiano, 2014.

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1986–1987 THE NEW MUSEUM, NEW YORK, APRIL12 — JUNE12, 1986 GLENBOW MUSEUM, CALGARY, NOVEMBER 18, 1986 — JANUARY 23, 1987 EVERSON MUSEUM OF ART, SYRACUSE, FEBRUARY 2 — MARCH 29, 1987

Curator: Margarita Tupitsyn

SOTS ART

Artists: Erik Bulatov, Kazimir Passion Group, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Alexander Kosolapov, Leonid Lamm, Leonid Sokov

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, The Origin of Socialist Realism (detail), (1982–1983) Courtesy Vitaly Komar & Alex Melamid Former Art Studio Archive

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SHOWING SOTS ART IN NEW YORK Margarita Tupitsyn Curator, Sots Art

The term Sots Art (Socialist Art) was coined by artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid in 1972. It was used to describe the first overtly political underground art movement in the Soviet Union, drawing on images from Socialist Realism to critique the prevailing artistic and political system.1 The phrase intentionally referenced Pop Art, but the focus was Soviet socialist propaganda. New York audiences were already familiar with Sots Art. There had been a number of exhibitions by Komar and Melamid at Ronald Feldman Gallery between 1976 and 1986, plus Sots Art curator, Margarita Tupitsyn, had put together a small but successful group show at Semaphore Gallery in 1984. The exhibition at the New Museum was the first in a museum. It was more comprehensive than any other show, but still limited by the fact that works could not be brought from the Soviet Union, meaning that Tupitsyn had to rely on Western collectors and those artists who had emigrated: other than Erik Bulatov, who was still living in the Soviet Union, all of the participants were émigrés. The exhibition, while well reviewed, proved difficult to read for American audiences. The Sots artists’ immersion in the visual culture of their homeland was not something easily shared. Consequently, to some the show appeared political, to others it was unclear whose “side” the Sots artists were on.

1 

The doctrine of Socialist Realism was introduced in 1932 and applied to all art forms, not just the visual arts. In addition to favoring realism, it stipulated that cultural production should be relevant to the workers, feature scenes of everyday life, and support the aims of the Party.

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Sots Art’s media-based orientation was what distinguished it from Moscow underground art of the 1960s, which concentrated solely on modernist painting. By 1980, Moscow vanguardists were ready to collectively reach out to the international art community with their models of political and institutional resistance. Despite its overall semantic foreignness, Sots Art was an obvious candidate to contribute to these tendencies. My interest in applying continental theory to art history and criticism — developed in the graduate courses I took with Rosalind Krauss — was paramount in my decision to concentrate on Sots Art in those years. It was a fruitful field for the discursive interpretation and application of Lacan’s psychoanalysis, as well as Derrida’s deconstruction, because the practice of Sots Art fueled itself by “borrowing from a heritage the resources necessary for the deconstruction of that heritage itself.” I applied these and other theories, such as those Roland Barthes develops in his Mythologies, in my catalogue essay “Sots Art: The Russian Deconstructive Force,” for the show I curated at the New Museum. In the 1970s and 1980s, commercial galleries were powerful vehicles for the advancement of contemporary art, whereas museums functioned as institutional (academic) endorsements of artists already discovered by galleries. For the first Sots Art exhibition I approached a young dealer, Barry Blinderman, the owner of Semaphore Gallery in New York, with an idea for a show called Sots Art: Russian Mock-Heroic Style, which presented Sots artists as a group. It was a small space on West Broadway, near Leo Castelli Gallery, that was famous for its promotion of Pop Art, and it was still representing Andy Warhol. I could only show one or two works by each artist due to the size of the gallery, so I included

Komar and Melamid, Alexander Kosolapov, and Leonid Sokov, who all lived in New York. Fortunately, the collector Norton Dodge had already acquired Danger, a work by Erik Bulatov, which became a unique contribution to the Semaphore exhibition due to its postmodernist use of language in painting and its somber (rather than carnivalesque) sensibility. Critics, who admitted that the show achieved a dichotomy between wit and serious content and concluded that it was an impressive combination, appreciated this difference. Because the Semaphore show was very well received, it was the right time to organize the first museum show of Russian vanguard art in New York. The New Museum was a magnet for artists interested in ­expanding aesthetic boundaries and channeling political art into the mainstream. Left critics and curators relied on the New Museum’s efforts to legitimize radical practices and discourses. Because I studied at graduate school with some of these critics and curators, their support was essential for the success of my proposal of the Sots Art exhibition. They were particularly enthusiastic about my desire to expand Sots Art to a broader cultural phenomenon, which harmonized with the strong interest at the time in Russian Constructivism and postconstructivist photography. It was important to identify a group of Russian artists who adopted some constructivist methodology because there was a clear tendency to root the activities of the New York vanguard — rather than the Moscow vanguard — in the aspirations of the post-revolutionary Russian avant-garde. At this time, regardless of how liberal institutions such as the New Museum were, they did not involve artists in curating exhibitions; particularly group ones. Perhaps this was the moment when curators began to acquire the kind of influence they have today. In spite of this, some participants of the Sots Art exhibition attempted to push their own agenda by contacting Marcia Tucker, the founder and director of the New Museum. Komar and Melamid’s window installation, for example, 39

was the result of such hierarchical behavior, which I understand to a certain degree. It was hard for them to part with their status as the only successful Russian artists in the West. In their window installation they constructed a still life, which included plaster busts of Socrates and Stalin, creating a kind of mimetological discourse that, however amusing, inspired some Russian critics to embark on deceptive analogies. The New Museum space was large, with impressive neoclassical columns (painted in red) that played off the classical style of some of the exhibited paintings. There were a larger number of Bulatov’s works, which was essential for the exhibition’s success. I got lucky because after I had finished the checklist, Norton Dodge called to say that he had acquired some major ­Bulatov canvases. This was a moment of curatorial joy. To give Sots Art a more explicit political edge, I included Leonid Lamm’s works, executed while he was in prison. I also featured Kazimir Passion Group’s film Lenin in New York, along with a replica of Malevich’s coffin, which the group used in all their performances. Finally, to identify the ideological iconography that Sots artists deconstructed, I displayed original Soviet posters from the Brezhnev period. After the exhibition at Semaphore Gallery, critics began to refer to Sots Art as a group phenomenon, rather than associating it solely with Komar and Melamid. The two exhibitions, both accompanied by catalogues, undoubtedly improved viewers’ ability to decipher Sots Art’s iconographic arsenal and deconstructive strategies. Yet, for the viewers, as well as the critics and curators, it was not always clear whose side Sots artists were on politically. This kind of ambiguity was lacking in the postmodernist production of then very visible political artists like Hans Haacke, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Martha Rosler. This explains why the most negative reaction to the Sots Art exhibition came from left critics keen on political art. For example, in the conversation with the 40

Polish artist W ­ odiczko, published in October 1 magazine, the New Museum was criticized for giving more space to Sots artists who disdained totalitarian culture, rather than to artists like Connie Hatch and Group Material (exhibited at the same time), who criticized “bourgeois culture.” They accused Komar and Melamid in particular of political nihilism and of not being clearly critical of either system. This, of course, had to do with the excessive irony in many Sots Art works. And yet, Bulatov’s paintings, which lacked ironic intensity, were not noted. Today, these accusations demonstrate how rigid some important New York intellectuals were before cultural globalization took hold, and how little space there was for outsiders. In contrast, in a letter addressed to me, the influential theorist Frederic Jameson stated that he found Sots Art very exciting and interesting indeed, and agreed with my thesis that Sots Art was “Soviet Postmodernism.” He also described the show’s catalogue as fascinating and stimulating. I would claim that Andy Warhol’s Red Lenin, which he made one year after the New Museum show, proved that, in the words of Victor Tupitsyn, “due to [Sots artists’] efforts, the communal perception of authoritarian icons gave way to individual ones.”

ON SOTS ART Vitaly Komar Artist

In 1985, gallerist Ronald Feldman introduced me to the director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Marcia Tucker. She wanted to know what I thought about the idea of the Sots Art show proposed by Margarita Tupitsyn for the New Museum. I said that I was very happy that the time had come for Sots Art to be exhibited as a movement deserving of a museum-level show. In the ten years before 1986, almost every Moscow artist had made at least one piece in the Sots Art style. Marcia later told Ron that if Alex [Melamid] and I had not supported the project, she would not have gone ahead. The proposal itself did not come as a s­ urprise. A year or so earlier Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn had discussed with me who should be included in a possible show. I suggested a longer list of artists than the final selection, but in those days it was to only possible to obtain works from private collections in the West or from artists who had emigrated from the Soviet Union. I had known Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn in Moscow, and I was confident that Margarita would make a great show.

Entrance to the exhibition Sots Art, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

Before the show at the New Museum, we [Komar and Melamid] had already had five shows at Ronald Feldman Gallery, each one attracting a number of reviews in the press. These had helped Sots Art to be understood in the West, where it was classified as a unique form of conceptual Pop Art, based not on images used in Western mass culture, but on Soviet visual propaganda. In addition to the exhibition, the New Museum suggested we make an installation in the museum window facing Broadway. We recreated the everyday environment of a Soviet provincial club in the early 1950s. On a table, covered with a red tablecloth, there was a bust of Stalin, two glasses, and an empty vodka bottle. 1 

“A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko,” October 38 (1986), 45–46.

Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle, July 15, 2015.

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Installation view, Sots Art, with Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid’s painting Art Belongs to The People (1984) in the background; to the left Erik Bulatov’s Television (1982–1985), The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

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SOTS ART

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

David Lurie, “Sots Art,” Arts Magazine, Summer (1986), 118.

Installation view, Sots Art, with left: Leonid Sokov’s Mausoleum: It’s Very Beautiful! (1984) and center: an installation by Kazimir Passion Group, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

SOTS ART Grace Glueck, [untitled review], The New York Times, May 4, 1986.

“Sots” Art is a breed of art known here since the late 1970s, when the team of Russian artists known as Komar and Melamid clandestinely shipped to this country works that satirized the Russian bureaucracy. (The two coined the word “Sots,” short for “Socialism,” as an ironic equivalent for the American term “Pop.”) In Sots Art, banal symbols, icons and signs of the Soviet state are used as departure points for art that can be ironic, nostalgic or comic. Komar and Melamid are its most famous practitioners, but they have been joined here by a number of other Russian emigrés. The “Sots” artists can now be seen as a group in a show organized by Margarita Tupitsyn, an art historian and Russian emigré herself, at the New Museum of 44

Contemporary Art. […] All of the artists are now based in the United States, except for Erik Bulatov, of an older generation, who still lives in Russia. Among the show’s better offerings are wooden sculptures by Leonid Sokov, whose hilarious Khrushchev is a figure of the late Russian party leader as Humpty Dumpty; and a crude triptych by Alexander Kosolapov called The Finale of the World History in which, among other visions, a Russian astronaut cavorts with a ballet dancer. To this viewer, however, the heavy hitters are still Komar and Melamid. Their contributions include the by now well-known Double Self Portrait as Pioneers in which the two, boyishly garbed in Young Communist outfits, salute an imposing bust of Stalin; and Nostalgic View of the Kremlin from Manhattan, in which the Kremlin’s white wedding cake structure floats on water framed by a stagey arrangement of trees. Not an easy show, “Sots Art” brings us closer to grasping Russian double-think.

[…] The heroic images that populate Soviet museums and the posters and slogans that dominate portions of the urban landscape are important means by which the theoretical conceptions and utopian projections of the Socialist state are made understandable to its citizens. Therefore, any challenge to the dominant vocabulary of images is perceived by cultural ­authorities as a challenge to the social structure itself. Some early works of Sots artists Komar and Melamid were merely banners emblazoned with Socialist slogans (e.g., “Our Goal is Communism”), which the artists signed. According to curator M ­ argarita Tupitsyn, “It is […] signature, the usurpation of the collective, that signals the deconstructive gesture.” Komar and M ­ elamid do not attempt to ­overcome the dominant ideology, but to force it to act against itself. […] Erik Bulatov’s work attempts to examine the images and jargon of ideological control

as they function in everyday life. In one image, a gigantic poster of a striding Lenin stands in the middle of an untended lawn as cars and office workers go by. […] Bulatov’s work explores the ubiquitous nature of ideological enforcement, in particular its function at the level of the unconscious. Above the Sots Art pieces in the exhibition some “authentic” propaganda posters were displayed. This functioned as a reminder that the significance of Sots Art cannot be understood without reference to the dominant culture from which it arose. The emigration of all the artists in this exhibition to the United States (with the exception of Bulatov) has led to an alteration of their practice as a response to a situation in which the vocabulary of Socialist Realism survives only as a memory, as opposed to a lived reality, or, according to Tupitsyn, “as a dead ‘father tongue.’” At the same time the artists have begun to confront the iconography of the West. Much of the work here […] evidences an attempt to engage in a critique of commodity culture. Though reference is retained to Socialist Realism, Tupitsyn argues that the Sots artists now engage in an international discourse.

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Alexander Kosolapov, Manifesto (1983), Sots Art, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Double Self-Portrait as Young Pioneers (1982–1983), Sots Art, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

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Installation view, Sots Art, with Leonid Sokov’s Stalin and Hitler (1983) in the foreground, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

Installation view, Sots Art: Russian Mock Heroic Style, with right: Erik Bulatov, Danger (1972–1973), and left: Alexander Kosolapov, Perseus (1983), Semaphore Gallery, New York, 1984 Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

Installation view, Sots Art, The New Museum, New York Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive

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SOTHEBY’S AUCTION, MOSCOW: RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AND SOVIET CONTEMPORARY ART

1988 SOVINCENTR, MOSCOW, JULY 2–7 (AUCTION JULY 7)

SOTHEBY’S AUCTION, MOSCOW

Experts in charge: Julian Barran, Simon de Pury, Hugues Joffre, Lucy Mitchell-Innes International coordination: Peter Batkin, Paloma Botin, John Dowling, Vals Osborne, John Stuart Artists: Grisha Bruskin, Ivan Chuikov, Alexander Drevin, Evgeni Dybsky, Yuri Dyshlenko, Gia Edzgveradze, Maria Ender, Nikolai Filatov, Ilya Glazunov, Ilya Kabakov, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Igor Kopystiansky, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Malle Leis, Bella Levikova, Irina Nakhova, Tatyana Nazarenko, Vladimir Nemukhin, Natalya Nesterova, Arkady Petrov, Dmitri Plavinsky, Leonid Purygin, Alexander Rodchenko, Sergei Shutov, Alexander Sitnikov, Anatoly Slepyshev, Eduard Steinberg, Varvara Stepanova, Ilya Tabenkin, Lev Tabenkin, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Sergei Volkov, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Vadim Zakharov

Day of sale, July 7, 1988, Sovincentr, Moscow © Sotheby’s

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A SPOTLIGHT ON RUSSIAN ART Simon de Pury Chairman, Sotheby’s Switzerland and later Sotheby’s Europe (1986–1997)

The Sotheby’s auction, while not an exhibition, did “exhibit” Russian artists in a way that produced more international exposure than any other project at the time. Since then, it has also frequently been cited as a watershed moment, as outlined by writer Andrew Solomon: “It was in fact so heralded an event that in the years that followed critics, curators, collectors, and artists v­ ariously credited the auction house with discovering a movement, inventing a movement, and destroying a movement.”1 In his memoirs, artist Grisha Brushkin — who rose to infamy when his works attained record sales — wrote that “the auction inflamed people’s imaginations.” He recalls numerous rumors and stories recounted to him in subsequent months and years: “I heard that the Sotheby’s auction was a Zionist conspiracy, intended to denigrate ‘genuine’ Russian art. […] They said that I had an uncle who lived in Canada or maybe in America, and who, instead of buying the painting cheaply from me at the studio, spent a million to get it at auction. […] A more original version was put forward by a gallery owner from Soho, who informed his listeners that the sale of my paintings was the work of US intelligence.”2 The auction was the last international initiative in the country to require special approval by the Soviet government. According to Pavel Khoroshilov — then Head of the Vuchetich All-Union Artistic Production Association (VUART), which was responsible to the Department of Trade within the Department of Export — while there were questions about the event at first, once ­Alexander Yakovlev — then Head of the Propaganda Department of the Central C ­ ommittee of the Communist Party — was appointed as overseer no one in ­the government made either positive or negative statements about it.3

1 

Andrew Solomon, “Mission to Moscow,” Connoisseur, July 1991, 56. Grisha Brushkin, Past Imperfect: 318 Episodes from the Life of a Russian Artis,. trans. Alice Nakhimovsky (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 258. 3  Ascertained from a conversation about the auction between Pavel Khoroshilov, Sasha Obukhova, and Andrey Misiano on March 19, 2015. 2 

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I was the curator of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Lugano, Switzerland, from 1979 to 1986, and it was through this role that I first went to the Soviet Union. Vladimir Semenov, the Soviet ambassador in West Germany, approached us to present the Collection in Moscow and Leningrad, which eventually led to four exhibitions. Between 1982 and 1986, I was constantly traveling back and forth for these projects, so I got to know many of the museum directors — Madame Antonova at the Pushkin, Piotrovsky’s father1 at the Hermitage — and also the Minister of Culture. When I started at Sotheby’s in 1986 I was still advising Baron Thyssen one day a week and had occasion to accompany him on a trip, again to Moscow. In those days, the hotel would always keep your passport until you were leaving, and when we arrived at the airport I realized I’d forgotten to collect it from reception: there was no choice other than to return to the city. An official from the Ministry of Culture accompanied me back to the hotel and then to the airport again, so I spent a decent amount of time with him. At one stage, I casually enquired if he thought there would be a chance that Sotheby’s could organize an auction in Moscow. I was expecting him to laugh, but to my great surprise he was open to the idea and asked which artists I thought should be included, to which I responded that there should be partly pioneers of Russian art and partly unofficial artists, such as Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, and Oleg Vassiliev. He said he thought it was an interesting idea and remarked that my choice of artists was very similar to those Mr. Jolles liked. 1 Mikhail

Piotrovsky has been director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1992. His father, Boris Piotrovsky (1908–1990), was director of the Hermitage from 1964 to 1990.

Paul Jolles (1919–2000) used to be the Secretary of State for Commerce in the Swiss government and then the worldwide chairman of Nestlé. Wherever he went, he would spend his spare time in the evenings visiting artists. In Moscow I often accompanied him. I was fascinated. They didn’t have support, barely any materials, or studios. They had no right to exhibit and no chance to travel, but there was a great solidarity and camaraderie between all of them. Later, when the official said that the Ministry would agree to work with these artists, I had to do something that was nearly as difficult, which was to ­convince people at Sotheby’s that there was a point in organizing an auction in Moscow at that time. I spoke with Lord Gowrie,1 and then to Michael Ainslie, who was the CEO of Sotheby’s worldwide. These were the early days of perestroika and things were opening up, so there was a huge interest in what was happening after years of the Cold War, of witnessing the changes. I was happy that Sotheby’s eventually decided that they would go ahead with the sale, which then meant several trips to select the works for auction. We worked mainly with two people from the Ministry of Culture, Sergei Popov and Pavel Khoroshilov. We put together a list, and they got works from the artists, assembling them in a church in Moscow. We selected from this group and also made studio visits with people like Vladimir Nemukhin and Vladimir Yankilevsky, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, and Vadim Zakharov, who was the youngest artist in the auction. My motivation was to show to the world what was going on behind the Iron Curtain, because most of the artists were working in total isolation — let’s not forget that this was pre-Internet. I felt an auction would be a great way of putting a spotlight on what was happening and increasing an appreciation of Russian art. Of course, I also worried that 2 

Lord Gowrie was Chairman of Sotheby’s from 1985 to 1994.

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after having obtained the works, we had to sell them. It was clear that at that time there were no ­Russian collectors who would be candidates, so we organized a trip to Moscow for collectors from America and Europe, so they could see artists’ studios for themselves and find out more about their work. This was about one week long. Peter Batkin, who was a sales clerk at Sotheby’s at the time, was in charge of organizing the tour. He did a fantastic job, really thinking outside the box and making everything f­unction behind the scenes. There were many funny stories from this trip. One American collector, who visited the studio of Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, was offered a painting in exchange for his Nikon camera, which he refused. Two days later, during the auction, this work and another by Svetlana fetched huge prices. It was Elton John who bought them. The collector was so upset! The auction took place at Sovincentr in the Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel. TV stations came from all over Europe, and the auction room was packed. There were tensions up to the last minute, such as rumors that a member of the Politburo who was an adversary of Gorbachev was exerting pressure for the whole thing to be canceled — even after all the collectors had flown in — but luckily nothing materialized from that. The other total nightmare was that we needed people to be on the telephone during the auction but none were working on the day. We had this whole phone bank with my colleagues at the ready, but five minutes before the auction they were dead. That’s the only time I was really nervous, because the top management of Sotheby’s were all there, including Alfred Taubman, the owner. I thought, “OK, well, this is it.” At that stage, Batkin saw that I was in a bad state and gave me a glass of vodka, which I took in one gulp and went out to the podium to start the auction. Then a total miracle happened. I suddenly saw all my colleagues eagerly dialing: the phone lines had started working. And so it began. 54

The first cycle was the Russian avant-garde, ­followed by the unofficial artists. The first lot went off like a bomb. People were bidding like crazy, and it reached three, four, five times more than we had expected. After every fall of the hammer the entire audience was applauding fanatically. It was like being at a football match each time a goal is scored. When it came to the unofficial artists, it was unbelievable, particularly with the record for Grisha Bruskin’s painting, which was much more than we could have ever expected in our wildest dreams. It was funny, because after the auction he was in a state of shock, and he dropped his glasses, which broke on the floor. As he was worriedly trying to pick up the pieces, his wife said, “Don’t worry Grisha, you are a rich man now. I will get you new glasses,” but he didn’t seem to believe it was possible.

enquiring, and what had been a PR triumph risked turning into a PR nightmare. That’s where Lord ­Gowrie played a very important role as Minister for the Arts in Thatcher’s government: Mr. Gorbachev was coming to England on an official state visit, and Gowrie was able to get the problem onto the agenda. The day before Gorbachev was to leave for London, suddenly all the artists got paid. Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle, April 8, 2015.

I think the auction was a pivotal moment because everybody who witnessed it saw the prices that these artists’ works could command, even when they were the so-called outcasts of society. The event was not without its contentious moments, however, even from the artists. The night of the auction, they did a parody of the whole thing, creating an impromptu performance: imitating me t­aking bids, imitating the crowd, and making comments about the absurdity that this art was suddenly worth money when it was worth nothing before. Nonetheless, the realization on the part of the Soviet officials that all these foreign collectors were paying such big prices for the works meant the b ­ eginning of the end of the Artists Union and the whole system that divided the opportunities for ­official and unofficial artists. The most problematic issue that arose after the event was to do with payments. The agreement was that as soon as Sotheby’s received funds from the purchasers they gave money to the Ministry, which was supposed to pay the artists. But week after week went by, and we would hear the artists had not been paid. The Ministry kept saying it was in process, but gradually the press started

Day of sale, July 7, 1988, Sovincentr, Moscow © Sotheby’s

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

SOVIET ARTISTS SKEPTICAL AFTER HISTORIC AUCTION Suzanne Muchnic, “Soviet Artists Skeptical after Historic Auction,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1988, Part VI, 1, 28.

[…] Appearing tall, lean, and fresh-scrubbed in his temporary studio on an upper floor of a Moscow high-rise that’s destined for refurbishment, [Vadim] Zakharov speculated about the effects of the auction. “No one could imagine such a thing happening even a year and a half ago, but I think that only a few people will be promoted as a result of it. Some names will be thrown out into the world and they will earn some money, but the rest will land in a dead zone,” he said. “The potential is great, but we have so far to go. There are very few private collectors in Moscow, and most Soviet people do not have enough money to buy art,” he concluded ruefully. According to Elena Olikheyko, of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, the difficulty extends beyond economics. A fundamental change of attitude is needed if Soviet artists are to gain support at home. “The problem for many years has been that people believe that real art is already in museums,” she said. “The process has been locked in itself. There was no place where people could go to see art and consider buying it. They are learning for the first time that art isn’t just something you look at in museums but that you can also live with it.” Zakharov and other participating artists watched the sale with obvious excitement as Sotheby’s duplicated its American and European auctions in a profoundly foreign setting. Some of the artists might as well have been witnessing a visitation from outer space as they tried to sort out the significance of 56

buy-ins, reserve prices, buyer’s premiums, and why certain pieces skyrocketed past their estimates. One by one, artworks were introduced as objects of desire and quickly claimed by Western dealers and collectors waving numbered paddles. A core of bidders had been enticed to visit Moscow by a deluxe nine-day tour, organized by Sotheby’s to provide a historical and ­sociological context for buying Russian avantgarde and Soviet contemporary art. “I didn’t come here thinking I had to have something from the sale, but we became so immersed in the culture during the tour that I’m thrilled to have a permanent memory of it,” said New York collector Joan Quinones, who snagged a naively styled painting by Arkady Petrov for $ 5,669. Her friend, Sally Goldreyer, said she made a “spur of the moment” decision to buy a painting by Ira Nakhova and another by ­Sergei Volkov for a total of about $ 17,000. “I like to buy early,” before an artist is well known, said a Swiss woman, who identified herself as Mrs. James Levy. She came to Moscow to buy a painting by Edward Steinberg (for $ 41,575) and swept up several other works while she was at it. […] The floodgates to the Soviet Union’s contemporary art are definitely open, but one major obstacle remains: the Soviet Artists’ Union, which has loosened its hold in recent years but still controls most exhibitions, artists’ employment, and studio space. A rift between the Artists’ Union and the Soviet Ministry of Culture — which sponsored the auction as a joint venture with Sotheby’s — has been the subject of much debate here. Union stalwarts have opposed the auction, arguing that it has turned art into a commodity and that future sales may rob the country of its cultural heritage. Some artists, on the other hand, tell horror stories of how the Union has tried to prevent them from traveling to other countries to see their own exhibitions. “I have never been spoken to so rudely as by Union officials,” said Steinberg, who finally won his battle to go to West Germany. Though many artists in the auction are Union members, few are true believers, saying

they joined young when their work wasn’t considered subversive or that membership is simply a means of earning a living so that they can pursue more personal expression. What is needed, according to Pavel Khoroshilov, director general of the Ministry of Culture, is a massive overhaul of the Union. It should become “a more professional organization that serves artists’ best interests,” he said. Decrying the recalcitrance of those who benefit from the entrenched system, Khoroshilov observed, “Sometimes artists are their own worst enemies.”

THE IRONY TOWER Andrew Solomon, The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost, (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1991), 32–34.

[…] The Sotheby’s sale was a miracle of engagement for two sides that had long stood in emblematic opposition to each other, and if one accepts that the function of art is ultimately communication, then the sale itself was a work of art. Whatever the misapprehensions and blunders surrounding it, Sotheby’s acted throughout with integrity, and for that they deserve praise. But the artists themselves could hardly see this; they left the Mezh[dunarodnaya Hotel] feeling their whole world had caved in, and they could not imagine what would arise to replace it. The day after the sale, they organized a steamer trip to protest Western commercialism: partly out of anger, partly out of fear, and partly out of sheer confusion. […] We assembled at the docks at about noon. The familiar faces were there; a spirit of guarded festivity ruled. On the upper deck, people greeted one another much as the members of the Sotheby’s tour had greeted one another the evening of the sale: with the quiet enthusiasm appropriate to people in a protracted series of meetings or reunions. The boat pushed out into the channel that joins the Moskva and Volga Rivers; this channel, as wide as the Hudson River, was built by hard labor under Stalin, and the bones

of the men who died during its construction are said to line its bottom — so said Sven Gundlakh, at least, with a good measure of enthusiasm. The journalists polarized the situation even further than it would have been polarized by circumstance. Nervous little Grisha Brushkin sat on the upper deck trying to look at the view; he had no chance of talking to other Soviets. A journalist from Vanity Fair who had cornered him conducted his interview in a suspicious and proprietary way, hoping that he would get the real scoop on this most important artist before anyone else got in on the act. Viktor Misiano, then the curator of contemporary art at the Pushkin, who had invited me along on the boat, made great efforts to introduce people to artists who hadn’t been in the sale. His countenance was grave and his carriage was gracious as he tried to orchestrate conversations much as though the people around him were guests at a cocktail party. […] But he did so with limited success. There was a certain separation among the ­artists. Those who had done too well stood at a distance from the others. Figures such as Joseph Backstein, who had organized many of the intimate exhibitions put on in the years immediately preceding the sale, were busy indicating their importance to the shape of the Moscow art world, but to no avail; in the eyes of the West, at least for the moment, only the painters themselves were important. One of the decisions made by Sotheby’s was that they would sell only flat paintings; conceptual works, installations, even sculpture were all excluded from the sale. What was the new status of Conceptualism? Joseph organized a press conference — I think he liked the importance of the words — and he assembled a panel to sit at the front of the boat. Everyone began asking questions at once, but there were no answers to the real questions: Are you happy about the sale? Was it a good thing? Excerpt from Andrew Solomon, The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost, (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1991), 32–34. Copyright © Andrew Solomon, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

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ИСKUNSTВО: MOSKAU-BERLIN/ БЕРЛИН-МОСКВА

1988–1990 KÜNSTLERBAHNHOF WESTEND, BERLIN, SEPTEMBER 12—NOVEMBER 2, 1988 CONSTRUCTION PAVILION, MOSCOW, JUNE 1—JULY 20, 1989 KULTURHUSET, STOCKHOLM, APRIL 9—JUNE 18, 1990

Project Manager (Berlin and Moscow): Lisa Schmitz

ИСKUNSTВО

Participants (Berlin): Nikita Alexeev, Sergei Anufriev, Joseph Backstein, Désirée Baumeister, Enzo Enzel, Boris Groys, Sven Gundlakh, Irina Nakhova, Volker Nickel, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Pavel Pepperstein, Dmitri Prigov, Mario Radina, Gabi Schilling Rets, Lisa Schmitz, Vladimir Sorokin, Andrea Sunder-Plassmann, Vladimir Tarasov, Sergei Volkov, Sergei Vorontsov, Vadim Zakharov, Werner Zein, Konstantin Zvezdochotov Participants (Moscow): Nikita Alexeev, Sergei Anufriev, Joseph Backstein, Désirée Baumeister, Enzo Enzel, Boris Groys, Sven Gundlakh, George Kiesewalter, Andrey Monastyrsky, Irina Nakhova, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Pavel Pepperstein, Dmitri Prigov, Mario Radina, Gabi Schilling Rets, Larisa RezunZvezdochotova, Lisa Schmitz, Sergei Shmakov, Andrew Solomon, Vladimir Sorokin, Barbara Straka, Andrea Sunder-Plassmann, Sergei Volkov, Sergei Vorontsov, Vadim Zakharov, Werner Zein, Konstantin Zvezdochotov Project Manager (Stockholm): Kirsten Danielsson Participants (Stockholm): Nikita Alexeev, Joseph Backstein, Désirée Baumeister, Enzo Enzel, Lars O. Ericsson, Boris Groys, Sven Gundlakh, Bernhard Kerber, Elena Kurlyandtseva, Irina Nakhova, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Dmitri Prigov, Mario Radina, Gabi Schilling Rets, Larissa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Lisa Schmitz, Andrew Solomon, Andrea Sunder-Plassmann, Vladimir Tarasov, Sergei Volkov, Sergei Vorontsov, Vadim Zakharov, Werner Zein, Konstantin Zvezdochotov Nikita Alexeev, Skin Deep 3 (1988)

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THE ART PROJECT ИCKUNSTBO MOSKAU–BERLIN/ БЕРЛИН–МОСКВА ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/Берлин-Москва (ISKUNSTVO: Moscow-Berlin/ Berlin-Moscow) was initiated by German artist Lisa Schmitz, who first traveled to the Soviet Union in 1986 and subsequently studied there on a scholarship. Her aim was to bring together artists from West Berlin and Moscow to work collaboratively. Schmitz visited Moscow in early 1987 to meet with artists and curators who might be interested in collaborating on the venture. Eventually, Joseph Backstein and a small group of Moscow artists, writers, and musicians primarily centered around the Avant-Garde Club, became key collaborators. The venue for the Berlin show was the Künstlerbahnhof Westend, a former railway station, which was to become an exhibition and art studio center. The Soviet artists both lived and worked there, producing new work for the show, to avoid shipping work from Moscow. For almost all of the Soviet participants, this was their first experience of the West, and it was rather disorientating. Most of them arrived with art materials — that took an age to clear through German customs — because they were concerned that there might be the same sort of problems acquiring materials in Berlin as there were in the Soviet Union.1 The German artists came to the venue every day to work, but ultimately Schmitz’s dream of a collaborative project was not borne out by the exhibition, which instead became a group show presenting works by individual artists. As Nikita Alexeev put it, “[The] point was not that the Moscow and Berlin artists were poles apart, but that they lived in different worlds.”2 Different versions of the exhibition took place in Moscow and Stockholm (where it was titled ИСKONSTВО). The title of the exhibition came from merging the German / Swedish and Russian words for art — kunst / konst and iskusstvo.

Lisa Schmitz Artist

In 1987, I received a postgraduate grant from DAAD/NaFöG1 that enabled me to go to any country in the world. I decided to go to the Soviet Union, after having experienced an amazingly beautiful journey from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian railroad in spring 1986. I had subsequently visited Moscow a couple of times and found it both interesting and challenging. Its cityscape was like a mirror reflecting the dramatic events which led to a political shift in the Soviet Union. These could be observed in the behavior and the eyes of the inhabitants. Moscow seemed to change every day, and I wanted to follow this development as an artist. In January 1988, I arrived in Moscow to work on my sculpture and performance project at the Stroganov Institute. When I opened the door of the studio, my breath was taken away—dozens of oversized soldiers made of unfired plastic clay and in dynamic poses welcomed me. This was not an art practice I found at all attractive and I closed the door. Since May 1986 I was focused on developing a project involving contemporary artists from West Berlin and Moscow. It would reflect on the shifts in the socio-cultural situation we were confronted with, and the position and role of the artist in a postmodern society. The project should take place in both cities as an experimental studio and platform for discussion and communication, to be followed by an exhibition as a work in progress. It took several months to establish contact with interesting artists in Moscow, and in preparation I read many publications about the current art and culture situation in the Soviet Union. Everything I saw

1 

As described by Andrew Solomon in The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 170. 2  Nikita Alexeev, Ryady pamyati (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2008), 306.

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1 

DAAD is the German Academic Exchange Service. NaFöG is a graduate stipend for Berlin-based students.

was kitsch and uninteresting. But I was sure that there must be some protagonists in the Moscow cultural scene who reflected on the historical, socio-cultural, and political situation in their art practice and critical discourse in distinctive and sensitive ways. I was curious and I wanted to meet them. Among the several people I discussed the project with were Karl Schlögel, historian and publicist in Eastern European culture, and collector Peter Ludwig. I was recommended by DAAD to contact Sabine Haensgen, who had just published, with Georg Witte, Kulturpalast, an intriguing book about the contemporary Moscow art scene. At the Research Centre for East European Studies in Bremen I met Wolfgang Eichwede and found a very informative compilation of texts and photographs about conceptual artists in Moscow. I was glad to see that some of the artists were identical with those in Kulturpalast. These were the artists I was looking for.

Installation view, ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Vadim Zakharov, After Fur No. 2. Side Position (1989), ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which was about to become an exhibition and art studio center. Edzard Reuter, chairman of Daimler-Benz AG and head of the Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft, was patron of our project during the initial phase. In late summer 1987, Ulrich Roloff-Momin took over. Joachim Sartorius and René Block of DAAD also offered support.

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Nikola Ovchinnikov’s installation at ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Installation view, ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

My idea was not just to find interesting artists in Moscow and show their works in a curated exhibition in Berlin. It was more important to let artists from Moscow and West Berlin meet and establish a discourse, which was not easy because they came from very different social, political and cultural backgrounds. The idea was to run an open studio for four weeks, a platform that allowed the artists to follow their individual ideas and make works, to get to know each other and to develop a common exhibition concept, acknowledging the diverse art practices present. I more or less knew the choice of Soviet artists I was interested in: Nikita Alexeev, Andrei Monastyrsky, Irina Nakhova, Dmitri Prigov, Toadstool group, and Vadim Zakharov. Now I had to think carefully about who to work with in the West Berlin art community. It was important to find artists who were interested in a collaborative art practice. In the end I chose the Berlin-based artist group Bomba Colori, as I had already cooperated with some of them in interesting projects. During the following months we met often to translate the Bremen texts and discuss the different ways of thinking and individual art practices in relation to our art positions. I was pleased that most of the Moscow artists I liked were accepted by the members of Bomba Colori, and prepared a portfolio about the Berlin artists: Désirée Baumeister, Enzo Enzel, Andrea Sunder Plassmann, Mario Radina, Gabi Schilling Rets, Werner Zein, and myself. We decided that I would try to contact the artists in Moscow and go there in summer 1987.

First I traveled to Paris to meet Nikita Alexeev, who had been living there since March 1987. Nikita told me a lot about the artists in Moscow and contacted them on my behalf. In Paris I also met Igor Shelkovsky and Boris Groys, and I enjoyed our challenging way of communication. We decided to stay in contact. Shortly afterwards I traveled to Moscow with Werner Zein and Gabi Schilling Rets. We visited the artists in their studios at Furmanny Lane or at home. Both the quality of artworks and the engaged conversations about our diverse art practices were convincing, and it was not easy for our art project to make a choice. Finally all participants were members of the Avant-Garde Club: Nikita Alexeev, Sergei Anufriev, Joseph Backstein, Sven Gundlakh, Irina Nakhova, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Dmitri Prigov, Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tarasov, Sergei Volkov, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov (Pavel Pepperstein and Sergei Vorontsov were also invited to Berlin). At Furmanny we came up with the idea to call the project ИCKUNSTBO Moskau–Berlin/Берлин–Москва, and we left Moscow in a state of excitement. Back in Berlin, I produced a portfolio of work by the Berlin and Moscow artists, showing conceptual, narrative and gesture-oriented practices focused on the topic of perception and the role of the artist in a postmodern society. I contacted Ulrich Roloff-Momin, president of the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. As well as financial support, he offered us the beautiful Künstlerbahnhof Westend, a former station

In 1988, West Berlin was due to become the European Capital of Culture. Karl Schlögel suggested that I contact Tina Bauermeister at the Berliner Festspiele, a cultural manager and filmmaker with a focus on the Soviet Union. She knew some of the Soviet artists, writers, and musicians we wanted to invite. “Lisa, this is exactly the project we need, you have to do it.” We now had a budget which covered all project expenses and a catalogue in Russian and German. It was autumn 1987, and with lots of engagement and curiosity we started both in Berlin and Moscow to work on the production of our book, which was intended as an artist’s book, rather than a catalogue. At the same time I was confronted with a much more difficult

task—obtaining permission from the Soviet authorities for the artists to leave the country. Not since the 1920s had Soviet artists been allowed to take part in an art exhibition in a Western country by private invitation. Permission to travel abroad could only be granted on receipt of an official invitation by the Ministry of Culture, and it gave permission selectively. We were confronted by a situation analogous to trying to pull a camel through the eye of a needle. There was no shortage of difficulties in this communist country, and they were of a type which I had never encountered before. I was very naive, but felt intuitively that it would be worth spending lots of energy on these great artists and friends. It was impossible to predict what would come up, but I focused on letting the art project happen. Nothing could stop me, even not Pavel Khoroshilov, a high-ranking official from the Ministry of Culture who did not agree with my choice of Moscow artists. “Lisa, you are a stubborn capitalist and this project will not take place,” he said. I paused, and replied, “And you have a very communist attitude which I do not agree with, and I must tell you that ИCKUNSTBO will happen!”

Nikita Alexeev, Wittgenstein’s Sanatorium (1988), ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin Courtesy Joseph Backstein Archive

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Irina Nakhova, Double Vision (1988), ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

Désirée Baumeister, Change of Space (1988), ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

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ISTKUNSTVO exhibition catalogue, cover

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Sven Gundlakh, Nevermore (1988), from the series Potemkino, ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

Sergei Volkov, Correcting a Name (1987), ИCKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

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Sergei Volkov, Untitled (Beauty Finds a Response in the Heart of the Artist) (1988), ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Barricades of Venice (1988), ИСKUNSTВО, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin

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WITHOUT CONTEXT

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Boris Groys, “Bez konteksta,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 4 (1989), 69.

Discussing ИСKUNSTВО, Moscow, 1989 Left to right: Nikita Alexeev, Boris Groys, Joseph Backstein, Barbara Straka, Lisa Schmitz Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

NOTES ON COMMUNICATION IN THE ART PROCESS Joseph Backstein, “Notes on Communication in the Art Process,” in ИСKUNSTВО. Dokumentation, eds Lisa Schmitz and Nikita Alexeev (Berlin: Movimento, 1990), 52.

ИСKUNSTВО was an important event in Moscow artistic life because over the duration of the project, beginning mid-1987, it was possible to trace the changes within the country and the whole range of relationships between Russian artists and the Western art world. The drama of these changes was projected on the situation within the exhibition. […] For Moscow participants the [drama was represented by] the absolute existential novelty of professional and everyday collisions, the clash — to the west of the Berlin Wall — with an unfamiliar system of artistic and technological values, and the surprising intelligibility and internal closeness but, simultaneously, the complete alienness of the local way of life. Plus, the dialectic of commercialization and the fashion for things Russian. […] [I] would like to note 68

that arrival in West Berlin was a unique opportunity to understand the Eastern world. The wall, a border which divided two worlds and two cultures, allows one to understand the sources of color in Western art, the direction and quality of form. When you travel from Zoo to Friedrichstrasse, you become convinced that here the world is in color, and behind the wall it is monochrome. […] Did the German artists experience an analogous situation in Moscow? […] They success­fully overcame the difficulties of everyday existence but not so much the gaps in communication. […] The compulsory semantics of “Soviet text” — any Russian visual line is still read as “Soviet” — was disturbed, as became clear at the exhibition opening. This was not so much by the post-Conceptualism of the works by Moscow artists, with their ­demonstrative opaqueness, but by the alien nature of the German works. Here, they represented the Western mentality. Of course, this was not the first exhibition of Western art in Moscow, but the collaborative nature of the project reinforced the artistic effect. […]

Of all of the relatively recent numerous ­exhibitions of Soviet art, it was ИСKUNSTВО which transported the specific microatmosphere of theMoscow “informal” event to the West. Usually, such exhibitions take place in a commercial gallery or a city exhibition hall of a museum. In the first case, the choice of artists and works is predicated on future sales, i.e. it is based on a personal evaluation of the ways the ­market is developing, clients’ tastes, the gallery’s commercial policy, the short-term market situation, etc. In the second case, the organizers, despite their formal and actual autonomy, take into consideration the political situation in their city and in the country as a whole, looking towards the potential reaction

The opening of ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Left to right: Boris Groys, Ulrich Roloff-Momin, Lisa Schmitz Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

of political parties, social organizations, the press, and also the possible ­reaction at various levels within the Soviet Union itself. In both cases, the exhibition reflects the cultural situation in the West to a greater extent than what is actually going on in Soviet art. In contrast to this usual practice, ИСKUNSTВО was organized with the help of Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, which usually ­supports artistic projects without any ­commercial or political (prestige) aim. Such foundations are widespread and help artists to realize expensive but non-commercial projects or simply to work quietly in a kind of “neutral zone,” without the usual pressure from ­outside. As a result, ИСKUNSTВО gathered artists who really shared an aesthetic program. The exhibition also included Moscow writers, poets, and musicians, which is relatively rare in the West now as a result of the deepening of artistic specialisms. […]

Irina Nakhova’s work at ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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Joseph Backstein next to a poster for ИСKUNSTВО, Berlin, 1988 Courtesy Joseph Backstein Archive

Joseph Backstein and Vladimir Sorokin, Berlin, 1988 Courtesy Joseph Backstein Archive

Vladimir Sorokin next to a poster for ИСKUNSTВО, Berlin, 1988 Courtesy Joseph Backstein Archive

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After the opening of ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Foreground, left to right: Andrew Solomon, Margarita Tupitsyn, Maria Tupitsyn Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

THE IRONY TOWER Andrew Solomon, The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 165–179.

[…] Lisa [Schmitz] was in Moscow when the Sotheby’s sale took place. I met her briefly at Andrei Monastyrsky’s action in the woods, though I have only the vaguest memory of having done so. Certainly none of the Soviets told me at that time that they were coming to Berlin. None of them thought they were. On September 1, 1988, Lisa’s six months ended, and she set off for home, and on that day Ira Nakhova and Joseph Backstein were told that their visa applications had been approved. On the fourteenth, Ira and Joseph came to West Berlin. A few days later, Sven Gundlakh and Sergei Vorontsov came; then three days after Sergei Volkov and Nikola Ovchinnikov; and after that Sergei Anufriev arrived with some musicians who had also been invited, Vladimir Tarasov and Vladimir Sorokin. Vadim Zakharov came last of all but for Dima Prigov, who — because his mental-hospital imprisonment was so recent, because his KGB violations ran beyond the end of the Brezhnev era — was denied his visa and his passport. […] In the end, he came to Berlin only after the opening of ИСKUNSTВО, though he was later to win a scholarship and live there from March to August of 1990. 72

At the opening of ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Left to right: Nikola Ovchinnikov, Lisa Schmitz, Sven Gundlakh, Joseph Backstein, Viktoria Mochalova Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

How to describe the process of arriving in the West from the East? The West was ­disappointing because it was not different enough, and it was intimidating because it was too different, and it was exhausting because it made too many demands, and it was uncomfortable because everything was too easy. It was wonderful and it was horrible. There were too many choices to make, and no-one knew how to make them. […] More fundamentally alienating than this plenty, perhaps, was the distance at which [the artists] found themselves from their selfcontained world. The people who came from the West to Moscow and to the studios of the artists, mixed bag though they may have been, were people who were interested in the art and the artists. To be in the West was to undergo a much more profound alienation from their old motivations for producing art than anything they had known so far. Sotheby’s was a big bang. Arrival in Berlin was a bigger bang. […] […] It took each artist about ten days to adjust to the climate, to the number of colors and noises, and to the speed of life and rushing cars. As the opening drew closer, the strain built. The Soviets hardly had time to explore Berlin if they were to be ready for the opening, and the Germans also spent long hours in the Bahnhof, trying to complete their work. […] I arrived in Berlin two days before the ­opening. Everyone was installed; ­everyone was

manic; everyone was trying to finish work that seemed at a great remove from completion. […] Even at that time, the strengths and weaknesses of the exhibition were manifest. The work was uneven, some of it unfinished; eighteen months later, in Prato, near Florence, the artists were to gesture at exquisite installations in an elegant museum and say, “This is a good show of our work; that was not.”1 But ИСKUNSTВО had great precocities and strengths. It recognized the idea that in days of ignorance and confusion, Soviet art shown in the West might best be produced in the West, and might best be displayed contextually with the work of Western artists closely acquainted with Soviet life. This notion turned the problem of travel into a structuring insight. The German work sustained an internal coherence with the Soviet work without attempting to program the Western response to it. Though the German work was not “important,” though it was more often whimsical than astonishing, it was not without its strengths, and it helped viewers to respond to the Soviet work. […] 1 

The exhibition Russian Contemporary Artists took place at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, February 10 — May 14, 1990.

Sergei Volkov at ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Dmitri Prigov’s work (left) at ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

More than two thousand people, including the Senator for Culture, the director of the DAAD, and people from all the banks and businesses that had underwritten the project, came to the opening of ИСKUNSTВО, which lasted from eleven in the morning until five in the afternoon. Art historians were there; people who had written about the artists were there, including Boris Groys, and Jamey Gambrell from New York; everyone who was anyone in Berlin was there. […]

Jamey Gambrell (center) and Dmitri Prigov (right) at ИСKUNSTВО, Construction Pavilion, Moscow Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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1988–1991 CENTRAL HOUSE OF ARTISTS, MOSCOW

GÜNTHER UECKER, SEPTEMBER 14—NOVEMBER 11, 1988 FRANCIS BACON, SEPTEMBER 22—NOVEMBER 6, 1988 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, FEBRUARY 1—MARCH 5, 1989 JEAN TINGUELY, APRIL 3—MAY 3, 1990 GILBERT & GEORGE, APRIL 27—JUNE 1, 1990 JAMES ROSENQUIST, FEBRUARY 5—MARCH 5, 1991 JANNIS KOUNELLIS, JUNE 28—JULY 26, 1991

Günther Uecker Organized by the USSR Union of Artists, the Soviet Cultural Fund, and the USSR Union of Designers, in conjunction with the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Head of the project: Michel Gaissmayer Consultant: Bodo Rollka Francis Bacon Organized by the British Council, in conjunction with Marlborough Gallery, London, and with the assistance of Sergei Klokov Curator: James Birch Robert Rauschenberg Organized as part of the US Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) ROCI Artistic Director: Donald Saff Jean Tinguely Organized with the support of Pro Helvetia, the Arts Council of Switzerland Gilbert & George Organized by the British Council Exhibition and catalogue: Judy Adam, James Birch, Sergei Klokov James Rosenquist Organized by Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm Jannis Kounellis Organized by Michelle Coudray, Galleria Sprovieri, Rome, and Studio Barnabo Curator: Rudi Fuchs Crowd at the opening of Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition ROCI USSR, Central House of Artists Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

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CULTURAL DIPLOMACY DURING THE PERIOD OF PERESTROIKA From the very beginning of his time in power, Mikhail Gorbachev opted for detente in international relations, which also meant the beginnings of a ­liberalization of cultural policy at home. This in turn led to structural reforms of the Artists Union, for example, which controlled the allocation of studio space and art materials, as well as artists’ employment, art publishing, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions. Tair Salakhov, head of the Artists Union, led the transformation. “We are adjusting to new statutes of organization adopted at the Union’s first national congress in 1988,”1 he said in a news report. This adjustment involved decentralizing authority and financial operations to the branches of the fifteen republics, as well as a new focus on international exchange, which resulted in the first series of solo exhibitions in Russia by leading Western artists. These took place from 1988 to 1991 at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, which was one of three exhibition halls controlled by the Union at the time, and which shared a building with the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. The exhibitions were developed based on the networks and contacts made through the interests and advances of foreigners into the Soviet Union. The initial hope that this endeavor would also open up opportunities for Soviet artists abroad met with less success. Contemporary accounts reveal that these exhibitions signaled a change in access to information and­­knowledge for Soviet artists, who, up until perestroika, got their information about the international art scene from official publications, in which Western Modernism and conceptual art were roundly criticized. As Russian architect and artist Eugene Asse recalls, “My first textbooks on modern art were The Crisis of Ugliness; Abstractionism: The Destruction of the Aesthetic; and An Apish Tumult in Art.2 With relative ease, I learned how to extract meaning from them that was the direct opposite of what was being written, and to find tiny, murky reproductions of the outlines of great art.”3

1 

Suzanne Muchnic, “Leader of Soviet Artists Union Wrestling With Reforms Exchanges: Tair Salakhov jets around the world to develop opportunities to bring Soviet artists into the ­international community,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1990, 6. 2  Mikhail Lifshitz and Lidia Reinhardt, Krizis bezobraziya (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1968); Sergei Mozhnyagun, Abstraktsionizm- razrushenie estetiki (Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1961); Viktor Birsky, Obez’yanii perepolokh v iskusstve (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1964). These works by official Soviet art critics consistently criticized the foundations of Western art from a Marxist viewpoint. 3  “Khudozhniki o Yukkere,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 4 (1989): 17.

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Tair Salakhov First Secretary, Union of Artists of the USSR (1988–1991)

At the time of the international exhibitions, I was First Secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR. The fact that we could organize such a series was thanks to perestroika: in 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev met with Ronald Reagan in Geneva, where they agreed to re-establish friendly relations, including in the field of culture. I met Günther Uecker in Germany, and he later came to Baku for my birthday party. Chancellor Helmut Kohl visited the exhibition and was very pleased that Uecker was well thought of in the Soviet Union. As for Francis Bacon, unfortunately he couldn’t come to the opening of his show. He wrote to say that he was suffering from asthma and would not be able to travel. We then met in England, and he was flattered that forty of his works had been shown in Moscow. I had been at Robert Rauschenberg’s solo show in the US in 1965, so I knew and liked his work. Then, around 1985, I was informed that Rauschenberg and Donald Saff, the chief administrator of ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange) wanted to meet me. They told me that they had been to the Ministry of Culture to try to arrange an exhibition in Moscow and were advised to come to me. I said, “Let’s work together,” and asked Rauschenberg what he wanted to show in Moscow, to which he replied that it was important to him to make works that were connected with the Soviet Union, as well as paintings, installations, and works on paper. It didn’t take me long to get an official agreement. I think the Americans were surprised at how quickly we agreed.

opportunities. For example, Mihail Chemiakin (an artist of Russian origin, then living in the US) had an exhibition in Moscow. Others had the chance to exhibit abroad in exchange for the exhibitions we presented by Western artists, such as when we sent works by Slava Zaitsev, the designer, to Los Angeles. In general, all of the artists who came to the Soviet Union were sharp-eyed and truly interested in understanding our life. This was largely because the Soviet Union was an enigma, and the borders had only really opened in 1987. For us, it was interesting to lift the veil of secrets around the Soviet Union for our guests. We also really wanted to get to know them, because every artist has their own philosophy, their own worldview. We were richer for seeing those people. It’s one thing to see something, and another to feel it with your heart, for your mind to grasp the unseen internal laws of the reflection of life which were proposed by those artists. Excerpted from an interview with Andrey Misiano, November 24, 2014.

As part of the cultural diplomacy, occasionally Soviet artists were also given new 77

Opening night of Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition ROCI USSR, Central House of Artists, 1989. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

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Installation view, Robert Rauschenberg, Central House of Artists, 1989. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Installing Robert Rauschenberg’s artworks, Central House of Artists, 1989. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Installation view, Robert Rauschenberg, Central House of Artists, 1989. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Installation view, Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition, Central House of Artists, 1989. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

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Installation view of Jean Tinguely’s exhibition, Central House of Artists, 1990. Courtesy Central House of Artists

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Elena Bespalova’s article about Gilbert & George in the magazine Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 1991

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Günther Uecker in front of one of his works, Central House of Artists, 1988. Courtesy Central House of Artists

ARTISTS ON UECKER “Khudozhniki o Yukkere,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 4 (1989), 17.

Evgeny Mitta: As far as I can remember, Moscow had never seen anything like Uecker’s exhibition. We can argue about his significance as an individual in contemporary art, when there are names like Beuys and Kounellis to hand, but the key thing, to my mind, was that in M ­ oscow, for the first time, there was a personal exhibition by a European conceptual artist. […] We simply didn’t have solo exhibitions or retrospectives by artists working in the second half of the twentieth century, so we really mustn’t underestimate this exhibition and the cultural program that accompanied it. We listened to legendary theorists, art critics, exhibition organizers, and people whose names are associated with entire movements in art with incredible interest. It seemed to me that all of them, including Uecker, were brought to Moscow not only by an intention to introduce us to their ideas, but also by a wish to see a 86

society that, after an absence of half a century, was joining the process of the development of contemporary art. Now it became clearer to us: in order to be a fully-fledged participant in the cultural process, it wasn’t enough to passively accept the gifts of European culture. In order for a dialogue to arise, you had to speak in a contemporary language. […] Eugene Asse: I went to Uecker’s exhibition three times. The first time I went with an awareness that I was going to the opening of Moscow’s first solo exhibition by a Western avant-garde artist. […] I assumed that I would like it, but I liked it even more than I expected. There, I found confirmation of my conjectures, specifically: that the art of the avant-garde is not hostile to the whole of humanity; that it hasn’t exhausted itself, that on the contrary it’s distinguished by an enviable temperament and energy; and that it possesses a huge magnetic force. Drawn by this force, I went to the exhibition a second time. This time, I was actually going to the exhibition by the artist Günther

Uecker. I was aware that this was an important artist, even a great one. What stunned me was the incredible energy of his gesture, which simply broke down the walls of officialdom of the Central House of Artists. And on top of that, cosmic thinking incarnated in a banal object, a vibration of textures, irony, tenderness, fear, pain, irony again, Zen, Christianity, love, hate, violence, repentance, and again irony. For several days, Uecker sat within me, like a nail through my head. Then I went to the exhibition for a third time, and I discovered myself in the space of an endless action, a continual process of creation, within a vast studio transformed into a stage. And the idea came to me that I myself was merely a nail under the hammer of the Great Master. Thinking that, I left. I would have gone again, but the exhibition closed. […]

place now in the best possible time and best possible place.” Soviet press reaction has been surprisingly restrained thus far. As always, responses are slow to develop, in sharp contrast to the style of virtually instantaneous coverage in the West. Moscow News described Bacon as “the most obscure (for us) of the best known British artists” and complained that “we didn’t know that we didn’t know,” presumably, how impressive Bacon was — a lack that was ascribed, interestingly, to the fact that “he never joined an artistic movement — well, maybe one, but he destroyed his works of the 1930s.” In the West, of course, nonparticipation in a movement or tendency would be no barrier to popular recognition, possibly the reverse.

THE TASTE FOR BACON Brandon Taylor, “The Taste for Bacon,” ARTnews, January, 1 (1989), 57.

[…] Beyond the official plaudits the question remains: What meaning does Bacon’s art have, and will it have, for the Moscow public? Inevitably this public is divided into many strata, and no simple answers can be furnished. The art establishment and the intelligentsia appeared convinced that Bacon’s presence was indeed fabulous. Glasnost means openness to new experiences, and Bacon’s furious efforts to catch the inner mortalities of the living body supply a sense of loneliness and personalized anguish that is not acknowledged in the official discourses of Soviet life. The intelligentsia sees in Bacon’s work a correspondence to their sense of isolation from the state machine and to their desire for candid questioning of previous social norms. As Mikhail Solokov, a research historian at the USSR Academy of Art and author of one of the catalogue texts put it: Bacon is the “real painter of Soviet glasnost. That is why this exhibition takes

A letter from Francis Bacon to Tair Salakhov, September 9, 1988 Courtesy Tair Salakhov

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CAPTIVA. THE ROCI ROAD SHOW Mary Lynn Kotz, “Captiva. The ROCI Roadshow,” ARTnews, 88, (1989), 48.

[…] ROCI / USSR, with more than 200 works, was the first major one-person exhibition in the Soviet Union by an American abstractionist. Five years ago, a show like this would have been unthinkable. The project had influential supporters: industrialist Armand Hammer who has strong ties with Soviet leaders since Lenin, introduced Rauschenberg to [Soviet Minister of Culture, Vasily] Zakharov, and an invitation from the Union of Artists followed. […] ROCI (pronounced “rocky”) is the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange, named after the artist’s pet turtle. Since Rauschenberg announced its formation at the United Nations in New York in 1984, ROCI has traveled to what he calls “sensitive” areas — developing countries or countries under totalitarian governments that have not been exposed to American art or to many images from other countries. The idea, says Rauschenberg, is to go to a country that may not be familiar with American artists, “to interact with the artists and artisans there, to learn their esthetic traditions, to talk

Tair Salakhov and Francis Bacon, London, 1989 Courtesy Tair Salakhov

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to students — to touch on every aspect of art.” He travels throughout each host country taking photographs. The works of art that emerge from the experience become the centerpiece of the exhibition that follows, usually in the country’s national museum. As the ROCI show progresses, the audience in each country can see work inspired by the previous host countries as well as its own. The “Soviet-American” works weave images of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square with New York’s World Trade Center; Tbilisi hanging laundry with New York construction workers; a zodiacal clock in a Moscow subway station with Halloween costumes in a New York shop window; Samarkand cabbages with an urn in a New York bank. Videotapes by assistant Terry van Brunt record Rauschenburg’s journeys in every country and present everyday life as seen through his eyes. Another leap for Soviet audiences was made by the Trisha Brown Company, of which Rauschenberg is chairman. At the Palace of Culture, in an industrial district on the outskirts of town, the company presented the world premiere of Astral Convertible. Rauschenberg designed the dancer’s silver sheath costumes and the freestanding derrick-like towers that contained lights and music, which were powered by automobile batteries and triggered by the dancers’ movements. The astonished audience, accustomed to traditional ballet, watched in puzzled silence until they finally exploded into applause. […] ROCI’s gifts to the Soviet Union did not stop with the exhibition. A corollary agreement signed by Zakharov and [Donald] Saff will bring Soviet artists to GraphicStudio and send American artists and printmakers to work in a new “sister studio” in Moscow. “Artists and printmakers haven’t worked together in the Soviet Union,” says Saff. “We’re hoping to help them skip thirty years in printing procedures.”

Tair Salakhov and Robert Rauschenberg in Rauschenberg’s studio, New York, 1988 Courtesy Tair Salakhov

HOW WE LIVED WITHOUT RAUSCHENBERG Elena Chernevich, “Kak my zhili bez Raushenberga,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 11 (1989), 4–7.

[…] Seeing the actual space of the Rauschenberg exhibition (and that of Uecker a little earlier), I finally understood that we had lived a life without modern art. That life was lived in parallel with it, but not together with it, because reproductions and originals are different things. […] After Uecker and Rauschenberg, having received for the first time the opportunity to compare my “knowledge” with the “object,” I was convinced that the main thing that reproductions of modern art don’t convey is their simplicity. No, to be more precise: they don’t convey them in their simplicity. Let me explain. You have to see with your own eyes, for example, the following: the thickness of the nail and how it’s been driven in; how painstakingly the plaster has been painted; the technicality of the drawing of the geometrical composition; the hidden or revealed transitions from one texture to another; a familiar object used in the composition —real or fake; the angle to the spectator at which the mirror is set; the size,

relative to the original, of the packaging, cast in bronze, that is exhibited; the frequency with which drops of water fall on the metal surface (and where the water then goes); how the force of the sound included in the space of the work is dependent on the behavior of the viewer… […] Let us return to Rauschenberg. A simple fact that nevertheless leaps out at you: the vast size of many of the works. In the caption under the reproduction you can read “200×1,200 cm” and you can give it some serious consideration. But the size of Rauschenberg’s works has to be seen. […] The strongest impression left with me following this first meeting with one of the leaders of Pop Art was a sensation of freedom. It turned out to be a joy to be among Rauschenberg’s works and to breathe freely. In the world in which the artist lives, he has long since been studied and sold off to all the museums. It’s unlikely that anyone looking at his works would find themselves considering the theme of freedom. Those of us encountering Rauschenberg for the first time probably shouldn’t immerse ourselves in the subtleties of his work — America was discovered long ago. Now, for us, the main thing is that this exhibition took place, and that we saw with our own eyes how modern art can develop when it is free. 89

PANDORA’S BOX Andrei Kovalev, “Yashchik Pandory,” Tvorchestvo, 8 (1990), 22–23.

[…] The Moscow pilgrimage of Jean Tinguely was seen as an enactment of the ancient idea of drang nach Osten, a well thought out, properly organized, and long-lasting cultural expansion into the East. “The walls have fallen, Western and Eastern Europe have moved closer,” noted the Swiss consul, Mr. Bianchi, at the opening. And although this rapprochement looks a little overdue, in recent times it is becoming increasingly obvious that the construction of a light-proof Iron Curtain could not destroy the shared cultural humus from which, at the right time, on both sides, similar shoots began to grow. […] [artist] German Vinogradov noted, “Before, I didn’t know anything about Tinguely, but I, like him, was inspired by the garbage dump, which is to say by the elements. Unlike a snob, who will take gold and make some crap out of it, an artist like Tinguely, on the contrary, prefers to take crap and t­ransform it into gold.” […] It’s worth noting that as a space for his Moscow exhibition, Tinguely selected the most inconvenient premises, the low-ceilinged mezzanine floor of the Central House of Artists, and built there a closed box, a Pandora’s Box, a Minotaur’s labyrinth, inhabiting it with his delightful, creaking, and groaning, selfpropelled still lifes made from dead machines, skulls, dried roots, and artificial flowers. An apologia for death, an exhibition of absurd and nonsensical movements, mechanisms that are enchanting in their infernal meditations, presenting invalid mythologemes — all this was meant to shock the Russians. (That, at least, is what Tinguely himself told me.) […] An elderly couple, who appeared to have found themselves at the exhibition by chance and had little interest in art, informed me that they noted an uncommon diligence and imagination in the artist. “They’re like mechanical toys that he makes out of nothing.” When I asked them if they were afraid of Tinguely’s art, they replied: “We 90

weren’t afraid at all. We’ve seen a lot in our time, and we lived through the war — nothing frightens us now.”

WITH GILBERT & GEORGE IN MOSCOW Daniel Farson, With Gilbert & George in Moscow (London: Bloomsbury, 1991), 20, 24, 125–126, 145–146.

[…] Without the infinite patience of James Birch, the historic exhibitions of Francis Bacon and Gilbert & George would not have taken place in Moscow. […] If James was the initiator on this side, Klokov was the fixer in Russia. Looming on the horizon, he was a catalyst too, although more formidable than James; an official power behind the scenes and a brilliant manipulator, guiding him through the maze of red tape which doesn’t come redder than it does in Moscow. […] Mikhail Mikheyev, the head of art promotion in the USSR’s Union of Artists, worked closely with James Birch throughout and has stayed with him in England. He was the most important Russian to be actively involved with the exhibition, apart from Sergei Klokov, who kept his distance from the others and worked independently. Mikhail felt the project was too daring when it was first suggested by James, though the Muscovites had already seen such controversial artists from the West as Rauschenberg and Tinguely. “After my meeting with Gilbert & George in London, all my reservations disappeared. […] They do not aspire to rise above the audience, to condescend or to withdraw. On the contrary, in every work they stress that they are no different from us — only they are more daring, more talented, have greater foresight, and are more generous than us. This is why they are prepared not only to open up the doors to their castle [on Fournier Street] but also the doors to the most intimate corners of their souls.”

Mikhail Mikheyev makes no reference to the allegation that the USSR Union of Artists was promoting “two homoerotic fascists.” […] In the event, the abundance of young men in the paintings, which upsets the English critics, scarcely caused a frisson in Moscow. The Russians seemed uninterested in this aspect of their work. Meanwhile Gilbert & George forged a rapport that was remarkable to witness. As I wrote at the time for the Sunday Telegraph, the Russians loved them, possibly mistaking them for English milords in their three-buttoned tweed suits. […] “As I [Mikeyev] watched these two performance experts, I could not but feel that this affair was itself a performance. And this performance began within the first few minutes of the press conference. Instead of the statutory provocative questions put to the artist, journalists politely expressed their interest in the means of execution of each piece and the reasons behind this choice of technique.” […] “Are you well known?” asked a Russian. “Yes, of course,” George smiled at such absurdity, though this failed to arouse a titter from the reporters. Inevitably the loaded question came at last. “Is your work decadent?” “What is decadence, can you tell me?” Gilbert responded. “We believe that art that only speaks to art is decadent,” said George. “Art which speaks to specialists, art which is elite is decadent. Our art is appreciated by different people and nationalities; therefore it is a kind of moral art.” “We are not against being decadent ourselves!” Gilbert added with his inimitable humor, which was both so carefree yet aimed so carefully.”

The cover of Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 1, 1991

ACCESSIBLE ART Elena Bespalova “Dostupnoe iskusstvo,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR 1 (1991), 48.

Well, then, Gilbert and George raise high the banners of democratic art. They steadfastly battle with elitism and the esoteric. “The majority of visitors at museums and exhibitions approach art out of vanity. It’s nice when art gives you a pat on the head and praises your refinement and education. But art has different goals. This is decadence.” The main concept of art today, and the guiding star, is the concept of “art for all.” Their art, Gilbert and George are convinced, can step over geographical borders and over class and ethnic barriers. Gilbert and George’s viewer needn’t be educated or well read. […] It’s for precisely this reason that Gilbert and George simplify, to the greatest extent possible, the form and content of their works. Judging by the titles, they really do deal with the essentials: life and death; hope and disappointment; fear and spiritual bankruptcy. The works are undoubtedly distinguished by technical 91

perfection and a faultless color construction. An unquestionable attribute is their striking decorativeness. But how comprehensible to the public is this artistic language, which the authors imagine to be so accessible? The encoded nature of the poses of the main characters in the works impedes understanding, and the homoerotic overtones put off and shock many. The declared appeal to each viewer is clearly contradicted, for example, by the absence of female figures in the pictures. And the artistic form of their works itself is not so simple or anti-traditional as these bold battlers of decadence might like.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JAMES ROSENQUIST “‘When Carter asked me to become a member of the National Foundation for the Arts I said that I have a criminal past.’ An interview with James Rosenquist by Anna Pantueva,” COLTA, September 17, 2010, accessed December 1, 2014, http://os.colta.ru / art / events / details / 17884 / page1 / 

[…] —In 1991, in Moscow, at the Central House of the Artist, there was a major retrospective of your works. How was your Moscow experience? In Moscow, I only exhibited those works that could have been made in the former Soviet Union — no video, no electricity — I just exhibited canvases. So that people would come, they would look, and they would say: “Wow, take a look, a picture, I could do that!” I didn’t want to be a chauvinist, or really cool. We were hanging the pictures, and we hung this big canvas very high, by the upper windows. There were girls in army uniforms of thick wool on duty in the gallery. Good looking girls. In good shape, you know — wow! They immediately came up to us: No-no-no-no, you mustn’t put it up there! I said: “All right, boss, we won’t.” After that they eased up a bit, and I started hanging things where I needed to — they didn’t raise any objections. We were putting the pictures 92

in good positions, but they wanted it to be even better! —So you’re saying that the Russian police helped you hang the pictures? That’s wonderful. Yes, it wasn’t bad. I brought two boxes of cheap vodka from Florida. We headed off to our first official dinner. The museum director said to us [in a thick accent]: “Oh, ve ar very very sorry — no vodka!” And I said “No problem,” and put out the boxes. I’d brought my own. —To Russia with your own vodka? Yes, but there’s more, hang on! There were all sorts of people at the table, and a lot of guys from Azerbaijan in particular. Good Lord! Those two boxes were gone in about four minutes! “Your health! Bottom’s up!” Slurp-slurp-slurp — they drank everything. And then, about a week later, vodka started to appear in the shops. But when we arrived, there wasn’t just no vodka — there was no bread. We also brought several big cases of tools and foodstuffs — spaghetti and the like. There was nothing to eat. If there was some stuff, none of it made it to the shops — it all went on the black market. We brought a ton of cans of cheap of beer, a dollar a can. In the morning, we started hanging, and the only drink we had was that beer. The Russians came along and exclaimed, “Beer!” and started drinking it at eight in the morning. We were put up in some hotel; I think it was the Savoy. An OK hotel. One of the few places in Moscow where they had food. I brought my guys along with me, old timer pals — some were seventy and some were eighty. Every day, they went to the museum to do the hanging, and I made hot meals for them there. But the museum workers wanted to eat, too, so I started cooking for everyone.

VIKTOR MISIANO ON JANNIS KOUNELLIS [The Jannis Kounellis exhibition] was not simply a demonstration of works, it was a spectacular event. There were various works, but they were part of a complex whole, interlaced with each other. Kounellis is a very theatrical person, who appeals to the sensory. He recreated an earlier work (Untitled, 1991), where thousands of shot glasses of ouzo were arranged in a long block. The smell of aniseed was palpable. As you entered the space, you saw the glasses and were engulfed by that smell. The exhibition was incredibly theatrical, more spectacular than any of the others in the series [at Central House of Artists]. Excerpted from an interview with Viktor Misiano by Andrey Misiano, August 7, 2015.

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1989

SALA 1 CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE D’ARTE CONTEMPORANEA, ROME, MAY 24­—JULY 30

MOSCA: TERZA ROMA

Curator: Viktor Misiano Artists: Andrei Filippov, Georgy Litichevsky, Boris Orlov, Dmitri Prigov, Andrei Roiter, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

Andrei Filippov, The Last Supper (1989) Courtesy The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation

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THE SUBCULTURAL VERSUS THE CURATORIAL

According to the catalogue of the show, Mosca: Terza Roma (Moscow: The Third Rome) began as a conversation, in Paris, between Sala 1 director Mary Angela Schroth and artist Nikita Alexeev. Curatorially, the ­starting point was a work by Andrei Filippov from 1982: a slogan reading ­MIRU-MIR (Peace to the World) which, if read from right to left, would say RIMU-RIM (Rome to Rome). For Viktor Misiano, the curator of the exhibition, this slogan evoked the defiant rallying cry, “Moscow: The Third Rome,” used by rulers of the united Russian kingdom, after the fall of Constantinople, the second Rome, in 1453. The phrase returned to popular culture at the beginning of perestroika, this time reflecting the skeptical attitude artists had towards politics and the so-called promises of history. Writes Misiano, “Mosca: Terza Roma is also an allusion to the fate of the Moscow avant-garde, stuck between the first Rome and the third Rome, between East and West: the fate of an art which strives to use the international art language when speaking of the problems of its own highly unique country.” Describing his approach to organizing the exhibition, Misiano says he practiced “emissary” curating, insofar as the exhibition was intended to showcase a specific artistic situation, which was also a regional phenomenon. With the ultimate goal of integrating Russian art into the international scene, Mosca: Terza Roma was an early attempt at bringing the issues inherent in underground artistic practices in Russia to the fore, while maintaining a strong awareness of how the oral conventions of a subculture have little parlance outside their circle.

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Viktor Misiano Curator, Mosca: Terza Roma

was expositional unity, devoid both of excessive uniformity and excessive garishness. And yet, in keeping with the format of “emissary” curating, I felt it necessary to make the exhibition fairly representative by including artists of different generations and poetics.

The originality of Mosca: Terza Roma was that in organizing the show, I, not being an adherent of the underground scene, ignored its internal demarcations and canons, with the proviso that the title had been inspired by the works of artist Andrei Filippov, echoing the work of the artists of his circle. (They even joked about it in one of the songs they wrote as the band Mid-Russian Heights.) However, as I conceived the exhibition, I thought it natural to go beyond specifically thematizing the notion of Mosca: Terza Roma as the “Third Rome” that was characteristic of the work of Filippov and his group. I was attracted by its semantic richness, then so in tune with the moment in history we were experiencing. In keeping with the logic of the exhibition, as I then understood it, it seemed justified to react, via a show of contemporary Russian art, to the large-scale historical transformations the country had embarked upon, to the premonition many then had of the old order’s imminent demolition. It also seemed appropriate to discuss this in Rome; a place that over the centuries had witnessed the fall of many social orders and great empires. Hence, in drawing up the roster of artists for the show, I tried to take into account different considerations I regarded as fundamental. To start, an important criterion for me was the artists’ sensitivity to historiosophical issues: their ability to see contemporary experience in its light. In addition, since it was slated for Sala 1, an extremely expressive space, the show was conceived as a series of site-specific installations. Hence another important criterion in selecting artists was their propensity for working in this specific format, their ability to do combat with such a powerful space. And of course I tried to mesh the proposals I anticipated from artists, to understand how compatible and expressive they would be vis-à-vis each other. The outcome I sought

Undoubtedly, this approach is nothing other than a commonplace of curatorial practice; only it was employed at a time when curatorship as an institution was just establishing itself in the Russian artistic context. However paradoxical it may sound, the emergence of this institution was at odds with the principles not only of official culture but also, partly, of the underground. Thus the roster I drew up for Mosca: Terza Roma provoked, to my surprise, a confrontation with the art scene. Many thought I had usurped a topic that was not mine, allowing it to be interpreted differently, but the sticking point was that, in choosing the artists, I had ignored those to whom priority should have been given while recruiting those who had no such priority. (In hindsight, I am willing to admit that some of these accusations were not unfounded.) I think that, in fact, it was not so much a matter of whether a particular criticism was justified, as it was of a clash between two quite different logics: the subcultural, in which the creative and personal are in indivisible symbiosis, and the curatorial, which tends to ignore the personal and rely on its own purely professional criteria. As far as I am aware, on the eve of the show in Rome, one of the leading artist communities even held something like a general assembly, where there were calls for the artists I had invited to refuse to take part in the exhibition. (To my good fortune, they rejected these appeals.) In the end, I would dare suggest that this very conflict turned Mosca: Terza Roma, regardless of its creative integrity, into a landmark event. In the local Russian context, it was reminiscent of an event that had taken place in Europe thirty years before: the conflict between Harald Szeemann and Daniel Buren in the run-up to the show When Attitudes Become Form, which was a stage in establishing the professional sovereignty of curators. 97

FORECASTING THE FALL OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE Mary Angela Schroth Founder and Director, Sala 1, Rome

Mosca: Terza Roma was one of the most important projects ever produced by Sala 1. The choice was particularly timely and unusual because the situation in the Soviet Union was rapidly changing under Gorbachev’s direction. It was not an exhibition planned out by intellectuals, but an instinctive need to continue the international context for the gallery, presenting the first view of perestroika-era artists in Italy. Indeed, for some of the artists it was their first trip out of the Soviet Union. Rome in those years was moribund: the few museums for modern and contemporary art were closed or inactive; there were virtually no international art galleries and none dedicated to art outside the Eurocentric sphere. Although there were sympathetic curators and historians, none were particularly interested in the new directions seen in art from the Soviet Union, but — perhaps thanks to the influence of the Italian Communist Party at the time — I was able to garner support from the City of Rome, as well as from private companies and individuals. However, one of the sponsors went bankrupt weeks before the opening, and the City of Rome posed problems (later partially resolved), so in the end I also went to the Italian contemporary art collector Giuliano Gori for help. The result was a joint venture between Fattoria di Celle — Gori’s collection of site-specific works — and Sala 1, which was the first and only time that Gori agreed to such an outside collaboration. Now, the works produced specifically for Mosca: Terza Roma at Sala 1 are part of the Gori collection. The project was extremely complicated and costly: this was an era when international telephone calls were prohibitively expensive, digital technology was non-existent, and the postal service slow. To save money, the artists came from Moscow by train, 98

hand-carrying the materials they needed to make their installations. Things were tight, but their generosity towards Sala 1 was great. I have fond memories of the singing and funny jokes over much wine during meals; of making much Russian tea in Sala 1 for them; of the illegal encampment Misiano and the artists carried out on the Palatine Hill overnight; of hosting all of them for dinner in the tiny kitchen of my decrepit flat, which they said was just like being in Moscow. I remember feeling awkward about not having many cups and plates, but the artists stated that intellectuals only need one cup and one plate, which has become a life lesson for me. We managed to publish a small, illustrated catalogue of the show, which also got a huge amount of press and interest from the media. It resulted in new commercial galleries for the artists at the time, as well as the interest of historians and curators. In particular, Enrica Torelli Landini was very enthusiastic about the artists, making a series of interviews with them, which subsequently led to her learning Russian and going on to publish books on Russian culture and art. For me, the project led to meeting many of the American Russian experts during that time, such as John Bowlt, Jamey Gambrell, and Andrew Solomon, as well as establishing friendships with the artists that took me to Moscow after the project. In fact, in 1989 I decided to move to Moscow — a romantic idea later abandoned — but it did lead to me having Russian lessons from an e ­ x-CIA operative from Virginia. Perhaps the most important aspect of Mosca: Terza Roma was that it forecast the fall of the Soviet Empire, particularly in how the artworks described, often with irony, the complexities and power of the USSR, as well as its weaknesses. Sure enough, several months later, the Berlin Wall fell, which started the chain reaction that changed the entire world forever. For a curator, this is as good at it gets.

Meeting with members of the Genoese art scene at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa, 1989 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

is a strangely asocial beast with fangs and claws. The crumpled paper crowning the beast — as closed, cryptic text — further ascertains an outsider or marginal position. Zakharov began his artistic career at nineteen, was important in the Apt-art movement, and shows a great deal of enigmatic promise. Kоnstantin Zvezdochotov (b. 1958), also a member of Apt-art, has created an enormously upscale, theatrically kitschy installation entitled Kostroma Mama as an odd hybrid of simulated Occidental mythology and Russian mysticism. Again, this presentation of kitsch borders a little too heavily on a touristic, spectacle-oriented interpretation of cultures. The most compelling works on exhibit are those by Andrei Roiter (b. 1960), who plays with a certain amount of complexity

on the dream and fall of the Roman Empire, conceivably as a mirror of the dream and fall of the Russian Empire. Roiter aggressively employs destruction and the camouflage of that destruction with means that regenerate the tenets and avoid the traps of his artistic forebears. Misiano’s curatorial list is slightly conservative and by no means complete, and yet it is an interesting presentation of post-Sots Art artists: formerly “unofficial” artists who have at last achieved the approbation / condemnation of the bureaucracy. Theoretically the amelioration of what ensues is inherent in cultural exchange— which is precisely why Zakharov’s or Roiter’s ability for reflective concentration are promising outposts in the current melting pot of artistic styles.

The participants and organizers of Mosca: Terza Roma at the exhibition Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

MOSCA: TERZA ROMA Shaun Caley, “Mosca: Terza Roma, Sala 1, Rome,” Flash Art International 148 (1989), 142–142.

Viktor Misiano, the young contemporary ­curator at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, has recently presented his first Western ­curatorial effort with young Russian artists. What is unusual about this exhibit is that all seven artists worked on location in Rome installing their own works. What is not so unusual is how these artists are indebted to the by-now illustrious Kabakov and Bulatov. Unfortunately the use of upscale materials and exhibition space has done little to improve on the repetitive “conceptual” jokes the Sots artists have employed in the past. However, the installation is surprisingly good and a few old “ironic” jokes — like Andrei Filippov’s The Last Supper table, draped in Soviet red with twelve dinner plates and hammer and sickle cutlery, still manage to evoke a few hearty laughs, although they are no longer potent as pointed political commentary, having suffered the results of over-saturation. 100

Boris Orlov’s (b. 1941) Iconostasis is an enormous imperial badge, which mimics military badges, or Christ’s cross and the ­trinity. “Long life” is repeated endlessly on scrolls underneath the badge, yet Orlov is not far from Socialist Realism’s kitsch, and his intentions become clouded despite a slick appearance. Dmitri Prigov (b. 1941) lends himself well to an expanded use of space. Instead of presenting his fantastical drawings or enigmatic notes, Prigov has taken over one of the many corners in the gallery with black spray paint and stencils on Russian newspapers. Prigov plays on the early Christian Rome-Constantinople-Moscow connection, subjecting Rome and Constantinople to erasure so that only Moscow remains. The newspapers strewn in abundance on the floor simulate the qualities of the Soviet landscape. George Litichevsky’s (b. 1956) installation consists of Russian songs translated into Latin on pillows and suspended from the ceiling on wires. This blatant Warhol derivation is perhaps of sociological interest. Vadim Zakharov’s (b. 1959) Four Heads for Gardener

Konstantin Zvezdochotov at Mosca: Terza Roma Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

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Installation view, Mosca: Terza Roma, with left: Boris Orlov, Imperial Style Iconstasis (1989) and right: Andrei Filippov, The Last Supper (1989) Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

Boris Orlov, Imperial Style Iconostasis (1989), Mosca: Terza Roma Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

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Картинка слева Andrei Filippov, The Last Supper (1989), Mosca: Terza Roma Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

Georgy Litichevsky, Untitled (1989), Mosca: Terza Roma Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

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Andrei Roiter, Imperial Dream (1989), Mosca: Terza Roma Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

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Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Kostroma-Mama (1989) Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

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Dmitri Prigov, The Red Angle (1989) Photo: Massimiliano Ruta Courtesy Sala 1

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Vadim Zakharov and Viktor Misiano during installation Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

Boris Orlov at work Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

Andrei Roiter at work Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

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Georgy Litichevsky at work Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

Installation of Boris Orlov’s Imperial Style Iconostasis (1989) Photo: Stefano Fontebasso De Martino Courtesy Sala 1

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1990–1994 TO THE OBJECT, SADOVNIKI EXHIBITION HALL, MOSCOW, APRIL 18—MAY 13, 1990 TO THE OBJECT, STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM, SEPTEMBER 21—NOVEMBER 4, 1990 IN ROOMS, DOM KULTURY, BRATISLAVA, DECEMBER 12, 1991-1992 (CLOSING DATE UNKNOWN) THE ARTIST INSTEAD OF THE ARTWORK, CENTRAL HOUSE OF ARTISTS, MOSCOW, MAY 18—JUNE 19, 1994

TSARITSYNO MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

TO THE OBJECT: SIXTY RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE ARTISTS FROM MOSCOW, PARIS, AND NEW YORK Curators: Andrei Erofeev, Vladimir Levashov, Natalia Tamruchi Artists: Yuri Albert, Nikita Alexeev, Vladimir Andreenkov, Yuri Avvakumov, Sergei Bordachev, Olga Chernysheva, Ivan Chuikov, Elena Elagina, Andrei Filippov, Valeriy Gerlovin, Rimma Gerlovina, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Andrei Grositsky, Sven Gundlakh, Francisco Infante, Ilya Kabakov, George Kiesewalter, Viacheslav Koleichuk, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Alexander Kosolapov, Nikolai Kozlov, Rostislav Lebedev, Igor Makarevich, Sergei Mironenko, Vladimir Mironenko, Andrei Monastyrsky, Vladimir Nemukhin, Nest group, Alexander Ney, Anton Olschwang, Boris Orlov, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Nikolai Panitkov, Peppers group, Dmitri Plavinsky, Sergei Podyomshchikov, Dmitri Prigov, Mikhail Roginsky, Mikhail Roshal, Lisa Schmitz, Maria Serebriakova, Igor Shelkovsky, Anatoly Shuravlev, Leonid Sokhransky, Leonid Sokov, Vladimir Sorokin, Toadstool group, Boris Turetsky, Sergei Vorontsov, World Champions group, Alexander Yulikov, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

Vladimir Nemukhin, Lianozovo (1991) in the exhibition In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava Photo: Martin Marečin

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IN ROOMS (INSTALLATION IN SOVIET UNDERGROUND ART OF THE PAST THIRTY YEARS) Curators: Andrei Erofeev, Evgenia Kikodze, Natalia Tamruchi Artists: Nikita Alexeev, Sergei Bordachev, Olga Chernysheva, Ivan Chuikov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Alexander Kosolapov, Nikolai Kozlov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Yuri Leiderman, Igor Makarevich, Sergei Mironenko, Irina Nakhova, Vladimir Nemukhin, Timur Novikov, Nest group, Anton Olschwang, Viktor Pivovarov, Dmitri Plavinsky, Dmitri Prigov, Koka Ramishvili, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Mikhail Roginsky, Mikhail Roshal, Igor Shelkovsky, Anatoly Shuravlev, Viktor Skersis, Leonid Sokov, Vladimir Sorokin, Boris Turetsky, German Vinogradov, Sergei Volkov, Sergei Vorontsov, Vladimir Weisberg, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

THE ARTIST INSTEAD OF THE ARTWORK (A LEAP INTO THE VOID) Curators: Nadine Descendre, Andrei Erofeev, Evgenia Kikodze, Peter Weibel, in collaboration with Sabina Dreher Artists: Giya Abramishvili, Marina Abramović and Ulay, Absalon, Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Yuri Albert, Dieter Appelt, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Erwin Bechtold, Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Gunter Brus, Alain Bublex, Chris Burden, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Philippe Cazal, Claude Closky, Collective Actions, Gérard Collin-Thiébaut, Dellbrugge & de Moll, Julius Deutschbauer, Devautour Collection, Die Damen, Braco Dimitrijevic, Et n’est-ce* &/et, Valie Export, Hans-Peter Feldmann, FenSo group, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Alain Fleischer, Rainer Ganahl, General Idea, Rimma and Valeriy Gerlovin, Jochen Gerz, Gilbert & George, Christine Gloggengiesser, Raymond Hains, Claudia Hart, Mona Hatoum, IFP, Ingold Airlines, Isidore Isou, Michel Joumiac, Jürgen Klauke, Yves Klein, Alexander Kosolapov, Nikolai Kozlov, Richard Kriesche, Jean Le Gac, Rostislav Lebedev, JeanJacques Lebel, Yuri Leiderman, Maurice Lemaître, Leslie Levine, Urs Luthi, Igor Makarevich, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Boris Matrosov, Annette Messager, Pierre Molinier, Andrei Monastyrsky, Sergei Mironenko, Vladimir Mironenko, Otto Muehl, Irina Nakhova, Maurizio Nannucci, Marylène Negro & Klaus Scherübel, Nest group, Hermann Nitsch, Oswald Oberhuber, Marcel Odenbach, Roman Opałka, Gabriel Orozco, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Gina Pane, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Dominique Petitgand, Alexander Petlyura, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Présence Panchounette, Dmitri Prigov, Richard Prince, Arnulf Rainer, Koka Ramishvili, Man Ray, Readymades Belong to Everyone, Sarkis, Patrick Saytour, Bente Schlick, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Alain Séchas, Cindy Sherman, Leonid Sokov, Pierrick Sorin, Elaine Sturtevant, Tecnotest, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Toadstool group, TOTART group, Jan Vercruysse, Cesare Viel, Annick Volle, Franz West, Erwin Wurm, Alexander Yulikov, Vadim Zakharov, Anatoly Zhigalov, Anatoly Zverev, Konstantin Zvezdochotov 112

In the late 1980s, with the relative freedom afforded by Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, the question of how to establish a museum of contemporary art in Moscow became a topic of debate. A group of Moscow art historians, headed by Experts in charge: Andrei Erofeev and de comprising at various times Vladimir Levashov, Natalia Simon Pury, Julian Barran, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, Tamruchi, Evgenia Kikodze, Darya Antseva, Sergei Epikhin, and others, took the Hugues Joffre lead in pushing the idea forward by building a collection of contemporary art — with an emphasisInternational on newer artcoordination: forms, such as installation and performance — at the Paloma Botin, Vals Oborne, Tsaritsyno Museum, where Peter Batkin, Erofeev was John Dowling, Head of the Department of Contemporary John Stuart Art. In the absence of a purchasing budget, however, the museum collection was developed through presenting a series of exhibitions, after which the works Catalogue production: remained with the institution rather than being returned to the ­artists. The ethical Elizabeth Markevitch, Pamela Pinto ramificationsPaloma Botin, of such an approach to building a collection have been the subject of discussion ever since. Thus began the story of three interconnected shows, focused on objects, ­installation, and performance, conceived by Erofeev, and developed by taking advantage of curatorial invitations from museums and galleries in Russia and Europe. The first, To the Object (1990), opened at Moscow’s Sadovniki e ­ xhibition hall and then traveled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. There, the exhibition was designed by Yuri Avvakumov and took the form of a cardboard boat, making the entire display an art object. In Rooms (1991–1992) showed the particular conditions in which Soviet installation art existed. Unlike the Western model, which evolved largely in response to museum spaces, in Russia the genre developed in response to the intimate scale of the artist’s apartment-studio. The series concluded with The Artist Instead of the Artwork (A Leap into the Void) (1994). The exhibition was initially conceived by its Russian curators as a history of Russian performance, but the subsequent involvement of the Association française d’action artistique (the French Association for Artistic Action) resulted in artists from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Georgia, Italy, Canada, the USA, France, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia also being included. Together, the works from these exhibitions formed the first collection of contemporary Russian art in the country, while the shows effectively constituted the first thorough, large-scale surveys of Soviet underground and new Russian art.

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BUILDING A MUSEUM COLLECTION THROUGH CURATING EXHIBITIONS Andrei Erofeev Curator, To the Object, In Rooms, and The Artist Instead of the Artwork

In 1989, I was invited to join the newly founded Tsaritsyno Museum (then a museum of folk and applied art). The aim was to build a collection of contemporary art in a state institution, something which had not existed since the 1930s. At the height of perestroika, people — including some officials — saw the absence of a museum of contemporary art as a flaw in our culture. Viktor Egorychev, who had just become the deputy head of research at Tsaritsyno, suggested that I first come up with the general concept of the future collection and then devise some exhibitions to clarify it. This had to be done immediately, so that I could present my ideas at the next council meeting. I decided to waste no time and drafted an exhibition program of three shows on the spot. They were To the Object, In Rooms, and The Artist Instead of the Artwork. The program was approved the next day. I selected works for the exhibitions together with my colleagues Vladimir Levashov, Natalia Tamruchi, and Evgenia Kikodze. For the next four years, the works traveled around various Russian and international venues (including the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, and Montenegro), as Tsaritsyno had no exhibition space of its own. The exhibitions aimed to present new kinds of art and new media (objects, installations, video and photo documentation of performances), which were then still in the process of being legitimized by Western museums. They had yet to enter the mainstream — which, at the time, was dominated by postmodernist painting, Transavangardism, Figuration Libre, and the German Neue Wilde — but they were the outcome of the experiments of Conceptual, Post-Pop, and New Wave art of the 1960 114

to 1980s, the boldest, most intriguing art of the time. I believed it was important to find and show similar things from the Russian art scene, which had been trying to integrate itself into the international contemporary art world for several decades, exploring similar forms and issues. Although these media were already in use among nonconformist artists in Moscow, even the artists did not consider these types of works as proper art, as finished works. For the artists — let alone audiences — contemporary art was still represented by paintings, sculptures, drawings, and albums. I wanted to draw their attention to what they treated as works in progress, or as tools in their work. Such marginal objects could be found in every studio, but then they had no value. My acquisition strategy was directly connected to the exhibition concept. It goes without saying that neither the museum nor the Ministry of Culture were going to pay for a big collection. The officials would at best inaugurate the project by buying two or three works for a token price. Philanthropists and sponsors did not exist, but we already had to compete with the Western art market. Some of the bigger artists had their work exhibited in Western galleries and knew their market price. The idea of donating their work to a Soviet institution was hardly a tempting one. This was one of the reasons behind my strategy of collecting objects that might have seemed less important or valuable. Installations, objects, and other works inseparable from the context in which they are exhibited have been made since the early days of the avant-garde. In fact, similar things existed in the classical tradition , such as accessories for triumphs and for decorating temporary architectural constructions. But since they were made for a particular context, and were often huge and not made to last, most of them did not last long. I believed that the task of a museum, as opposed to a private collection, was to preserve these seemingly unnecessary, ephemeral objects that were difficult to take care of and bound to be lost. I was also sure that perestroika would

eventually make the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum reconsider their collections policy and turn to contemporary art. But, conservative at their core, they would always opt for paintings and other traditional art forms. And so it happened two decades later. All of the Western museums of contemporary art began as collections of new contemporary art and did not concern themselves with acquiring art of earlier periods. A collection of objects and installations seemed to me to be the best strategy for representing the art of the 1970s and 1980s. The strategy worked. While curating the exhibitions, we managed to get from artists’ studios a large number of objects that had never been shown, including photo documentation of performances. Many new works were produced for the exhibitions, and most of them were not returned to the artists. They were either given or lent to Tsaritsyno. Not everyone was eager to do this but delaying tactics and persuasion, plus the ever-higher profile of the collection, were of help. After several years of traveling with the exhibitions, many of the works on loan became part of the collection. In just under ten years, our giant vault hidden in a former air-raid shelter was filled with thousands of works. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the collection was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery. Sadly, the Tretyakov’s preference for painting was a hindrance. Many installations and objects which had been donated were returned to the artists as “unpromising,” because the museum staff felt as if they could not be shown.

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MARCH 1 — MAY 10

1992 SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE, FRANKFURT

SEPTEMBER 25 — DECEMBER 15

1992–1993 SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK

Installation view, To the Object, Sadovniki Exhibition Hall, 1990. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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Installation of Ilya Kabakov’s work, To the Object, Stedelijk Museum, 1990. Left to right: Yuri Albert, Ilya Kabakov, and Stedelijk Museum staff Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Dmitri Prigov at To the Object, Sadovniki Exhibition Hall, 1990. Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

After the opening of To the Object, Stedelijk Museum, 1990. Left to right: Paul Jolles, Andrei Roiter, Ilya Kabakov, Boris Groys, Viktoria Mochalova, Erna Jolles Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Installing To the Object, Sadovniki Exhibition Hall, 1990. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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Yuri Albert, center, and Vadim Zakharov, right, at the exhibition To the Object, Stedelijk Museum, 1990. Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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Mikhail Roshal The End of Pop Art (1981), In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava, 1991–1992 Photo: Martin Marečin

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Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Room on Clear Streams (1991), In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava, 1991–1992 Photo: Martin Marečin

Timur Novikov, Bedroom of a Young Man (Sunrise) (1991), In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava, 1991–1992 Photo: Martin Marečin

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Installation comprising part of the artist Dmitri Plavinsky’s studio, In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava, 1991–1992 Photo: Martin Marečin

Dmitri Prigov, For the Poor Cleaner-Woman (1991), In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava, 1991–1992 Photo: Martin Marečin

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Installation view, The Artist Instead of the Artwork Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

Entrance to the exhibition The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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Center: Sergei Mironenko, Untitled. On the wall, right: Toadstool group, Little Tragedies (1981), The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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Front: Rostislav Lebedev, from the series Glory! (1980). Far wall: Alexander Kosolapov, Adoration (1980–1981), The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

Back wall: a work by Dmitri Prigov. Right: Igor Makarevich, Choice of Aim (1977), The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

Alexander Kosolapov, Adoration (1980–1981), The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, 1994. Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

ASIDE FROM Viktor Misiano, “V storonu ot,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR 11 (1990), 7–8.

This exhibition was bound to be a success. After the Moscow scene had emptied (the artists had gone to live abroad, and this entropy had infected critical circles, too), it turned out to be an almost unique action. An action carried out for the first time by professional art historians, not riding the wave of perestroika enthusiasm but in the style of a Soviet institution. That is, it was conceptualized and worked out not in one day by one person, but by an entire creative team. It was produced in the context of a very large-scale and ambitious project to found a museum of contemporary art, a museum that would define its identity from the outset as experimental, innovative, and avant-garde. And quite Soviet — the Western scene was much more pluralistic than the Soviet, which generally knew nothing of the dialectic between painting and non-painting. Soviet avant-garde art was Conceptualism without end and without frontiers, while being rooted in underground domestic existence (a picture is, after all, not a part of domestic life, it is an object which is a part of domestic life). […] However, it was the level of work with the object demonstrated there that drove me to despair. What is the phenomenon of the object? Clearly, this question hadn’t occurred to the organizers. Before us is an exhibition not of the object, but of three-dimensional forms of the contemporary avant-garde. I am not opposed to including non-objects into such an exhibition — for the sake of typology, to engage in interesting conceptual play with the works — but only when the problem itself is not put in paren­theses. […] All the works are well known, and the exhibition was not that difficult to make. That 128

is why the errors are so obvious. The specific nature of the Soviet object was completely unaccounted for, and this played its saddest role in the construction of the exhibition. Designer Yuri Avvakumov built a witty, spectacular, and beautiful exhibition where there are a mass of discoveries. But it was absolutely clear that the art historians had left him to his own devices, not understanding the specifics of the Soviet object. One has to work very carefully with this subject so as not to discredit it. I don’t even know how. I wouldn’t like to say. But you have to somehow “present” it. […]

IN ANOTHER GENRE Vladimir Levashov, “V drugom zhanre,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR 11 (1990), 7–8.

Viktor Misiano’s piece is worthy of attention, if only in the sense that in it the personal fantasies of the author are convincingly transformed to free critical expression. In principle, it is of value in and of itself, which is why any response is pointless. However, as it concerns criticism of the exhibition genre, it should be noted that the choice of genre is something that can be discussed endlessly but only after the motivation for choosing a specific place and time is made clear. It is hardly fair to demand from one genre that which can only be given by another. […] The exhibition To the Object was made, strictly speaking, not in the name of a group of like-minded people, but on behalf of the Tsaritsyno Museum, which was building its collection of contemporary art. In time, this collection may form the basis of a museum of contemporary art. We are collecting the art of the object, constituting the latest trends in development worldwide and having the clearest potential. […] Our first exhibition had to demonstrate the character of our intentions and their rationale. We needed to, as my opponent put it, “define our identity.” In our case, our identity is the ability to create a state collection, a museum. If we had set about making a “problematic

Invitation to the opening of In Rooms, December 12, 1991 Courtesy Andrei Erofeev Archive

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exhibition,” this would not have happened. It would have been an exhibition with a strict and partisan selection, with only a few artists and works, deliberately conceptually one-dimensional. Such exhibitions are the instrument of a strong, active art policy, based upon a desire not so much to get to grips with cultural reality as to transform it in a particular way. We are already working on such exhibitions. But first we made another kind — in the traditional “museum” genre — a historical exhibition with a large amount of material (over 150 works, varying in size from a matchbox to large installations, by more than fifty artists), covering a period of thirty years. This is the first such exhibition (the sole example worthy of comparison is Retrospective, produced by the Hermitage association, but strictly speaking it was of a different nature). It is imperative to habituate the public to the museum-style approach to this art — an approach so far unrealized. Our museum system is absolutely unsuited to these types of artworks and contradicts them by its very nature. How can we write a museum description; how to conserve items; how to purchase them? […] […] To the Object is about the tortured emergence of this new aesthetic form. After this exhibition it will be possible to work on exhibitions that “pose problems.”

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A LEAP INTO THE VOID ON A TRAMPOLINE Andrei Kovalev, “Pryzhok v pustotu nad batutom. Pochemu Aleksandra Brenera ne vzyali na vystavku v TsDKh i chto iz etogo sleduet,” Segodnya, May 26, 1994, 10.

A complex intrigue is concealed behind the exhibition’s two titles. It was conceived three years ago by Andrei Erofeev, the titanic bearer of the project for a museum of contemporary art. At present, the long-awaited museum is mothballed — a unique collection has already been assembled, officially known as the Tsaritsyno Museum Collection of Contemporary Art, but there is no museum space, nor is any foreseen. The reasons for such an ambiguous situation are quite clear. The reasons why the visionary, colossal international museum project The Artist Instead of the Artwork turned into an exhibition of French art supplemented by Russian and other foreign artists are also quite clear, seeing as the exhibition was funded by AFAA (Association française d’action artistique), a French state foundation for the promotion of French art. […] Above all, the clash of two curatorial ­intentions — those of Andrei Erofeev (The ­Artist Instead of the Artwork) and Nadine Descendre (A Leap into the Void) — have given rise to a new discourse, reflecting a new phase in the old tug of war between Russia and the West. At present, it is simply pointless to give way to frustrations on the theme: “They already did that in the West,” and that poor Russian art is forever doomed to take second place. On the contrary, Russian art is permanently fated to live in a somewhat d ­ ifferent context than Western art but not one so exotic as to constitute the long awaited “other.” Generally speaking, the themes of flight and levitation have been those of Russian culture as far back as the time of Kazimir Malevich’s cosmic architectons floating against the firmament, the exhausting efforts of the Letatlin, and the free-floating of the Flying Proletariat.

Life is hard for the Western artist; whatever crazy things he might do, whatever pathological stunt he might pull off, it all comes up against nothingness, against the wadded, benevolent indifference of the public. Nadine Descendre’s article in the catalogue begins with a hymn to democracy, which supposedly widens the possibilities of the artist and removes the last obstacles from their path. Yes, capitalist democracy nurtures contemporary art, but it also suffocates it with a permissiveness that gives birth to infantilism. The poor Western artist, the pampered enfant terrible of an aristocratic family, is permitted everything or almost everything and, moreover, is always ready to display intelligent self-restraint and stop at the edge, after having pretended that all this madness was simply a game. That’s where the desire for flight and levitation comes from. In the same catalogue, Andrei Erofeev emphasizes that Klein himself, having tried the real thing and been painfully mistaken, preferred to simulate flight on a trampoline and limited himself to photomontage. The Russian artists, on the other hand, are compelled to constantly overcome seen and unseen obstacles in the environment and the curse of their totalitarian Father, all of which has also played a role in shaping their artistic body. Their gestures are more sparing, as they provoke a suitable reaction. While the Viennese Actionist Hermann Nitsch feels it necessary to pour rivers of real blood, albeit that of animals, the Russian artist simply undergoes a magical shaving of the head, like Alexander Yulikov. The endless undefinedness of social position is so great that no further mystification is needed — narcissism is so limitless that it doesn’t require any special public manifestations at all. (As an example, for some reason this review is about Russian art, not French or Austrian). In the detailed catalogue of pathological deviations presented at this exhibition, Russian art appears gloomy, vague, and less radical. But everything is blended together in Russian art. […]

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1990

SOVIET PAVILION, 44TH VENICE BIENNALE, MAY 27—SEPTEMBER 30

RAUSCHENBERG TO US, WE TO RAUSCHENBERG

Curators: Vladimir Goryainov, Aidan Salakhova Commissioner: Vladimir Goryainov Deputy Commissioner: Tatyana Abalova Artists: Giya Abramishvili, Evgeny Mitta, Robert Rauschenberg, Aidan Salakhova, Sergei Volkov, Alexander Yakut, Andrei Yakhnin

Giya Abramishvili, Rome (1990), Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg © and courtesy La Biennale di Venezia, Historical Archives of Contemporary Art

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FIRST AMONG EQUALS Aidan Salakhova Co-founder of First Gallery

The exhibition in the Soviet Pavilion at the 1990 Venice Biennale gained ­widespread attention because of Robert Rauschenberg’s participation. The event represented a key moment in the transformation of Soviet state ideology, through taking a more international outlook and connecting Russian artists to Western traditions. However, it met with skepticism because it was a hastily prepared production transplanted from a larger show that had taken place in the first privately-run gallery in Moscow. The commissioner, Vladimir Goryainov, recalls that the Soviet leadership at the time believed perestroika could, and should, establish “an entirely new international socio-political situation.”1 This shifting perspective allowed him to ­overcome the complex system of permissions and approvals that prevailed at the level of the Ministry of Culture, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and the Union of Artists. In essence, however, this pilot project, Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg, was rather idiosyncratic: the selection of works was made by Goryainov, while the hanging of the show was carried out by artist and First Gallery founder Aidan Salakhova, who in this way became the first woman to curate the Soviet Pavilion. Despite mixed reactions to the show, the project was awarded by the Biennale Foundation. Furthermore, it constituted a breakthrough for the Russian art scene through the inclusion of a foreigner in the national Pavilion, and presented a bold alternative to the official Soviet party-line on “who” and “what” was featured on the international stage.

The story of the exhibition Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg began in 1989, when Robert Rauschenberg came to Moscow to organize his show at the Central House of Artists. I met him at Zurab Tsereteli’s studio, where he painted a picture for me, which I presented in the second show I made at my gallery.1 That exhibition’s title was also Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg. It was inspired by Rauschenberg’s gift and included works by twenty-two Russian artists. The idea was that all the pieces, in one way or another, were oriented around American art, and Rauschenberg in his own way was a kind of icon to us. The commissioner of the Soviet Pavilion, Vladimir Goryainov, saw the exhibition and really liked it. He said that he would present it in Venice if I asked Rauschenberg to create a new work especially for the occasion. At the time, I didn’t know anything about the rules for working with artists’ galleries and studios, so I simply phoned Rauschenberg and in my not terribly good English said, “We can exhibit our project at the Biennale if you’ll make a new work for the show,” to which he replied that he would happily do that. When we arrived in Venice, we saw Rauschenberg’s new work for the first time. It was big: about 5×8 meters. This was an unusual situation because First Gallery was part of a private c­ ooperative. The six artists Goryainov selected to be presented alongside Rauschenberg all traveled to Venice, but the Ministry of Culture didn’t cover any of our costs. Instead, Mikhail Kruk, the co-operative’s director, financed our travel. I remember that we arrived on March 15 for two weeks to install the ­exhibition. We stayed in a really cheap hotel with three people in each room. At the opening of the Pavilion, before

the main opening of the Biennale, there were Robert Rauschenberg, Yoko Ono, and Leo Castelli, who gave a speech, but there wasn’t even any money to put on a reception, so we had to do it. We came up with the idea of just using a red tablecloth and searched all over Venice for Stolichnaya vodka and salted cucumbers. It was very modest and looked like a Kabakov installation, but it all turned out wonderfully. Rauschenberg spent the whole time with us. It was artist Andrei Yakhnin’s birthday, and during lunch Rauschenberg brought a cake with candles and sang Happy Birthday. Everyone was literally crying with joy. Nobody could believe what was happening. Following the celebrations, we left Venice, as we had run out of money. The next morning, which was the official ­opening of the Biennale, we were at the Milan train station when we heard we had been awarded an Honorable Mention, which is the first time one had been awarded to the Soviet Pavilion. We couldn’t believe it! The Soviet Ministry of Culture representatives had arrived at the Biennale just in time for the opening and received the award. That same day, the Italian gallery Paolo Sproveri came with a pile of cash to the Pavilion, with the aim of buying works, but we weren’t there. Shortly after this, Andrei Yakhnin and Giya Abramashvili quit the art scene, to a large extent because of what they saw in Venice, which made a strong impression on them. Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle and Andrey Misiano, September 12, 2014.

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Vladimir Goryainov and Sandra Frimmel in conversation, November 14, 2002. From the archive of Sandra Frimmel.

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In 1988, Aidan Salakhova, Evgeny Mitta, and Alexander Yakut opened First Gallery, the first private gallery in Moscow.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

THE SOVIET PAVILION 1990 Sandra Frimmel, “Pavil’on SSSR. 1990. 44-ya biennale,” in Russkie khudozhniki ha Venetsianskoi biennale 1895–2013, ed. Nikolai Molok (Moscow: Stella Art Foundation, 2013), 500–515.

In 1990, the Soviet Pavilion experienced a “breakthrough to a new art.” Vladimir Goryainov, who had been presenting the Pavilion for twenty-five years, invited a new generation of artists to exhibit — the First Gallery circle. […] This “breakthrough” was possible thanks to Gorbachev’s perestroika: state institutions and officials were enjoined to “transform ­Moscow by the year 2000 into a cultural center meeting international standards, with the corresponding level of development in art.”1 The ideological function of art was thereby revoked and official Soviet artists could not personify the new artistic policy. However, unofficial artists could also not be viewed as representatives of national art, since they had previously been subject to ­persecution and had not yet been rehabilitated. It was therefore essential to find new 1 Karl

Eimermacher, “Zur Frage der Evolution von Kunst und Kunstbetrieb während der Perestrojka (1985–1991) in Moskau,” in Enttabuisierung. Essays zur russischen und polnischen Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. Jochen-Ulrich Peters (Berne: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 1996), 51.

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Soviet artists, whose work harmonized with international trends in the development of art: they had to r­epresent the Soviet state in a way that matched the atmosphere of the time and that ­demonstrated its readiness for modernization and dialogue. Goryainov decided to seek such artists among the children of the Soviet art elite. So the prehistory of the Soviet-American exhibition at the 1990 Biennale was at once astounding and utterly simple. Aidan Salakhova, daughter of Tair Salakhov, the First Secretary of the Union of Artists of the Soviet Union, got to know Robert Rauschenberg in 1989 in Moscow at Rauschenberg’s solo exhibition in the ­Central House of Artists. […] The ­exhibition Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg at First Gallery, created in response to Rauschenberg’s gift to Salakhova, included work by more than twenty artists. This was the second exhibition at the gallery, and it took place during preparations for the Biennale. Goryainov recalls, “When the time came to prepare for the Biennale, the perestroika swell was starting. It was the last one for me — I was invited to continue, but I didn’t want to. A group of young people had set up a gallery in Moscow for the first time. I proposed showing their exhibition.” Goryainov saw the unusual Russian-American combination as an opportunity to “compare different cultures and generations,” as he wrote in the Biennale catalogue.

[…] The decision by one of the bestknown American artists — a citizen of a country that had been a bitter enemy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War years — to show his work in the Soviet Pavilion was a great surprise. But Goryainov saw it as the special feature of the exhibition. “No one thought that Russian and American artists could exhibit together. But it didn’t say anywhere in the Biennale statutes that a pavilion must only show artists of the respective nationality […] We had been talking a lot about integration, merger, and now it would actually happen […] Between them, the American and the young Russians created a completely new socio-political situation.”2 Salakhova believes that Goryainov’s decision as curator was correct: “How else to bring in international viewers?” But Goryainov, despite all his enthusiasm at the time, later admitted that the attempt at dialogue with Western art was unsuccessful. “The public reacted without any special wonder, because they had already seen all this somewhere before. In the days of the Soviet Union, they used to titter and laugh at what we showed in the Pavilion because the art was not what they were used to. But in 1990 there was no discovery.”3 Western press comments on the “modernized” Soviet Pavilion were caustic. Kunstforum International wrote, “In the East, [need] has a negative impact on artists. But not on the ones shown in the Soviet Pavilion thanks to ‘Uncle Bob.’ Robert Rauschenberg has taken young people under his wing […] and brought their works to Venice as the highest manifestation of the new Russia. By this gift, Rauschenberg has created for himself the image of a patron of developing art […] Rauschenberg says that his work has a charitable intent. ‘It was created to support peace and share experience,’ and in the manner of

an elder brother, to whom grand gestures are permitted, he says of his contribution, ‘I am paying for the whole project, you can check my pockets.’”4 The magazine Art. Das Kunstmagazin also gave a cautious assessment of the exhibition in the Soviet Pavilion. “This time, the Soviet Union has taken a risk and done something unusual. It has put the Pavilion at the disposal of young Muscovites, who made contact in 1989 with the star of American art, Robert Rauschenberg. They have followed his advice of putting the legacy of Kazimir Malevich in the foreground and added a picture by their helper to their own commendable efforts. But where they will be in two years’ time in the tough conditions of Eastern Europe’s freemarket is anybody’s guess.”5 Indeed, although the Soviet Pavilion, for the first time in many decades, had presented the works of young artists, who reflected the spirit of the present, the exhibition left an aftertaste of American cultural colonialism. Goryainov also suggested that the maestro “trained” the Russian artists. Nevertheless, this major step towards artistic openness was highly appreciated by the Biennale jury, which rewarded the Soviet Pavilion with an Honorable Mention.

The Honorable Mention for the Soviet Pavilion Photo: Ignat Daniltsev Courtesy Evgeny Mitta

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Vladimir Goryainov and Sandra Frimmel­in c­ onversation, November 14, 2002. From the archive of Sandra Frimmel. 3 Ibid. 4  Michael Hübl, “Werkstoff Welt. Die Biennale und ihre Materialen,” Kunstforum International 109 (1990), 269.

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Alfred Nemeczek, “Ein Lied vom Tod in Venedig,” Art. Das Kunstmagazin 8 (1997), 37.

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Evgeny Mitta and Aidan Salakhova in the Soviet Pavilion, 1990

VITALY GORYAINOV AND SANDRA FRIMMEL IN CONVERSATION Vladimir Goryainov: I’ll try and tell you in general about the Biennale, about the Russian Pavilion. Russia took part almost from the very beginning, from 1908, when it began functioning as an international exhibition. The Pavilion was built in 1914, but the participation of Russian artists began earlier because in the Central Pavilion they exhibited works by both Italian and foreign artists. At that stage, it wasn’t really a presentation of Russia’s arts scene, because for the most part it was artists who lived in Paris, in Rome — those who didn’t work in Russia. In 1914, the Russian Pavilion was built, but we didn’t manage to put on an exhibition during the early years of the war. Then there was the revolution, and, naturally, the Biennale was forgotten. The first time Russia participated was towards the end of the 1920s, I think it was in 1928. 138

Sandra Frimmel: If I remember correctly, Russian participation began as early as 1924. VG: In any case, at this stage it was already a state display: not a presentation of the artists themselves but a representation of the country. They took down the Russian coat of arms and put up a Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic inscription. From 1956, the Soviet Union participated every two years, with one exception, when an exhibition of the Russian underground was presented at the Biennale, curated by the Italians. In protest, the Soviet Union didn’t take part. SF: When was that? VG: The late 1970s or early 1980s.1 They wanted to stage the exhibition in the Soviet Pavilion, but the Ministry of Culture did not allow that, so they did it in a general exhibition hall. When the General Director of the Biennale came to the Soviet Union, there were negotiations, and then, in the following year, the Soviet Union began participating again. SF: Why were you appointed commissar? VG: I was lucky. I was educated as an art historian and had previously worked for two years at the Ministry of Culture in the exhibitions department. I was already doing a postgraduate degree at the Academy of Arts, and I had the language, too, which was very much needed and was a real help on the organizational side. Back then, in 1964, I was twenty-nine years old. SF: What was the significance of this exhibition, this Pavilion, within the country, when you were commissioner? I imagine you had a great deal of choice, as all contemporary artists dream of showing in the Pavilion. VG: That was true to a lesser extent back then. Of course, everyone wanted to be there; they were all happy. But as the system of preparation and selection of artists was official in nature, it didn’t have a great deal of resonance in the Soviet Union. For a long time, there were just three major international 1 

The exhibition New Soviet Art: An Unofficial Perspective, curated by Enrico Crispolti and Gabriella Moncada, took place at Palazetto della Sport as part of the so-called Biennale of Dissent, November 15 — December 15, 1977.

exhibitions: the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale, and Documenta. Now it’s valued far more, for one simple reason. The fact that someone has taken part in the Venice Biennale is important when it comes to selling works or showing them in another country. This conversation took place on November 14, 2002. The transcript is from the archive of Sandra Frimmel.

BIENNIAL AND “BABEL” Natalia Nikitin, “Biennale i ‘vavilonskoe stolpotvorenie’,” Russkaya mysl’, July 6, 1990, n.p.

Instead of making use of the success of contemporary Soviet art abroad and exhibiting genuinely interesting artists (whose names are known not only in the West but also by certain Soviet specialists), the Soviet ­Ministry of Culture missed out on the opportunity presented to them. Typically, each country’s pavilion is selected as follows: the commissioner individually invites the artists using purely artistic criteria. As the first Soviet ministry to unquestionably believe in the market mechanism, the Ministry of Culture essentially handed over the Venice Pavilion to a private company, Moscow’s First Gallery. Its c­ o-owner, the artist Aidan Salakhova, basically repeated the gallery’s Moscow exhibition Rauschenberg for Us, We for Rauschenberg. In the center of the Soviet Pavilion there is a weak, recent work by the American artist Robert Rauschenberg, who won fame in the 1960s but has gone off into “commercial” painting. In short, as Western critics write, with this painting Rauschenberg attempted to return to his glorious past of thirty years earlier. The works by the Soviet participants either imitate Soviet Pop Art or are fakes disguising themselves as part of fashionable Western trends. The only exception is a picture by Sergei Volkov, a participant in many successful exhibitions of Soviet art abroad. […] This year, at the Aperto, Soviet artists will again be participating, but this time they

Aidan Salakhova in front of her work in the Soviet Pavilion, 1990

really will be young. Moscow artist Konstantin Zvezdochotov’s installation reflects his search for a Russian identity, which he embodies in the attributes of a nomadic Asian. Zvezdochotov’s striking, rich works using folkloric elements can also be taken as metaphors for the existence of the contemporary artist, traveling with his belongings through the exhibition venues of various countries. Labyrinth, a work by another Moscow artist, Nikolai Ovchinnikov, is also about the search for Russian identity in art. In his installation, the artist uses fragments of paintings by Alexey Venetsianov. The third Soviet participant, Larisa Zvezdochotova, built what at first appeared to be an ascetic-Suprematist installation. However, the black velvet coverings, referencing Malevich’s famed square, conceal kitsch embroidery. The artist is, as it were, provoking the spectator into lifting the veil of Isis, and this almost programmed gesture is polysemantic — it contains, specifically, an erotic element that is rare in Russian art. However, this universal association makes Larisa Zvezdochotova’s artistic language accessible to the spectator in the context of the Babel of contemporary art.

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Robert Rauschenberg, Orrery (Borealis) (1990), Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg © and courtesy La Biennale di Venezia, Historical Archives of Contemporary Art

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Andrei Yakhnin, Romance (1990), Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg © and courtesy La Biennale di Venezia, Historical Archives of Contemporary Art

Alexander Yakut, Dialogue with Malevich (1990), Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg © and courtesy La Biennale di Venezia, Historical Archives of Contemporary Art

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1990

THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG, MAY 31—JULY 16

General Commissioner: Pontus Hultén

TERRITORY OF ART

Commissioners: Daniel Buren, Serge Fauchereau, Sarkis, Stanislas Zadora Curator on behalf of the Russian Museum: Evgenia Petrova Artists: Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Joseph Beuys, Igor Bezrukov, Selim Birsel, Sophie Boursat, Сonstantin Brancusi, Tieri Briet, Marcel Broodthaers, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Daniel Buren, Nathalie David, Giorgio de Chirico, Walter de Maria, Niki de Saint Phalle, Berclaz de Sierre, Evgeny Debil (Kondratiev), Ostap Dragomoshchenko, Marcel Duchamp, Denis Egelsky, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Robert Filliou, Alexander Florensky, Olga Florensky, Sam Francis, Naum Gabo, Elena Gubanova, Hans Haacke, Raoul Hausmann, Rebecca Horn, Jasper Johns, Vasily Kandinsky, On Kawara, Yves Klein, Peter Konnikov, Jannis Kounellis, Pavel Kovalev, Richard Long, Rene Magritte, Eric Le Maire, Kazimir Malevich, Piero Manzoni, Henri Matisse, Mario Merz, Piet Mondrian, Valery Morozov, Sergei Serp, Yuri Tsirkul, Evgeny Yufit), Bruce Nauman, the Necrorealists (Vladimir Kustov, Andrey Mertvy (Kurmayartsev), Barnett Newman, Timur Novikov, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Jean-Marie Perdrix, Agnes Perroux, Michael Philippov, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Rebecca Quaytman, André Raffray, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Alexander Rodchenko, Ed Ruscha, Sarkis, Thomas Shannon, Alain Sonneville, Liz Stirling, Anatoly Svirepy (Mortyukov), Vladimir Tatlin, Jean Tinguely, Sophie Tottie, Leonid Trupyr (Konstantinov), Paul Tucker, Xavier Veilhan, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Andrea Weiss, Chantal Wesolowski, Nathalie Wolf, Chen Zhen Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes at the entrance to Territory of Art Still from an amateur video Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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WALKING THE TERRITORY OF ART Sergei Serp Artist

Territory of Art (Territoire de l’Art) presented classic works of twentieth-century art together with those of young contemporary artists, who were invited to create works ­specifically for the show. The exhibition was part of a larger project — the initiative of Pontus Hultén, former director of the Centre Pompidou, who was head of the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques in Paris — which began in 1988, with a series of seminars on issues in contemporary art involving Russian and international artists. Hultén had first engaged with the Soviet Union in 1979, when he organized the exhibition Paris — Moscow. An unprecedented collaboration between the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques and the Russian Museum in Leningrad, Territory of Art was an unusual curatorial endeavor insofar as it developed the most experimental of processes for the period in a city and a museum that were not known for taking creative risks, despite the small, but strong alternative art scene there. The first part of the show presented works regarded as milestones in the history of twentieth-century art, selected by the Institut’s personnel in Leningrad, Stockholm, London, Zurich, and Rome. According to Hultén’s concept, younger, contemporary artists were then asked to address these works through the “laboratory” situation created for them. Russian art historian Mikhail German, in an interview with the French publication Beaux Arts, said, “Territory of Art is an experiment both in terms of its form and in its essence. Like any experiment, it contains an element of risk, a chance of failure … But without an experiment, there is no movement forward, without it people lose their intellectual passion.”1

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“Territoire de l’Art. Études Sovietiques” Beaux Arts, 512 (1990), 77.

It was Pontus Hultén who, in 1981, gifted Soviet citizens the exhibition Moscow — Paris, shown at the Pushkin Museum in M ­ oscow. Seven years later, he had the idea of an exhibition in Leningrad, in the Russian Museum. Possessing powerful intuition and a wealth of experience, Hultén was fully aware of the “unusually propitious moment.”1 Perestroika was already operating in the Soviet Union, the culture was open to experiments, and there was uncertainty about what tomorrow would bring. In December 1988, the directorate of the Russian Museum, on hearing Hultén’s proposal, immediately approved the exhibition and were prepared to sign all necessary documentation.Everyone ­understood the exceptional nature of the moment. After two years of preparatory curatorial work, the project began to take off in 1990.

we express. Will artistic creativity become a driving force for the epoch?”2 Hultén’s second important idea was expressed in the section of the show entitled Laboratory. Its participants were an international group: artists from Australia, China, France, Israel, Poland, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the USA. All of them were students and grant recipients of the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques. The Institute held a third of its second semester at the Russian Museum, under the title Territory of Art: Interpretation of Works, their Staging, and their Positioning in Space.3 In their free time, students created works in the Benois Wing of the Museum. The first, introductory semester and part of the second semester had been held from 1988 to 1989 in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Accordingly, preparation for the Russian exhibition had actually begun two years earlier.

In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Hultén noted: “At the foundation of this exhibition there are two ideas. The first is that the art of this century is closely linked to important historical events and it is intrinsic to our era alone… The second important idea that this exhibition is tasked with illustrating is an expansion, in a certain way, of the territory of art in our century. This expansion is characterized by the taking of extreme positions in many spheres of culture. […] Now, at the end of the twentieth century, when the great utopias are collapsing, ideologies such as Marxism have been shredded, and the concept of the avant-garde has lost its meaning, can art, the artistic disposition as a whole, take up the baton and lead us forward? Art, after all, is linked to all those ideas that we need so badly and that it is important that

Twenty Institute students traveled from Paris. They were young artists just starting out, with limited exhibition experience, who had been chosen by a committee of specialists. Seventeen Leningrad students were selected by the same commission. They represented the leading groups in the city’s artistic life at the time — the New Academy, Mitki, and the Necrorealists. Work began at 9 a.m. in the Museum auditorium, where, under the guidance of the Institute’s professors — Pontus Hultén, Daniel Buren, Sarkis, and Serge Fauchereau— discussions on specific subjects, presentations of works by students, or meetings with visitors were held. This continued until 1 p.m. Sometimes films were shown, or students visited the Museum’s “secret” storage. They wandered through the Museum and then discussed what they had seen at roundtable sessions. They would ­occasionally visit the studios of the Leningrad artists participating in the exhibition and hold discussions there. In addition, the program included a visit to the town of Veliky Novgorod, where

1 

2 Ibid.

Pontus Hultén and Serge Fauchereau, eds., Le Territoire de l’Art (Leningrad: The State Russian Museum, 1990), 5.

3 

Le Territoire de l’art: l’interpretation des oeuvres, mise en scène, mise en espace

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students got to see the Novgorod Kremlin in its original form, prior to restoration. On a couple of occasions, the Necrorealists put on necro-performances that “the French” recall to this day. During a formal supper, Yuri Tsirkul surprised everyone by getting up from the table, dressed in a naval officer’s uniform, and solemnly walking in the direction of a piano. He announced that there would be a performance of the aria, “The Russian Forest.” Suddenly, Tsirkul began bashing away at the keys, and, pausing for a few seconds, in a faux-operatic baritone “screamed” a crescendo: “the hair on my head stood up on end, like mighty oakkkkksss…” Everyone was so surprised, and the French got up from their seats at the unexpectedness of it all. Then there was another hammering of the keys, and, in a “diminuendo,” Tsirkul pronounced several words, finishing in an even bass: “and all around, the sound of the Russian forest…” Everyone sat down. He bowed and returned to his place at the table. Pontus Hultén had taken part in John Cage’s musical performances, and said that he perceived Tsirkul’s aria in the same way. Preparation for the historical part of the exhibition took place in parallel: Tatlin’s Tower was erected, Rauschenberg’s pool for Mud Muse was filled, Daniel Buren’s “rags” were installed, a pyramid was created out of Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes, bags of coal were emptied into Kounellis’s pool, and, with trembling hands, Marcel Duchamp’s glass was put in place; Malevich’s masterpieces Black Square, Black Circle, and Black Cross were hung on the walls. The Laboratory students helped with installation, establishing an interaction between the generations of artists. On the eve of the opening, a problem arose with Timur Novikov’s collage New York by Night. Novikov, who was often in the USA during that period, actively visited various dens of iniquity, and the work was about that subject. Against a large black background, a panorama of colorful visiting cards from gay clubs gave the impression of luminous 148

skyscrapers. P ­ ontus Hultén wasn’t terribly happy about the work, and there was even talk of withdrawing it, but then Novikov explained something to him, and they sorted it out. My theory is that Article 121 of the Criminal Code, by which h ­ omosexuality was illegal, was still in force, and Hultén probably knew that, so he didn’t want to cause any problems for his colleagues at the Russian Museum. In order to calm the organizers down, Novikov brought Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe to the opening. Vladik, in his renowned Monroe character, majestically clattered his high heels over the parquet flooring and was absolutely enraptured by what he saw. This demonstrated that the aforementioned article may have still been in the criminal code, but the times were already changing. There were some amusing misunderstandings in the room with the Necrorealists’ works. It was small, and it was densely hung with large paintings of unexpected content. You couldn’t really view the canvases from afar, so viewers found themselves very close to the picture surface. Looking at the painting Cold, viewers at first made out the figure of a lone skier, and, gradually moving back, realized that they were looking into the anal cavity of an enormous posterior. As a rule, the reaction was instant: furtive glancing from side to side, then the turning of backs, ­followed by slipping out of the room, trying to get as far away as possible. Surprisingly, the press almost ignored the opening, and the exhibition itself. New arts publications and critics were only beginning to appear at the time, and the established critics did not understand contemporary art. For them, Laboratory was simply a desecration of the Museum.

 

Sergei Serp and Vladimir Kustov on the monument to Alexander III in the yard of the Benois Wing of the Russian Museum, 1990 Photo: Sergei Serp Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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A LACK OF CONTACT Mikhail Bode Interpreter and assistant to Pontus Hultén for Territory of Art

I went to St. Petersburg with Andrei Erofeev because he knew Pontus Hultén and JeanHubert Martin very well, and they had come from Paris at that time. Erofeev suggested we assist Hultén, working with the artists and translating texts for the catalogue. We were forever having to work out incomprehensible passages, which was to be expected, because we didn’t have a lot of experience in working with contemporary discourse. I remember one argument about political correctness, when Nathalie David exhibited banners with the slogan “Croissants for the Russians.” It was a reference to MarieAntoinette’s famous quote. She probably just intended it as a witty remark, but back then the situation with food was bad. The organizers said to her, “Do you know how that will be perceived by the Russians? That’s

offensive, what you’re doing.” And they took the work down, although it was included in the catalogue. In my view, one issue with the show was that the artists actually arrived with their ideas already prepared, and they were simply developed and discussed at the seminar. But, in general, I don’t have any particular criticisms, although it was evident that the international artists couldn’t really establish any contact with Russian artists, however hard they tried. The joint discussion, in my view, didn’t work. It didn’t even work during the installation of the exhibition: confusion and disagreement reigned. Each artist wanted to occupy their own special position and to push everyone else out. Finally, Sarkis came along, and for the first time in my life, I saw how you can hang an exhibition with genius. He did everything in a flash, and it turned out wonderfully. Excerpted from an interview with Andrey Misiano, March 25, 2015.

Artist André Raffray discusses his work with Russian and French artists during the installation of Territory of Art Photo: Serge Fauchereau Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

Russian and French students in discussion with Institute professors at the Russian Museum, 1990 Photo: Jacques Faujour Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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Installing Territory of Art Still from an amateur video Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

Installing Territory of Art Still from an amateur video Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe at the opening of Territory of Art Photo: V. Vorontsov Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

TERRITORY OF ART Veronika Bode, “Territoriya iskusstva,” Gumanitarnyi fond, 8 (1990). Republished online in 2010 at www.gufo.ru / Pages / Gf / nomera / 90 / aug90011 /  ter%20isk.html

[…] In her installation, Chantal Wesolowski, a Polish woman living in France, played with the widespread forms of St. Petersburg classicism using slides projected onto metal constructions. The Chinese artist Chen Zhen brought materials with him and made the installation Weight (Vacuum), comprising burnt books sprinkled with sand, photo and video cameras, all loaded into an aquarium. Perhaps more laconic and interesting was the work of the Turkish artist Selim Birsel, 152

a student of the Grenoble School of Visual Arts — it worked not only for your visual senses but also for your sense of smell (a huge “drop” made of eastern spices flowing out of a rusting pipe). Alain Sonneville’s installation Untitled — a megaphone suspended from the ceiling, and beneath it, on a prong, a viscous mass that gradually stretched out in the form of a drop — also acted physiologically, provoking an unconscious irritation in the viewer. As part of 50 Kaleidoscopes by the American Paul Tucker, kaleidoscopes were handed out to viewers, and each saw in them the multiplying space of the exhibition hall, each created their own image of the space. Nathalie David’s installation Croissants for the Russians

contained a hint at the notorious words of the French queen Marie-Antoinette, “They have nothing to eat, let them eat cake.” In fact, many of the artist’s foreign colleagues were indignant at her “disparaging” approach to our life. Operating on the principle of “one good deed deserves another,” the Russian artist Alexander Florensky from the Mitki group ­created the work A Bagel for the French. From our side, it was predominantly Leningraders who took part: the Necrorealists Evgeny Yufit, Andrey Mertvy (Kurmayantsev), Vladimir Kustov, Valery Morozov, and Sergei Serp; the artists Еlena Gubanova, Pavel Kovalev, and the Florenskys. The object-centered line in art, so amenable to the French, was supported by the leading Leningrad artists Timur Novikov and Afrika (Sergei Bugaev). Novikov’s installation New York by Night employed the Pop Art technique of advertising and marketing acting as an equivalent for figurativeness. The New York landscape was presented as a selection of cans and boxes. Afrika’s work, Manual for Museum Workers, Forms of Destruction, was a visual listing of ways in which to damage a picture. The artists’ commentaries in the exhibition catalogue, published in Lyon, are rather interesting. Afrika commented, “Art is a mushroom. Cut it, fry it, and eat it — that is the task of the agents who fill the infinity of space and time. The classification of information is the yellow ribbon of the agent, whose only task is to accomplish the mission at any price. In this way, acting within the culture and demonstrating an interest in it, issues are resolved that lie beyond it, the main one being penetration into the emptiness, where discourse and reflection are absent.” […] On the first floor of the building, there was a retrospective exhibition of the avantgarde art of the twentieth century. Basically, the aim was to show the link between the work of the young artists and the main movements of the international avant-garde. Beginning with famous works by Malevich, Kandinsky, and Mondrian, the constructions of Tatlin and Duchamp, and going right up to the works of Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Joseph Beuys, On Kawara, and Claes

Oldenburg — that was the range. Here, you could see an interesting composition by Rauschenberg, very much a key to the ­program — a bath with bubbling, volcanic ash, a parody of abstract painting, formless, forever changing its configuration, forever in the state of becoming. Here, there was also an installation by Giovanni Anselmo, the maestro of arte povera, the art of taking joy in minimal forms of expression. It comprised fifteen projectors which projected the inscription “Private” onto the wall, objects, and viewers. The exhibition also featured works by Hans Haacke, the renowned conceptual artist (the installation Saatchi Collection); works by Jannis Kounellis, another representative of arte povera; Yves Klein (Monochrome MR 44); Nam June Paik (the installation Candle TV); Warhol (installation with Brillo boxes); Sarkis (The Artist’s Studio); and Daniel Buren (an installation formed of vast letters covered with stripy material, forming the word “ART”). The works occupied the entire space, as if were crowding out art itself. […]

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Pontus Hultén lying on reeds by the Gulf of Finland after the Necrorealists’ performance, 1990 Still from an amateur video Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

Sergei Serp in discussion with the Institute’s librarian in front of his work, 1990 Photo: Serge Fauchereau Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

Sergei Serp, Stanislas Zadora, and Pontus Hultén outside the Russian Museum, 1990 Photo: Nathalie Meneau Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive Xavier Veilhan, One Two in the Laboratory section of Territory of Art Photo: V. Vorontsov Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

The opening of Territory of Art Photo: V. Vorontsov Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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Niki de Saint Phalle, King Kong (1963), Territory of Art Photo: V. Vorontsov Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

The Necrorealists during their performance on the Gulf of Finland, 1990: (left to right) Sergei Serp, Evgeny Yufit, Serge Fauchereau, and Yuri Tsirkul. Photo: Nathalie Meneau Courtesy Sergei Serp Archive

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BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER: SOVIET CONCEPTUAL ART IN THE ERA OF LATE COMMUNISM

BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER

1990–1991 ТACOMA ART MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, JUNE 15 — SEPTEMBER 9, 1990 THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, BOSTON, NOVEMBER 1, 1990 — JANUARY 6, 1991 DES MOINES ART CENTER, DES MOINES, FEBRUARY 16 — MARCH 31, 1991

Curators: David A. Ross, Margarita Tupitsyn, Joseph Backstein, Elisabeth Sussman Artists: Yuri Avvakumov, Alexander Brodsky, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Collective Actions, Elena Elagina, Andrei Filippov, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Igor Makarevich, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Sergei Mironenko, Andrei Monastyrsky, Timur Novikov, Peppers group, Dmitri Prigov, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Andrei Roiter, Maria Serebriakova, Ilya Utkin, Sergei Volkov, Vadim Zakharov, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), The Orthodox Totalitarian Altar in the Name of Anufriev (1990), Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum Photo: Igor Makarevich

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BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER David A. Ross Curator, Between Spring and Summer

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late­ Communism was the first exhibition in the US to focus on conceptual art practices in Russia. Developed by unofficial artists, Conceptualism was less a movement than a general form of resistance to conditions in the country after Stalin’s death in 1953 through Khrushchev’s short-lived “thaw,” and the two subsequent decades of stagnation preceding the introduction of Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost in 1986. Boris Groys first used the term “Moscow Romantic Conceptualism” in an essay in 1979, and eventually associated artists became known internationally as the Moscow Conceptualists. At the time of this exhibition, however, the terminology and an understanding of which artists constituted the circle was just starting to evolve. The catalogue for the show provides an early compilation of texts that chart the “coming of age” of Conceptualism in Russia, broadly encompassing references to the Sots Art of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, as well as Collective Actions, Ilya Kabakov, and artists and architects who were working at various stages in the Stretensky Boulevard and Furmanny Lane studios. Between Spring and Summer was organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston and included twenty-one artists and collectives. A number of them traveled to the US to install their works and give lectures, including Sergei Anufriev, Alexander Brodsky, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Elena Elagina, Ilya Kabakov, and Ilya Utkin. US preparation for the exhibition involved three visits to the Soviet Union in 1988 (at the time of the Sotheby’s auction), 1989, and 1990, as well as negotiations in Washington, D C with the Soviet Ministry of Culture to gain assurance that the curators’ selection of works would be approved for shipping abroad. In 1989, David A. Ross, who led the curatorial team, took collectors Donald and Mera Rubell, artists Rosemary Trockel and Curtis Anderson, and former Yugoslavian TV producer Branka Bogdanov with him for a long weekend to Moscow to make studio visits. TV producer and video artist Skip Blumberg documented their experiences on a camcorder. The footage was subsequently edited into a short film that provides a frank portrayal of the scene in Moscow and foreigners’ responses to it.

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism was initiated when someone in the National Endowment for the Arts recommended that the organizers of the Goodwill Games1 invite me to develop an exhibition as part of the cultural program in Seattle and Tacoma. The exhibition title came from a Russian poem, which was about a seasonal moment that was short and precious, perhaps even magical. I took it to represent the fleeting time between the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and what would come next, whatever that might be. The notion of “late C ­ ommunism” was an obvious play on the Frankfurt School notion of late Capitalism, and the assumption was that artists would soon find themselves in a somewhat novel space, but one that would not be all rosy. I think, in many respects, this was pretty accurate. At the time, the curatorial team and I saw parallels in the way the heavy hand of American conservative politicians had declared war on artists who sought basic human rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals; or those who were pro-choice; or who opposed US foreign policies based on the economics of oil and cheap third-world labor. American “freedom of expression” was synonymous with a right-wing notion of Christian “family values,” and after years of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in office, progressive American artists were angry and willing to stand against the repressive forces in government. 1 

This was the second edition of an international multi-sport event created by philanthropist and founder of CNN, Ted Turner. Held from July 20–August 5, 1990, in Seattle, it was intended to foster Soviet-US relations. The first edition of the Goodwill Games took place in Moscow in 1986.

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Needless to say, the kind of repression we found still active in the Soviet Union and in other dictatorships around the world — many of which were enabled by US military and financial support — was significantly more dangerous to life and limb. There was a big difference between having a government grant canceled or a museum director being indicted on trumped-up pornography charges — as was the case with the notorious Mapplethorpe exhibition2 — and the kind of tyranny that artists faced (and still face) if they dare to speak truth to power in many countries around the world. I was in awe of the unofficial artists I met in Moscow in 1979 when I first went to Russia. They risked so much to make their art. I remain in awe of artists who demonstrate that kind of courage today, regardless of where they live and work. Art museums must remain active coconspirators, providing both material and moral support for artists in their struggle. Without their commitment to truth and beauty, museums are nothing but air-conditioned warehouses. I was very lucky to have been given the opportunity to accompany filmmaker ­Francis Ford Coppola and his entourage to Moscow in the summer of 1979 for the premier of Apocalypse Now at the Moscow Film Festival. It was the first time I encountered artists who struggled daily to make art: who, against all odds, had formed and maintained a vibrant community fueled not by money but by mutual engagement in each other’s practice; by respect for the risks they each took; the hardships and humiliation they endured; and by a sense that their work was extraordinarily meaningful. My experience from that time was complex and always felt “unfinished,” so when I had 2 

The “Mapplethorpe Obscenity Trial” (September 24–October 5, 1990) was the first criminal trial in the US of an art museum over the content of an exhibition. It accused the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its Director, Dennis Barrie, of criminal violations of the Ohio obscenity statute by presenting the exhibition The Perfect Moment, consisting of 175 photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989). The CAC and Barrie were acquitted.

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Georgians and got a sense that things were changing in ways that were out of control.

Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

the opportunity to return to Moscow — in the midst of perestroika and glasnost — I jumped at it. In our research for the exhibition, we focused primarily on the generation of Moscow Conceptualists (emerging in the 1970s and 1980s) with Joseph Backstein as an important accomplice in Moscow and Margarita and Viktor Tupitsyn as specialists. As usual, it was mostly artists who introduced us to other artists, including expats such as Ilya Kabakov, Andrei Monastyrsky, Vitaly Komar, and Alexander Melamid. In Leningrad, we knew of the Inspection Medical Hermeneutics group because of the suggestion of filmmaker Rustam Khamdamov, and we also

Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

went to Tbilisi to meet with artists, where we encountered the full force of emerging Georgian nationalism and the active repression of it by Moscow’s military might. It was sobering, to say the least, and inspiring in a way. I recall celebrating the American July 4th holiday there in a giant nightclub filled with raucous 160

In presenting Between Spring and Summer, the main issue we had to contend with was that a great deal of the work was language-based and bound to aspects of life in the Soviet Union during this period of transition. This meant the work was not only in need of translation but also a great deal of re-contextualization for it to be understood by an American art museum audience. There were no political repercussions to the show that I was aware of, but there were some good, strong responses. We did deal with some outright official Soviet corruption, but it seemed so much a part of the environment that no one even gave it a second thought. In my essay for the exhibition catalogue3 I expressed my sense that a true vanguard needs to function as an oppositional force. I still believe that. I saw the beginning of how an engagement with the art market began instantly to corrode the sense of community that had seemed to me such an essential element of the Moscow-Leningrad scene. It worried me then, and now. In retrospect, I sense that my concerns were justified. I am not in a position to comment about the current state of affairs in the Russian art world, as I have not returned since the nation has changed. But my sense is that repression still exists, it just has different sources of power. I imagine that the kind of petty corruption I encountered would be laughable compared to the ways in which the State and the Church and the oligarchs now manage the nation. But one thing is clearly worth considering, and that is the ways in which notions of national identity have been perverted and misused to maintain power, and how the arts stand either in opposition to this trend or continue, as in times past, to speak truth to power. Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle, April 7, 2015. 3 

David Ross, “Provisional Reading: Notes for an Exhibition” in Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism (Tacoma: Tacoma Art Museum; Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art, 1990), 1–31.

Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

THE THIRD ZONE: SOVIET POSTMODERN Elisabeth Sussman, “The Third Zone: Soviet Postmodern,” in Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism, edited by David A. Ross (Tacoma: Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts. 1990), 61–72.

[…] Without diminishing the enormity of historic, cultural, political, and economic ­differences that by now separate the collapsed Cold War opposition, it can be asserted that in reality, there can be no complete and emphatic separation — indeed that one has not existed in an essential form for many years. We can recognize that there exists what might be called a post Cold War “third zone,” or a state of hybridity, between East and West. In the third zone, political oppositions are questioned and aesthetic positions overlap. It is important to recognize that this is not a one-way street of influence, with a “third zone” located only in a new Soviet Union hybridized by changes in its own culture as well as by Western influences. With the collapse of the utopian modernist agenda the bipolar opposition has broken down and a scenario of aesthetic cross-fertilization, from West to East, East to West, dominates forms of expression. It is this state of hybridity, for example, which is the message in the Bayonne work of the famous Russian émigrés Komar and Melamid, conceptual artists who view American culture ironically, reformulating it through a Soviet lens. Russian Conceptualism, the focus of this exhibition, has been conceived in this state of hybridity. The designation, Russian Conceptualism, is a highly contingent one and 162

ultimately should be considered under the rubric of the postmodern, a term that in the West marks the end, or at least conditional end, of modernism. Without attempting an umbrella definition that sweeps aside the differences or oppositions between positions (and defines an aesthetic space with greater continuities than can be found), certain similarities connect the projects of American and Soviet writers and artists. Parallel descriptions of the shift, from expressive to conceptual attitudes, may be found, for example, in the work of the Soviet writer / artist Sergei Anufriev and the American critic Hal Foster. Writing in 1989, Anufriev reflected on the beginnings of conceptual art in Moscow. “The specifics of the Moscow school,” he noted, “consisted of the fact that artistic pathos was replaced by investigative pathos very early on in the 1960s, when the Moscow school had formed its group called Sretensky Boulevard, [...] which was more investigative than artistic. A curiosity of thought made for a shift from the results of expression to the means of expression and from that to the very question of expression as such.”1 In 1983 Foster described the tenets of what he termed the “anti-aesthetic” of Western art in which “a poem or a picture is not necessarily privileged, and the artifact is likely to be treated less as a work in modernist terms — unique, symbolic, visionary — than as a text in a postmodernist sense — ‘already written,’ allegorical, contingent.”2 Both writers describe the paradigmatic shift in the art of the last twenty years. They delineate the tendencies toward an art with layers of meanings or codes that are buried in strategies (such as irony, parody), systems, and references. This art is linguistic and textual (without necessarily being narrative). It does not rely on affect as much as on analysis (“investigation”) as a form of interpretation. Privileging the differences among spectators or viewers that determine differences in reception, and

accepting the resistance of the language or code to yielding a single meaning, both Soviet and American writers anticipate that there will be a multiplicity of interpretations surrounding the artwork. […] Soviet artists were, before glasnost, unofficial, unrecognized, underground. Since 1986, they have been tolerated and liberated, and this shift has caused a breakdown in oppositions and a possible transition of meanings and intentions in the work, or new possibilities for the “third zone” of Soviet art — a “third zone” located both within and without the geographical borders of the USSR. Dmitri Prigov, a leading Soviet Conceptualist poet, has recently described this changing cultural situation: “The cultural situation previously worked on a clear official-unofficial duality, which was reproduced like a magnetic polar opposite at each individual point of the structure… A situation like this also necessarily typifies the forms of communications available to art: magazines, galleries, and stages, on the one hand, and apartments, coffee houses, and typewritten texts on the other hand, while both generated their respective, self-adjusting orientation and reception mechanisms… Today the cultural situation is marked by the elimination of the opposition structure (whereby I mean the socio-cultural situation and not just cultural as will always be the case). This means the most difficult thing now is to define an opposition position exclusively on the cultural level. So, understandably, a third cultural zone is just now emerging, which is still hidden, and not clearly articulated but which emerged at virtually the same time.”

POLITICAL ART COMES OF AGE IN THE USSR Michael Kimmelman, “Political Art Comes of Age in the USSR,” The New York Times (ARTVIEW), August 19, 1990.

[…] Emerging from Between Spring and Summer is not a picture of the entire gamut of unofficial Soviet art, but a cross section of the activity that so far has seemed most intriguing to Westerners. The attraction has no doubt stemmed from the distinctly political character of much of this art, not only because political art is so much in vogue in this country at the moment but also, and perhaps more important, because this sense of Soviet Conceptualism can appear to be a revival of the Russian avant-garde that was crushed in the 1930s. There is certainly a link in the Soviet Government’s relationship to the two, which is to say that the work of the Conceptualists today, like the work of the avant-gardists of the 20s may privately be liked or disliked or distrusted by people in the Kremlin, but it is tolerated for reasons of politics and public relations. […] Having been created for the small groups of like-minded viewers congregating in the artists’ cramped apartments, Soviet Conceptual artists have had little concern for the issue of finish that affects Westerners who must satisfy the demands of a market. Nor have most of them had access, until lately, to the materials they would need to create what people in the West would call polished objects. But most important, Soviet artists have treated the specific problems of Soviet life as their primary subject, and this has made comparisons with works of Westerners treacherous.

1 

Sergei Anufriev, “An Inspector’s Statement,” in the The Green Show catalogue, (New York: Exit Art, 1990). 2  Hal Foster. “Postmodernism: A Preface,” in The Anti-Aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Washington: Bay Press, 1983), x–xi.

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Margarita Tupitsyn at Between Spring and Summer, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Courtesy Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn Archive Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

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Installation view, Between Spring and Summer, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington Photo: Igor Makarevich

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1991–1993 VARIOUS APARTMENTS, MOSCOW, 1991—1993 NSK EMBASSY, 12 LENINSKY PROSPECT, MOSCOW, MAY 10—JUNE 10, 1992

Curators: Elena Kurlyandtseva, Viktor Misiano, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

APT-ART INTERNATIONAL

Artists: Darko Fritz, Jenny Holzer, IRWIN/Neuе Slowenische Kunst, Svebor Kranjc, LEONA group, Haralampi Oroschakoff, Jack Sal, Franz West, Heimo Zobernig NSK Embassy participants and contributors: Natalia Abalakova, Nikita Alexeev, Dmitri Ariupin, Yuri Avvakumov, Joseph Backstein, Michael Benson, Matjaz Berger, Milivoj Bijelić, Lyudmila Bredikhina, Maja Breznik, Eda Čufer, Bozidat Debenjak, Ekaterina Degot, Tatiana Didenko, Goran Djordević, Marina Gržinić, Jürgen Harten, IRWIN, Vesna Kesić, Andrei Khlobystin, Olga Kholmogorova, Andrei Kovalev, Breda Kralj, Dehan Kršić, Mikhail Kucherenko, Oleg Kulik, Galina Kurierova, Nenad Labus, Laibach, Yuri Leiderman, Georgy Litichevsky, Rastko Močnik, New Collectivism, Noordung, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Durda Otrzan, Valery Podoroga, Dmitri Prigov, Jole Randelović, Alexandra Rekar, Larisa RezunZvezdochotova, Mladen Stilinović, Lazar Stojanović, Artemy Troitsky, Alexander Yakimovich

Artist Tatyana Kaganova with a work by Franz West, Moscow, 1992 Photo: Alexei Shulgin Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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APARTMENT EXHIBITIONS REVISITED Viktor Misiano Project Curator, APT-ART International

In the early 1990s, when private institutions were in their infancy and state support for exhibitions was non-existent, artist Konstantin Zvezdochotov, critic Lena Kurlyandtseva, and curator Viktor Misiano decided to employ a model that was key in the late Soviet era. Called “Apartment Art” or “Apt-art,” this was first initiated in Moscow, in 1982, by artist Nikita Alexeev at a time when there were no ­official venues available to the unofficial artists. By using the tradition of intimate and informal gatherings to present art by international artist in 1990s Moscow, the curators offered an alternative to the Western system of gallery or museum shows for practitioners who wanted to experience the “new” Russia, but within an “authentic” local context for art. The process of correspondence was also important to the overall concept of the project, with the anticipation of an invitation to visit Moscow becoming integral to the potential of communion and engagement with international artists. Artists were invited based on personal connections with the curators and the s­ election of each venue was made on a case-by-case basis. Among those whose projects remained unrealized were Annette Lemieux, Christian B ­ oltanski, Fred Forest, Nigel Coates, Massimo Biagi, and Nedko Solakov, mostly due to a lack of funding. Works by Jack Sal, Darko Fritz, and Haralampi Oroschakoff were shown at the Chistoprudny Boulevard studios, a key site on the arts map of Moscow at the time. For others, the venue was a friend’s ­apartment or a temporarily acquired space. The NSK Embassy Moscow was the most important project of the APT-ART ­International series. Organized by the Slovenian artist group NSK in collaboration with Regina Gallery, Moscow, it was the first project in Russia to establish a direct dialogue with artists from Eastern Europe. For one month, the NSK Embassy occupied a rented apartment at 12 Leninsky Prospect, close to Gorky Park, hosting lectures, debates, and ­performances with artists, critics, and philosophers. Under the auspices of the concept, “How the East Sees the East,” the project sought to identify i­ntersections and contradictions between the two forms of socialism.

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APT-ART International was one of the first curatorial projects to thematize the new ­post-Soviet reality, although it was conceived and first implemented in the era of perestroika in the Soviet Union. This paradox is easily explained. In the second half of the 1980s, the art world, particularly the unofficial part, experienced rapid transformation. Artists who had previously been underground or semi-underground took part in a series of public exhibitions and soon continued their social and cultural legitimization at exhibition venues in the West. From this point on, and for the next decade and a half, Russian art‑world figures worked on the creation of a new artistic system which would meet international standards. In this context, the concept of APT-ART International, meaning the rebirth of the underground era practice of apartment exhibitions, was extremely significant. This (like any other) gesture of return was a form of acceptance of the fact that the period that gave birth to this representative format had gone forever. That said, the attempt to insist on the new reality of the private dimension undoubtedly arose as an alternative to the Western art system, which underground artists had only recently encountered. The initiators of the new Apt-art opposed this excessively mechanistic infrastructure, deprived of human warmth (which was fairly similar to the official Soviet system that was collapsing), with anthropological and, consequently, more authentic conditions. APT-ART International heralded a series of projects that traced a dotted line through the 1990s, such as the so-called galleries on Tryokhprudny Lane, or my own projects from 1992 to 1994 in the Contemporary Art Center on Yakimanka Street. Nevertheless, in comparison to these, Apt-art, with its anti-institutional

orientation, was more consistent and programmatic. In the mid-1990s, projects had a compensatory character, which is not to say that they intentionally selected locations outside institutions, but that they made habitable something imposed on them by the difficulties of the transitional period. Although APT-ART International was an ­alternative to the public infrastructure, it by no means opposed it. In avoiding the absolutism of the institutional world, it didn’t propose a confrontation with it but rather engaged in an “exodus” instead of “disobedience.” With anthropological conditions, where the creative intertwines with the human, Apt-art linked the substantive foundations of art, which by no means implies that art could not, or should not, search for itself in other contexts. That is why art was equally vulnerable to the blind apologia of institutions and the obsessive struggle waged with them in the 1990s by the artist Alexander Brener. Both, after all, are in essence a disregard for the authentic siting of art. It is important to take into consideration that at the time the art system was, in essence, exclusively Western. It was the bearer not only of the ideas of contemporary art, but also of the West as such. It embodied a reality in which Russia and Russian artists still had to begin to find their place. In indicating art’s underground apartment existence as a fully-fledged creative experience, and indeed a fundamental experience, ­APT-ART International came to two conclusions that were fairly unexpected for the mindset of those years. Firstly, it valorized local heritage, which, in that era of the adopting of to Western institutional standards, was viewed as being not entirely sound, as being a currency that wasn’t fit for conversion. Life back then was beginning anew, and Soviet heritage in all its incarnations had been taken off the agenda. Secondly, envisaging the anthropological dimension as being something substantive, Apt-art conceived of the tradition of apartment e ­ xhibitions as not only being convertible, but also of universal significance. 169

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An understanding of the roots of the conceptual program of APT-ART International would be incomplete if we didn’t take into consideration the emotional tone of those years, and specifically its euphoric elation. The world had been thrown open before Russian artists, becoming accessible and welcoming, as if it had been waiting for their arrival. APT-ART International, in fact, was conceived as a gesture in answer to this hospitality — to accept into one’s home those who had just as welcomingly received you. If, in the West, one was received in the galleries and museums of contemporary art, then in response one was to receive guests in keeping with the tenets of hospitality in your own home: they were to be put up in your apartment where, in this communal togetherness, the professional would dissolve in intimate conversation.

This ideological program, formulated here somewhat abstractly, was put into practice by APT-ART International. It involved a rejection of the traditional market-representational routine, with events that were spontaneous and irregular, without any strict plans or detailed dramaturgy. The recruiting of project participants took place not in accordance with some abstract criteria — regional, generational, aesthetic — but through a system of personal relations: through individual meetings; through the recommendations of acquaintances; and through self-invitation. As a result, participants included both leaders of the art world at the time (Franz West and Heimo Zobernig) and very young, as yet unknown artists (Svebor Kranjc from Zagreb and the LEONA group from Madrid). True hospitality, after all, is open to all who come.

There was a certain contradiction in this idealistic breakthrough. After all, in inviting someone into your home and in suggesting they feel “at home,” we were essentially focusing their attention on the fact that they are a guest, i.e. that they are not at home, but in our home. This contradiction, present in any hospitality, led Jacques Derrida to define hospitality as being a priori impossible. What is characteristic here is not only that in throwing our doors open to someone we are letting them know that, on entering, they must observe the rules of our home, but also that we ourselves must not only keep those rules, we must also actually know those rules. To put it another way, hospitality is a path to understanding and ordering ourselves, our own selfhood. And it was in this gesture that the way out of our contradictions laid: even if our aspiration to understand ourselves through hospitality is something that puts limits on those who accept our invitations, we won’t understand ourselves unless we welcome someone else. It follows that the more absolute and generous our hospitality, the fuller the illumination that we bring to our “I.” The more unexpected the person who makes use of our hospitality, the more likely this meeting is to elicit discoveries of the unknown and the concealed withinourselves.

In essence, APT-ART International was the first attempt to experiment with new forms of “being together” for people in a world without the confrontations of ideology and military-political blocs. In a world that was managed by flows of capital and was globalizing at a frenetic pace, APT-ART International was one of the first attempts to propose a different globalization — one from below.

IRWIN, NSK Embassy Moscow, 1992 Photo: Jože Suhadolnik Courtesy IRWIN

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Installation views of Jack Sal’s artwork, Chistoprudny Boulevard studios, 1992 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

Letter from Michelangelo Pistoletto, April 15, 1991 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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Installing Jack Sal’s artwork Courtesy Jack Sal

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Installation view, Darko Fritz, 3x Moscow Intershadow: Hype Shadow (1992), Apartment 86, 71 Leningradsky Prospect, Moscow, 1992 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

Installation view, Darko Fritz, [wallpapers] (1991–1992), Apartment 86, 71 Leningradsky Prospect, Moscow, 1992 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

Installation view, Darko Fritz, 3x Moscow Intershadow (1992), Apartment 86, 71 Leningradsky Prospect, Moscow, 1992 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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Viktor Misiano’s NSK passport Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

IRWIN, NSK Embassy Moscow, 1992 Photo: Jože Suhadolnik Courtesy IRWIN

Haralampi G. Oroschakoff, Moskau Boogie-Woogie (1992), APT-ART International, 1991/1992 Courtesy of the artist

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NSK Embassy, Moscow Declaration, 1992 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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STATE IN TIME

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

APT-ART OR WHAT CAN WE OFFER THE WEST? Veronika Bode, “APT-ART ili chto my mozhem predlozhit’ zapadu,” Gumanitarnyi fond 11 (1991), 1–2.

In January, an exhibition by the young Austrian artist Edward Winkelhofer was held at Anton Olschwang’s studio on Ulitsa Granovsky. It later became evident that this was one of the first actions in a major art project. […] Lena Kurlyandtseva recalls, “Kostya Zvezdochotov, one of the real inspirations behind this project, came up with a very beautiful image. He said that he wanted to expand the kitchen table that Muscovites once sat a ­ t—and around which they discussed all manner of things—to the edges of the universe, and sit everyone down at that table. The idea behind the project is very simple, it has no pretensions, and so far it’s working out very nicely. Western people are responding with enthusiasm to these non-traditional invitations. The most important thing that we’ve got isn’t the quality of our art, it’s the quality of our dialogue. And a demonstration of that dialogue is what we can give the world. Nothing else is working out for us so far. Everything here is 180

Marina Gržinić, “IRWIN — Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), State in Time,” Telepolis, April 10, 1997, accessed May 5, 2015, http://www.heise.de / tp / artikel / 4 / 4062 / 1.html

Darko Fritz and Avdej Ter-Oganyan in front of Fritz’s 3x Moscow Intershadow: Interexposed Edition Shadow (1992), Apartment 86, 71 Leningradsky Prospect, Moscow, 1992. Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

built on pure human curiosity and interest in one another, in a liking for the personality of one particular artist or another. These exhibitions are an attempt to balance out that terrible professional seriousness that our art has taken on — not everything works that way. As far as I’m concerned, when the Belyutin studio exhibits at the Manege, that’s a strange outcome… For many years, I comforted myself with the fact that poor quality and an unfinished nature were not the main qualities of works by our artists. The main thing was that behind all that stood a culture of dialogue that compensates for the unfinished nature or incompleteness of the works. And when those things suddenly found themselves in the context of a professionally made culture, there was a serious dissonance. People lost the qualities that compensated for their professional failings. In our project there’s a wish to balance the Western, sophisticated, completed culture and ours, with its eternal flaws. It’s an attempt to create a common situation in which all of this can be accepted and experienced…” […]

[…] IRWIN established the NSK Embassy in Moscow in a private apartment (Leninsky Prospect, 12, apartment 24) in May and June 1992. There, IRWIN exhibited paintings from the Capital series. Posters, design work, and videos by Laibach and a play by the Noordung Cosmokinetic Theater Cabinet were also presented. Lectures and public discussions were led by guests — c­ ritics, theorists, and artists from Slovenia, Russia, Croatia, and Serbia. The facade of the building was decorated with the artistically articulated insignia of a state embassy. The NSK questioning of the rhetoric of space within the new Europe included the issuing of passports. […] The NSK Embassy Moscow project took place in the context of the internationalization of one of the great East European phenomena, Apt-art, which involved artistic creation and exhibition in private apartments of the Moscow art underground. […] It enabled artists and avant-garde art to survive prior to the period of perestroika and glasnost in the

Soviet Union. The Apt-art project, which began in the 1980s, represents an attempt to search for political and p ­ ersonal / artistic paths, which run parallel to official institutions and are physically connected with them, but politically and culturally far apart. Apt-art, which emerged in the Brezhnev era, also represented an ironic paraphrase of the American pop art movement. Moscow Apt-art emphasized the status of private space and changed it into a center of communication through the self-organization of the most excluded. The “phantasm” which structures artistic life in the former totalitarian Eastern European countries is here completely grounded in the private sphere, in the private apartment, at the kitchen table so to speak, surrounded by artworks. In the context of the post-socialist European paradigm — which today reviews this phantasm on a completely metaphorical level so that it forgets to include fear, “the fear with which we lived,” in its imagery, as one of the Moscow underground theorists wrote — the NSK Moscow Embassy represents a new actualization of the phenomenon of life and creation in private apartments during the era of communist totalitarianism. […]

IRWIN, NSK Embassy Moscow, 1992 Photo: Jože Suhadolnik Courtesy IRWIN

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PROMISES AND PREMISES OF ART AS A STATE: NSK EMBASSY MOSCOW AND ITS CONTEXTS Gediminas Gasparavičius, “How the East Saw the East in 1992: IRWIN’s NSK Embassy Moscow and Relationality in Eastern Europe,” Public Art Dialogue, 3 (2013), 220–241, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.tandfonline.com / doi / full / 10.1080 / 21502552.2013.818847 Published in Badovinac, Zdenka, E. Čufer, and A. Gardner, eds., NSK from Kapital to Capital: Neue Slovenische Kunst – An Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia (Ljubljana: Moderna galerija / Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015), 405–415.

[…] On the sunny afternoon of June 6, 1992, a group of about fifteen people brought a large piece of black canvas onto Moscow’s Red Square and unfurled it. The fabric covered a vast 22×22 meter square in this symbolic center of the Russian capital, just east of the Lenin Mausoleum. Moscow militia did not interfere, nor did any of the numerous Federal Security Service officers (or FSB, a successor of the KGB) who were on duty there, in plain clothes. Passersby gazed curiously, with a bit of confusion, at this highly unusual activity but did not appear shocked, perhaps assuming that anything of that scale on the Red Square must have been sanctioned by the authorities and must have had a purpose. Some of them stopped at the perimeter and inquired of militiamen and of the initiators of the event what it was all about. The answer to most of them was that the action somehow referred to Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich and his iconic painting Black Square (1915). […] The people who re-enacted Malevich’s iconic painting in a real space and gave it the name Black Square on Red Square were a group of ex-Yugoslav and Russian artists, critics, and curators. They were the participants in the month-long series of lectures, discussions, and exhibitions that later came to be known as the NSK Embassy Moscow. The Embassy 182

project was conceived within the context of APT-ART International, a larger program that sought to address the significance and ramifications of the “apartment art” movement (or Apt-art, as it is commonly known) in Russia through visits and exhibitions by international artists. At the center of the Embassy’s art events lay a dialectical tension between new possibilities in collective organization and a conceptual structure that acknowledges the limiting conditions within any such community. The most important outcome of the monthlong Embassy was that the Slovenian participants subsequently re-imagined this type of artistic community as a virtual non-territorial state — called the NSK State in Time — with its own hierarchy, administrative documents, and ideological rituals. […] In 1992, it became clear during the long conversations in the apartment that a most notable absence in the post-socialist condition was precisely the kind of situation developed in the NSK Embassy Moscow, i.e., a situation where artistic practice could address its most urgent concerns and find the audience to relate to such artistic language. One of the key reasons IRWIN sought to participate in this rather unusual project was to challenge the isolation between various artistic ­traditions within Eastern Europe itself. As noted by IRWIN and other commentators, exchanges of ideas or formations of comparative art discourses between Eastern European countries were severely lacking. […]

IRWIN, NSK Embassy Moscow, 1992 Photo: Jože Suhadolnik Courtesy IRWIN

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THE GREAT UTOPIA: THE RUSSIAN AND SOVIET AVANT-GARDE 1915–1932,

1992–1994

THE GREAT UTOPIA

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE, FRANKFURT, MARCH 1—MAY 10, 1992 STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM, JUNE 5—AUGUST 23, 1992 SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25—DECEMBER 15, 1992 THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY, MOSCOW, APRIL 28—AUGUST 2, 1993 THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG, MARCH 24—JULY 21, 1994

Direction: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Michael Govan, Thomas Krens Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Lidiya Iovleva, Yuri Korolev, Lidiya Romashkova State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg Vladimir Gusev, Evgenia Petrova Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt Christoph Vitali Vuchetich All-Union Artistic Production Association (VUART) Faina Balakhovskaya, Svetlana Dzhafarova, Pavel Khoroshilov, Valentin Rivkind, Zelfira Tregulova, Alexander Ursin Ministry of Culture, Russian Federation Anna Kolupaeva, Vera Lebedeva, Alexander Shkurko, Evgeny Sidorov Former Ministry of Culture, Soviet Union Nikolai Gubenko, Genrikh Popov, Lidiya Zaletova Selection committee: Vivian Endicott Barnett, Christiane Bauermeister, Charlotte Douglas, Svetlana Dzhafarova, Hubertus Gassner, Evgeny Kovtun, Irina Lebedeva, Evgenia Petrova, Alla Povelikhina, Vasilii Rakitin, Elena Rakitina, Jane A. Sharp, Anatoly Strigalev, Margarita Tupitsyn Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993 Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

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Artists: Elena Afanasyeva, Nathan Altman, Alexey Babichev, Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné, Brigade KGK-3, Tatiana Bruni and Georgii Korshikov, D. Bulanov, Sarra Buntsis, Sergei Burylin, Joseph Chaikov, Ilya Chashnik, Iakov Chernikhov, Galina and Olga Chichagova, Alexander Deineka, Mechislav Dobrokovsky, Nikolai Dolgorukov, Alexander Drevin, Sofia Dymshits-Tolstaya, Vasily Elkin, Ksenia Ender, Maria Ender, Vasily Ermilov, Vera Ermolaeva, Alexandra Exter, Pavel Filonov, Vladimir Fidman, Naum Gabo, Alexey Gan, Ivan Gavris, Moisei Ginzburg, Ilya Golosov, Gustav Hassenpflug, Boris Ignatovich, Karl loganson, Nikolai Istselenov, Valentin lustitsky, Anna Kagan, Vasily Kandinsky, Lazar Khidekel, Valentina Khodasevich, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Klutsis, Katarzyna Kobro, Nina Kogan, Nikolai Kolli, Lydia Komarova, Boris Korolev, Vladimir Kozlinsky, Pavel Kozhin, Vladimir Krinsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh, Georgy Krutikov, Ivan Kudryashev, Valentina Kulagina, Alexander Labas, Nikolay Ladovsky, Ivan Lamtsov, Elizar Langman, Nikolay Lapshin, Anton Lavinsky, Vladimir Lebedev, Evgenia Leneva, Ivan Leonidov, Anna Leporskaya, Solomon Lisagor, El Lissitzky, Sergei Luchishkin, Lev Ludin, Kazimir Malevich, Pavel Mansurov, Raisa Matveeva, Mikhail Matyushin, Lyudmila Mayakovsky, Konstantin Medunetsky, Vadim Meller, Konstantin Melnikov, Alexey Morgunov, Maria Nazarevskaya, Alexander Nikolsky, Solomon Nikritin, Nadezhda Pashchinskaya-Maksimova, Anatoly Petritsky, Georgy Petrusov, Antoine Pevsner, Yuri Pimenov, Natalia Pinus, Mikhail Plaksin, Trifon Podryabinnikov, Lyudmila Protopopova, Nikolai Prusakov, Ivan Puni, Kliment Redko, Alexander Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, Irina Rozhdestvenskaya, Alexander Sashin, Nikolayi Sedelnikov, Sergei Senkin, Antonina Sofronova, Peter Sokolov, Alexey Sotnikov, Georgy Stenberg, Vladimir Stenberg, Varvara Stepanova, Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Nikolai Suetin, Vladimir Tatlin, Vasily Timorev, Alexander Tseitlin, Lev Tsiperson, Alexander Tyshler, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Maria Vasilyeva, Mikhail Veksler, Alexander, Leonid, and Viktor Vesnin, Konstantin Vialov, Petr Williams, Georgy Yakulov, David Zagoskin, Georgy Zelma, Grigory Zimin

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The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932 was enabled by Gorbachev’s glasnost policy reform, whereby cooperation was encouraged between the former Soviet Ministry of Culture and museums internationally. To date it is the largest show about the Russian avant-garde, ­tracing the movement through approximately 800 works, including paintings, sculptures, photography, posters, porcelain, architectural and typography designs, as well as theater costumes and sets. The story starts with the landmark exhibition 0.10 in 1915 and ends with the competition of the Palace of Soviets and completion of Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan, in 1932. The extensive catalogue, published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, contains over 600 illustrations, as well as texts by twenty-one leading authorities from Russia, Europe, and the United States. The presentation in New York constituted the first time most of the works had been seen in the United States. Designed by Zaha Hadid, the exhibition marked the re-opening of the Guggenheim after extensive renovation and expansion. Unusually, the show occupied the entire institution, including the new tower galleries. The tour of The Great Utopia coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union, complicating the production process but ultimately adding to the timeliness of the project, as was strongly reinforced in the Guggenheim press materials, which included this quote from Vladimir. F. Petrovsky, Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs of the United Nations: “The compelling changes that Russian society underwent at a pivotal time earlier in this century are captured in this ambitious undertaking by the Guggenheim Museum. We see the magnificent works of artists who, in a time of change, helped propel that change. In its exhibition, the museum ­presents the essence of the utopian spirit of the period by displaying the works created in the former states of the Soviet Union, and does so during another equally critical point in Russian history.”

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Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993 Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

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RE-EXPERIENCING THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE Zelfira Tregulova Coordinator of The Great Utopia for VUART*

As far as I know, the idea for the exhibition came about in 1988, during the Sotheby’s auction in Moscow. This was when Thomas Krens, who had just been appointed as the new director of the Guggenheim, met Pavel Khoroshilov, then director of the Vuchetich All-Union Artistic Production Association (VUART), which was the executive branch of the Ministry of Culture. All major international exhibitions and events involving the Soviet Union were coordinated by this institution, including the auction and The Great Utopia. During perestroika, cultural collaborations like this — between museums in Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States — were supported on a very high level politically. In the case of The Great Utopia, Eduard Shevardnadze, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, was a big proponent. We all understood it was something important; that we were building new relations, but you can imagine how complicated the logistics and catalogue were when there were no computers in Russia at the time. We had one typewriter in our department. We did, at least, have a fax machine as well, which was given to our office by Sotheby’s in 1988. It was the only one in any cultural institution in Moscow. There was also not really any literature on the avant-garde available in Russian then, except for Camilla Gray’s The Russian Experiment in Art. 1863–1922, which was translated. Most of the ­materials a ­ vailable were about collections in the West. So, I had to spend a lot of time learning the differences between Popova and Rozanova, or Pestel, when I first started working on the project, but when we began assembling the loans I developed my knowledge firsthand, while condition checking and being the courier for the works from regional museums. 190

The final checklist for the exhibition included works from fifty-six collections from all over the world, including around thirty works from Russia. The majority of the loans were from regional museums — not the Tretyakov, or the State Russian Museum — because ­avant-garde works were transferred to the provinces from 1919. At the start of the research we used a list that detailed what the State Museum Fund initially purchased, because they had acquired the greatest works of Malevich, Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Popova, Rozanova, and so on, after the Revolution, accumulating collections and sending them to remote cities in Russia. Then, additional holdings from the Tretyakov were also sent to the provinces in 1925. Unfortunately, in the 1930s the destruction of works began; sometimes enlightened museum staff could conceal them. We literally worked from the original list, calling each museum to ascertain what was left. It was the first time a full assessment was made of what avant-garde works remained. Throughout the process of developing the exhibition there were many heated discussions between the specialists, because each had their perspective on what the show should be. I remember there were many debates about the title, which the ­Russians were very much against, but finally it stuck. There were not many Russian scholars on this topic at that time, apart from Yevgeny Kovtun and Alla Povelikhina from St. Petersburg, as well as Irina Lebedeva, the former director of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, who were all very important to the project. Other key people were Michael Govan, who was Deputy Director of the Guggenheim; Christoph Vitali, then Director of Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt; and experts such as Vivian Barnett, Charlotte Douglas, Hubertus Gassner, Vasilii Rakitin and Elena Rakitina, to name a few. Nicolas Iljine, from Lufthansa, also played a very important role, supporting all the travel for the twenty or so curators and organizers during the research period, as well as for the realization of the tour.

When the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 we were preparing to ship the works. For a time, our department was caught in the abyss between the Former Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union and the new Ministry of Culture of the Russian F ­ ederation, which didn’t know anything about this exhibition and was embroiled in a privatization bid. So, in the midst of this transfer of responsibilities, we were trying to get export licenses for the Russian museums, deal with customs procedures, and also understand if the State funds secured for the show still existed. I was there for the installation at the Guggenheim — as for all of the shows — but in New York it was special because of Zaha Hadid’s contribution as the architect of the show. It was no coincidence that they turned to her, because she is a big admirer of the concepts and ideas of the Russian avant-garde. She did incredible work of which only a part was realized because of costs. If she could have completed her vision, I think we would have had the best exhibition on the art of the twentieth century ever made. As it stood, she produced a separate concept for each section of the show. What she did was risky for the artworks but very contemporary for the 1990s, in the way she interpreted and presented the essence of each phenomenon, while still maintaining the multi-faceted concept of the Russian avant-garde. Finally, for the Russian version of the show we really were quite sad not to get the loans from the West, because we wanted this exhibition to appear in all its splendor in Russia. In spite of this setback, Irina Lebedeva made the Tretyakov version a successful project in Moscow. Overall, looking back I realize The Great Utopia is the kind of venture that could never happen now, because of the funds it would take. Back then, the costs were different, and our world was just starting to open up. Anything seemed possible. Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle, October 30, 2014. *From 1990, Tregulova was the coordinator of The Great Utopia for VUART. During the course of the exhibition she became Head of Department and then Assistant to the Director of Exhibitions.

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Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993 Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Economic woes are worse than bureaucratic difficulties. As the chief of the All-Russian Artistic Production Association, which supervises all international exhibitions participated in by Russian museums, Zelfira Tregulova is among the most influential officials in the Russian art world. Yet, until a few weeks ago, when she received a raise, Miss Tregulova said her monthly salary of 1,600 rubles, about a third of the average Russian wage, would last her only two weeks. Even at that she said she was doing better than most of her colleagues because she holds a Ph.D and has a relatively high administrative post. Asked how she made ends meet, she rolled her eyes and said: “Translations. Anything I can get.”

Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993. Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

WHEN A SHOW IS JUST TOO BIG Michael Kimmelman, “When a Show is Just too Big,” International Herald Tribune, September 26/27, 1992.

One retreats like Napoleon from Moscow, bedraggled and confused. [The Great Utopia] includes compelling works, many of which have been extracted from provincial Russian museums. Yet the impact of the many remarkable things on view is hopelessly diluted by the exhibition’s size, seesawing quality, and its gimmicky and self-indulgent installation. […] The last part of the show, particularly the final gallery with its figurative works, is the most remarkable because it is the least familiar, even though, like the rest of the exhibition, it is in serious need of trimming. To see the crisp, dark, brutal works of Alexander Deineka, the Georg Grosz-like watercolors of Yuri Pimenov, and even the pathetically painted fantasies of Alexander Tyshler is to get a broader feel of the period than is typically served up. 194

THE RUSSIAN ART WORLD IS FEELING THE TROUBLES OF ITS COUNTRY

KRENS’ GREAT MYOPIA: FUZZY SOVIET GIANTISM Hilton Kramer, “Krens’ Great Myopia: Fizzy Soviet Gigantism,” The New York Observer, October 9, 1992. Originally published in The New York Observer, Octоber 9, 1992.

The subject of The Great Utopia is, according to its subtitle, The Russian and Soviet

Avant-Garde, 1915–1932. A terrific subject to be sure, but not one that can be described as new or unexplored for either the American or the European art public­. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Soviet Government during the Cold War, it is a subject that has been under close and continuous scrutiny in the West since the English art historian Camilla Gray, who was then married to Prokofiev’s son, published her pioneering study, The Great E ­ xperiment in Russian Art 1863–1922, in 1962. It has since been the focus of a great many exhibitions, books, and ­specialized mono­graphs — many more, indeed, than can be fully described here. […] What is perfectly obvious, however, is that this is an exhibition put together by committee and computer. The result is not new information or new interpretation, but a vast sprawling uncritical inventory of objects and documents that has the effect of burying the subject of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde under the accumulated debris of its own history. No distinction is made between major contributions to art and artistic thoughts and the many items in the exhibition that can scarcely be said to be even minor. Nor is any distinction made between

William H. Honan, “The Russian Art World is Feeling the Troubles of its Country,” New York Times, October 1, 1992.

Two weeks before the 800 artworks in the Great Utopia show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum were to be shipped from Moscow, the Government’s Ministry of Culture was dissolved. Russian Museum officials said that this almost put an end to the show […] Eventually, the museums delivered the works on their own, without the expected financial support from a central Government, and the show opened as scheduled in Manhattan on Friday. […] Miss Bass, who wears a look of perpetual defiance, said she had just been hired at the museum in Kuibyshev, a few months before Stalin’s death in 1953, when she was ordered to destroy all avant-garde works in the museum’s collection. “I managed to preserve them,” she said. “If I had been caught, it would have meant jail or worse.”

Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993 Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

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True believers: Nevertheless, we leave the show pondering an enormous question: if great movements in art history are made by artists who subscribe to a common belief, does it matter what the belief is, as long as the artists believe in something? […] On the other hand it can be argued that in any Marxist revolution a big or little Stalin is inevitable, and that there can be no innocent supporters, however premature, of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Since the Russian Revolution eventually caused millions of violent deaths, perhaps its art, no matter how visually interesting, is at least a little complicit. Scholar Paul Wood, in his brilliant catalogue essay, “The Politics of the Avant-Garde,” cautions both against condemning artists of The Great Utopia, whose revolutionary passion preceded Stalin’s taking power, and against letting them off the hook as total innocents. Art, like life, is complicated.

art objects that are, primarily, of esthetic interest and the many, many others here that survive only as historical documents. The distinction between significant works of art and objects of merely historical interest is of immense importance for any serious exhibition of this material, for in the absence of such a distinction politics tends to swamp everything in sight. […] By concentrating on and even at times celebrating the politics of the avant-garde while according its aesthetic imperatives so little weight, The Great Utopia gives us a very skewed account of this movement — an account that is dominated by a sentimental nostalgia for the politics of revolution that finally destroyed the avant-garde whose history it documents.

COMES THE REVOLUTION Peter Plagens, “Comes the Revolution,” Newsweek, October 19, 1992.

The exhibition begins at the bottom of the building’s trademark spiral ramp with an awesomely “empty” prologue room containing only Tatlin’s 1914–15 Counter-Relief and Malevich’s small 1915 painting Red Square, hung 15 feet above the floor like some wordless manifesto of liberation. For The Great Utopia, we must trudge counterclockwise up the ramp (opposite the usual elevator-fed Guggenheim route), seemingly refighting the artistic revolution with every step. At intervals, we veer off into the tower galleries for specialized glimpses of early abstract painting, or constructivist sculptures that hover like satellites over a white planetary bulge in the floor. The number of works thins out near the top. Here we see Malevich’s poignant effort, in the late 1920s, to remake himself into a Socialist Realist: brightly colored pictures of noble peasants, drawn in a primitive Russian icon style. Finally we encounter his sad, 1933 realist self-portrait in Renaissance garb. Nearby, like a specter of the crashed revolution, hangs Tatlin’s skeletal glider. 196

TOURS DE FORCE Peter Schjeldahl, “Tours de Force,” The Village Voice, October 27, 1992.

Installation view, The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde 1915–1932, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 25, 1992–January 3, 1993 Photo: David Heald © SRGF, NY

To gang up on the Guggenheim is a temptation I normally succumb to with a happy sigh. When else can I have the kick of agreeing with Hilton Kramer on something? […] But I must decline my turn—behind Kramer, behind Michael Kimmelman—to whack Krens’s department store-scaled survey of the Russian avant-garde, an exhibition that happens to be marvelous while also being megalomaniacal, sloppy, and strange. […] The headline here is the opening of formerly Soviet storerooms, giving us our fullest sense yet of the subject’s admittedly grueling depth, breadth and intensity. No one ever has to do this again. “Overdesigned,” another rap, is a fair response to some of architect Zaha Hadid’s installational gimmicks, which can be pretty bad, but on the whole they provide a badly needed visual rhythm and refreshment. Moreover, a conventional hanging would be false to artists who designed the bejabbers out of everything they laid their hands on. I urge forbearance. 197

STALIN’S CHOICE: SOVIET SOCIALIST REALISM, 1932–1956

1993–1994 PS1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER, NEW YORK NOVEMBER 21, 1993—FEBRUARY 27, 1994

STALIN’S CHOICE

Curators: Joseph Backstein, Kathrin Becker, Zdenka Gabalov, Alanna Heiss, Peter Wollen Artistic advisers: Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid Artists: Fedor Antonov, Mikhail Avilov, Petr Belousov, A. Bokov, Isaak Brodsky, Alexander Bubnov, Vasily Burakov, Evgeni Charski, Efim Cheptsov, A. E. Chernyshov, Alexander Deineka, Irina Dmitrievna, Konstantin Dorokhov, Stephan Dudnik, Vasily Efanov, Genrikh Fogeler, Alexander Gerasimov, Nikolai Glushchenko, Gavriil Gorelov, Sergei Grigoriev, Boris Ioganson, Nikolai Ivanovich, Nikolai Karachan, Boris Karpov, Nadezhda Kashina, Shamsroy Khasanova, Mikhail Khmelko, Vasily Khvostenko, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Pavel Kucherov, Kukryniksy, Alexander Laktionov, Pyotr Maltsev, Vasily Meshkov, Viktor Midler, Dmitry Mochalsky, Fedor Modorov, Alexander Moravov, Dmitry Nalbandyan, Vera Orlova, Nikolai Osenev, Vladimir Petrov, Fedor Reshetnikov, Nikolai Ryabinin, Serafima Ryangina, Andrei Sashin, Georgy Savitsky and Vasily Efanov, Iosif Serebryany, Vladimir Serov, Nikolai Shestopalov, Irina Shtange, Fyodor Shurpin, Alexei Sittaro, Nikolai Sokolov, Pyotr Stroev, Nikolai Strunnikov, Vasily Svarog, Nikolai Sysoev, Leonid Tanklevsky, Oganes Tatevosyan, Vitaly Tikhov, Georgy Tkachev, Boris Tsvetkov, Ivan Uzhinsky, Petr Vasiliev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Fedor Voitov, Vasily Yakovlev, Anatoly Yar-Kravchenko, Konstantin Yuon, Ekaterina Zernova

Installation view, Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York, November 21, 1993—February 27, 1994 The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York DIGITAL IMAGE © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

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ORGANIZING A SHOW DURING A POLITICAL CRISIS Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956 was the first major exhibition in America to present an overview of the Soviet state aesthetic under Joseph Stalin, beginning in 1932 when the Central Committee liquidated all existing artist organizations and initiated the unions, and ending in 1956 when, during a closed session at the 20th Communist Party congress, Nikita Khrushchev denounced the former leader and the cult of personality he had fostered. With loans from seven museums and collections, the exhibition at PS1 offered a perspective on the ideological and philosophical underpinnings of Stalin’s Soviet Union, particularly through the selection of works that had received the Stalin Prize for extolling the virtues of Lenin, Stalin, the Politburo, and other leaders, as well as of c­ ollective agriculture, industry, family values, and the military. Nearly half the works included depictions of Stalin, many of which had been hidden from view in Russia for more than three decades. Presented across eighteen galleries, works were divided into sections with titles such as Military, Aviation, or Rural Russia, and augmented with two rooms of Socialist Realist porcelain and china, as well as a film and music program curated by the film director Slava Tsukerman, and installations by Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Erik Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov, and Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid. A series of lectures, conferences, and symposia explored the connections between Soviet state control of culture and (the then) contemporary concerns about the American government’s involvement in the arts. A 250‑page “primer,” The Aesthetic Arsenal: Socialist Realism under Stalin, charted various manifestations of Soviet socialist ideology through painting, sculpture, posters, decorative art, literature, cinema, and architecture.

Alanna Heiss Founder and Director, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (1976—2008)

I became interested in Socialist Realism partly because it was not abstract art, or minimalism, which one is taught to appreciate as “good art” in the American art world. Instead, it was closer to the kind of narrative painting that the vast majority of people in the United States actually prefer. I had no idea how to understand it, apart from the fact that the depiction of farming communities reminded me of landscapes around where I grew up in the Midwest, and it was very close to the tradition of art that arose through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression in the United States from 1935. During the Reagan administration, the Soviet Union was referred to in the United States as the “evil empire.” However, I came to realize that the art of Socialist Realism had the potential of widespread appeal in America: it was communicable narrative art, with a frankness that I foresaw would be easily appreciated by a population that felt itself isolated from “high art.” For me, that was an incredible conclusion to come to in the political climate of the time. Then the task was to make a show that could be meaningful beyond the initial visual attraction, presenting the best examples of the genre — which were all in Russia, of course — in a new context. The outcome was that Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932–1956 became the first contemporary exhibition of Socialist Realism in the United States. I first traveled to Moscow at the end of the 1980s and some five or six times after that. There was no amount of research that could prepare me for my experiences there. Mostly, I visited artists, who opened up their studios to me. I remember I even met with one of the

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last artists to get the Stalin Prize, which was awarded by the State for significant achievements in the advancement of the Soviet Union’s goals. Curator Joseph Backstein was a very enthusiastic collaborator and made essential connections between museums and collectors, as did artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, who had moved to New York by this time. Also in New York, and helpful for background information, were dealers Phyllis Kind and Ronald Feldman. Central to the entire project was Zelfira Tregulova (now, many years later, director of Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery) who worked at the Vuchetich All-Union Artistic Production Association (VUART), which was the executive branch of the Ministry of Culture. She negotiated all the loans from the museums and tried to teach me about the hierarchies in the Moscow art community. As a result of her insight, I developed friendships with various museum directors, including at the Army and Navy Museum and the Lenin Museum. Everyone I worked with in Moscow was enormously generous and friendly, and I was even given a beautiful corner office at the Lenin Museum to work from. My last trip was in the fall of 1993, just before the final selection of works shipped to New York. We planned to have a small show in Moscow to signal the official collaboration between an American institution and the Russian museums, but the problem was that the political climate was rapidly changing in Russia. It was a schizophrenic time. The show at the Tretyakov Gallery fell through last minute, and it was decided that we would instead hold an event at the Kremlin, where, for one night, we would hang four of the gigantic and famous works which had been in storage for so long. Even this became problematic, because the presentation of a display of Socialist Realist works in such a politically and emotionally loaded landmark, in a time of unrest, might suggest that there could be a return to Stalinist days, which some officials secretly longed for. Suddenly, I found myself to be “the good guy” for “the bad people,” and at the same time, if people perceived it as an ironic show, I was a “good guy for the good people.” The 201

reality was, of course, that I was politically naive and I wanted to develop the exhibition from a neutral perspective. I started receiving phone calls alerting me that the event at the Kremlin was a very bad idea. Rumors were spreading in the Hotel Rossiya — the foreigners’ hotel — that something big was about to happen and that we should leave Moscow immediately. I worried that if I left, Zelfira and Joseph would be unable to get the works out of Russia and the exhibition, which was opening the next month in New York, would be a failure. So, until I knew that we could get the works out, I wasn’t going to leave. In perhaps the most unusual situation of my entire career, we canceled the Kremlin reception and had a private reception for all the dignitaries at a newly opened, trendy nightclub called Manhattan Express, which had been open less than a month in the Hotel Rossiya. The surreal nature of events continued. On October 3, demonstrators took over the Mayor’s offices and tried to storm the main television building. I woke up to the sounds of shooting, bombs, and sirens. Demonstrators had stormed the Supreme Soviet building, known as the Russian White House. Ten days of the most intense street fighting ensued — apparently the worst since the 1917 Revolution — with hundreds of people killed and injured. I, too, became one of the injured when I went outside to check on the art and ricocheting bullets caused a concussion that led to an unrelenting nosebleed.

for government dignitaries. I was given a beautiful room, completely disconnected from the reality of outside events. The only connection to reality was a TV — the first I had seen in all my trips. “Swan Lake” was continually broadcast, which I was later told was a sign that Russia was really in trouble. I continued to lose blood day after day. Most of the doctors left to go and help with the crisis, and I remained with the politicians and others who were in hiding. As I had not been shot, people were paying less attention to my situation, which appeared less serious until it seemed possible I might actually bleed to death. Friends worked anxiously to get me out of the country as there were no commercial flights or trains operating. Finally, my husband managed to get a private plane to fly in and take me at low altitude to Finland, with my nose “battle-packed” by an American Vietnam vet doctor. There, I had a total blood transfusion, and I became an honorary Finnish citizen. Six weeks later, I was back in New York to install Stalin’s Choice at PS1. Excerpted from an interview with Kate Fowle, April 8, 2015.

A meeting regarding Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956, Moscow, c. 1993. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York DIGITAL IMAGE © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

We had made a network of underground friends in Moscow who, during the uprising, were like “Mad Max” people, running ambulances in trucks which had red paint thrown on them in an approximation of a red cross. They got me out of the Hotel Rossiya and took me to the American medical center, which itself was under fire. At that point, a colleague called Zelfira, and my other connections at the Lenin Museum and the Army and Navy Museum, for advice on where we could go. They sent me to a huge, country-house-like building, a center 202

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Left to right: Joseph Backstein, unidentifed, Alanna Heiss, during a research visit for Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956, private gallery, Moscow, c. 1993. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York DIGITAL IMAGE © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

HERO TODAY, GONE TOMORROW Kay Larson, “Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow: Stalin’s Choice is raising the prickliest questions about art, democracy, and dictatorship since Robert Mapplethorpe,” New York Magazine, November 29, 1993

Americans who managed to skip the 1939 World’s Fair have never actually seen Socialist Realism. We’ve heard about it, of course: it’s been the invisible evil demon throughout the Cold War. Without the actual art to provoke disturbing questions, it’s been easy to condemn Stalin’s painters. But maybe we should think this through more carefully. […] Heiss set this courageous show in motion just as Helms and friends were gunning 204

for Mapplethorpe and the National Endowment for the Arts. There could be no more characteristic scene in a democracy: the people who believe art should be placed under the absolute control of family values in full-tilt battle against the ultimate “bourgeois individualist” who pursued his self-absorbed hedonism literally to the death. Or, as a corollary, the image of the lumpen proletariat and its representatives struggling to wrest power from the intellectual elite (represented by the NEA). And from a show that no American agency, governmental, or private, had the guts to fund — comes a contrary proposition about what “Stalinism” looks like when it’s not associated with Stalin.

STALIN’S PAINTERS: IN SERVICE OF THE SACRED

PUBLIC SCHOOL EXHIBIT BRINGS STALIN TO QUEENS

Michael Kimmelman, “Stalin’s Painters: In Service of the Sacred,” New York Times Review / Art, December 10, 1993.

James Hoberman, “Public School Exhibit Brings Stalin to Queens: Treasure Trove of Communist Kitsch,” Forward, January 28, 1994. Courtesy James Hoberman

Socialist Realism’s heyday ended with its founder’s demise, and little of what it produced ever made its way to the West, until now. Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956, at the PS1 Museum in Queens, includes more than 150 paintings, sculptures and porcelain tchotchkes disinterred from the depths of institutions like the Central Museum of the Military Forces, the Archive of the Ministry of Culture, the Central Lenin Museum, and the State Tretyakov Gallery. An exercise in arcana, you might suppose. But far from it: the show is amusing, horrifying, thought-provoking, and more than a little weirdly appealing. […] [It] brings to mind plenty of pertinent questions, not only about government control over the content of art, but also about art in the service of politics. The show makes no claim to having answers; it allows the work to speak for itself. […] [Without] titles, some of the paintings could be mistaken for the products of American realists, not the least of them Mr. Americana himself, Norman Rockwell. Propaganda is propaganda is propaganda, whether the propagandist is in Stalingrad or Stockbridge, Mass., or SoHo, for that matter. Just as Americans have a certain nostalgic affection for Rockwell, even Russian antiSoviets can have a certain nostalgic affection for the Socialist Realists. Or so it seems from the group of wry, touching, trenchant works by well-known contemporary Russian artists that forms a smart addendum to the exhibition.

Fueled by plastic shot glasses of Russian vodka, the mood at the show’s opening seemed actively ambivalent. Nostalgic émigrés were reconfronting the suppressed images of their childhood, youthful Sohoites absorbed what appeared to be a weirdly committed new form of Postmodernism — especially since the exhibition is postscripted with satirical works by the team of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Erik Bulatov, and other so-called Sots-artists. “We playthe role of quotation marks,” Mr. Komar told me. […] Ms. Tregulova and Mr. Komar are [also] impressed with the gigantic Prominent Muscovites in the Kremlin (1949), a painting created by a brigade of artists under the direction of Vasili Efanov. As if in some proletarian fairy tale, a fantastically individuated crowd of guests throng in the ogre’s palace to celebrate Moscow’s 800th anniversary. Under outsized crystal chandeliers and the cold marble eye of a colossal Stalin bust, the guests applaud the elderly worker who proudly affixes the Order of Lenin to the city banner. Mr. Komar compares Prominent Muscovites, which was discovered by P.S. 1 curators rolled up in the basement of the State Tretyakov Gallery, to one of Jackson Pollock’s contemporary canvases: “It has the same visual aggressiveness.” It is his dream, he tells me, that at some point during the installation, there will be a “special day when all the paintings will be hung upside down — for people who like abstract art.”

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Zelfira Tregulova (second from right) and Alanna Heiss (right) at the preview party for the exhibition Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956, Moscow, c. 1993. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York DIGITAL IMAGE © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

SOCIALIST REALISM OR THE REALITY OF STALINISM IN ART David Walsh, “Socialist Realism or the Reality of Stalinism in Art: Part One,” The International Workers Bulletin, February 1994.

The essential impulse behind Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932–1956 is social and political, not aesthetic. In part it is intended as an antidote to last year’s exhibit The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde 1915–1932 at the Guggenheim Museum. More generally it is intended to inoculate artists and intellectuals, under conditions of capitalist crisis and decay, with a morbid fear of revolution and communism. The organizers of the current display at PS1 base themselves on two fundamentally false suppositions: that Stalinism represented the continuity of the October Revolution of 1917, and linked to that, that those artists who rallied to the revolution were in some way responsible for the products of so-called Socialist 206

Realism, the art produced by bureaucratic dictate in the USSR from the 1930s through the 1950s. Whether it is the fully conscious intent of the exhibit organizers or not, the message transmitted is this: “You see? This is the result of artists concerning themselves with great social questions: painting at the service of a totalitarian state. If you had any thought of turning to those questions yourself, this catastrophic example should cure you of that!” […] No doubt many of those at the ICA consider themselves to hold quite daring views in regard to contemporary art and society. But the utter lack of understanding of the revolutionary origins and subsequent degeneration of the Soviet Union revealed in the texts that accompany the exhibit, as well as the general lack of any historical perspective on the part of the organizers, create a vacuum, which is inevitably filled by the most reactionary rubbish. This is why the exhibit takes on the character of an assault on Bolshevism and the Soviet avant-garde, part of the international campaign to stamp out the legitimacy of the October Revolution.

Cover of the booklet which accompanied Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956

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1994

LUDWIG FORUM FOR INTERNATIONAL ART, AACHEN, FEBRUARY 24—JUNE 12

FLUCHTPUNKT MOSKAU

Curator: Boris Groys Artists: Yuri Albert, Isaak Brodsky, Grisha Bruskin, Erik Bulatov, Olga Chernysheva, Ivan Chuikov, Andrei Filippov, Konstantin Finogenov, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Igor Makarevich, Sergei Mironenko, Andrei Monastyrsky, Tatyana Nazarenko, Natalya Nesterova, Boris Orlov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Viktor Pivovarov, Dmitri Prigov, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Oskar Rabin, Eduard Steinberg, Tryokhprudny Lane studios, Andrey Volkov, Sergei Volkov, Vladimir Weisberg, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Vadim Zakharov, Dmitry Zhilinsky

Fluchtpunkt Moskau catalogue cover

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CHANGING TASTES Boris Groys Curator, Fluchtpunkt Moskau

Fluchtpunkt Moskau (Vanishing Point Moscow) had a curious prehistory: in 1982 critic Boris Groys met collector Peter Ludwig at an exhibition of the latter’s collection and, when asked what he thought of the show, said it was not representative of Russian art. Ten years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ludwig invited Groys to curate an exhibition based on the collection, giving him the opportunity to invite Russian artists who would create new works. These works would become part of the Ludwig Collection, which was now developing in a new direction suggested by Groys. The exhibition was arranged chronologically, but its main distinguishing feature was that it included Socialist Realist artists and those working in the “severe style.” Groys notes that he intended to demonstrate “a certain sequentiality, showing that this process didn’t start from scratch.”1 The exhibition also linked back to the 1982 exhibition Aspects of Modern Soviet Art, at the opening of which the original conversation between Groys and Ludwig took place.

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From an interview with Sasha Obukhova, March 6–7, 2015.

Shortly after we emigrated to Germany in 1982, an acquaintance told us of an upcoming exhibition called Aspects of Contemporary Soviet Art from the collection of Peter Ludwig. It was held at two museums, with painting at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and works on paper and sculpture at the Ludwig Collection in Aachen. Ludwig had been collecting seriously for some time. He was mainly taken with Dmitry Zhilinsky and his circle, but also had some works by Tair Salakhov, who was his friend. So, it was quite a big show, and the first of Soviet art that I had seen in the West. When I was introduced to Ludwig he asked me what I thought. If people ask me directly, I usually tell the truth, so I told him that I did not like the exhibition because it didn’t reflect the real state of Russian art. Ludwig took an immediate interest in this point of view and asked which artists I thought did reflect this, as I saw it. I reeled off the names of Ilya Kabakov, Dmitri Prigov, and several others, of whom he said he had heard, and then added something along the lines of, “But you know, your point of view is a typical product of totalitarian thought, intolerant and incapable of relativism. I take the stand of cultural relativism, and do not impose my point of view, or my tastes, onto the people from the country in which I’m collecting art. I collect work that is recognized in the country in question, and I consider this to be a liberal-democratic approach, because it respects cultural identity. I don’t impose my own tastes onto the culture, though they might be quite different. Instead, I respect them, as well as the hierarchies that may have formed. I’m not going to run through all kinds of cellars and attics looking for artists that are no use to anybody. I collect art that is actually representative.” It was an interesting point of view. I responded by saying, “Well, you know how life goes: today

one thing, tomorrow another. If some artists are recognized now, it might turn out that others will be in future.” A decade later I got a call. “It’s Ludwig here. You told me that things were changing. I remember those words. It turns out that although you weren’t right at the time, you are now. So, I would like to invite you to curate an exhibition in Aachen, which you can make based on your perspective.” That’s the background to Fluchtpunkt Moskau. It turns out speaking your own mind always helps! This was only the second exhibition I had curated. The first was a small exhibition for Ignis, a Polish cultural center in Cologne. In the exhibition there were several works from Ludwig’s collection, including some that I recommended for purchase, for example Isaak Brodsky’s Lenin on Red Square (1924). The majority of the works were given by the contemporary Russian artists — from Ilya Kabakov, Dmitri Prigov, to Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Olga Chernysheva, Anatoly Osmolovsky, and artists from Tryokhkhprudny Lane — or produced in situ. Curating the exhibition was problem-free. There was a very peaceful atmosphere among the artists. The exhibition space was very large, so every artist got enough space for their work. The Ludwig Foundation paid for the production of some artworks and museum employees took on the practical work of organizing the exhibition, but there was no interference with my curatorial concept. The reaction to the Aachen exhibition was relatively positive in spite of the fact that, unfortunately, Russian art at the time was a disappointment to everybody. That disappointment grew and grew with each exhibition during that period, until it reached the point where people lost interest completely. There was a feeling that there was no enigma to Russian art; that it occupied a secondary place in relation to Western art, and was very easy to recognize and to read. This was linked to unrealistic expectations. Unrealistic in the sense that Russia was then, as now, considered by the West 211

to be a very enigmatic country, and Russian people to be radically “Other.” Consequently, the West was disappointed each time it received something that was familiar. This was taken as some kind of deception, as fraud. The problem is, as Georg Baselitz once said to me, that Russian art is not art at all, but a kind of folklore, because art is something that passes through the evaluation process of the gallery system, through demand, through the readiness of galleries to accept it, or the readiness of buyers to purchase it. Things that somebody has made — that are just lying around somewhere or other — are more like artisanal products.

Yuri Leiderman Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Olga Chernysheva Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Inspection Medical Hermeneutics Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Anatoly Osmolovsky (detail) Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Anatoly Osmolovsky (detail) Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Vadim Zakharov Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

Excerpted from an interview with Groys and Natalia Nikitin by Sasha Obukhova, March 6–7, 2015.

After the opening of Fluchtpunkt Moskau. Left to right: Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Vadim Zakharov, Sergei Anufriev, Maria Chuikova, Claudia Jolles, Olga Chernysheva, Boris Groys, Pavel Pepperstein

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

At the opening of Fluchtpunkt Moskau. Left to right: Nikolai Nikitin, Boris Groys, Maria Chuikova, Vadim Zakharov, Sergei Anufriev, Pavel Pepperstein, Claudia Jolles, unknown, Viktoria Samoilova Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

NOTHING NEW FROM MOSCOW Hans-Peter Riese, “Nichts Neues am Moskau. KontextDesign: Die russische Szene im Ludwig Forum Aachen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 15, 1994, 36. Courtesy Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Provided by Frankfurter Allgemeine Archive.

For years exhibitions of Russian and Soviet art have been arranged by Western museum directors and critics. As a result the art is measured against criteria imposed from the outside. Inviting a Russian as curator and commentator is undoubtedly correct, especially when it is someone who is familiar with Western art and Western ways of operating. Should not that person be able to paint a different picture of Moscow? Boris Groys worked on the exhibit Fluchtpunkt Moskau for the Ludwig Forum in Aachen. He was able to make use of the impressive inventory of the Ludwig collection, and invite twelve artists to create works for Aachen. […] Showcasing works by known artists in Aachen provokes the question, “Is it still “vanishing point Moscow?” A considerable number of artists no longer live in the Russian capital. Kabakov and Komar and Melamid 214

work in the United States, Yankilevsky and Steinberg in Paris — the list could go on. […] The installations by younger Moscow artists that were made specifically for Aachen are somewhat derivative. Only Olga Chernysheva stands out, with her tragic-ironic “documentation” of a school class. For visitors this show differs from that which has been seen elsewhere only in nuances: there’s nothing new from Moscow. [Ekaterina Degot] reports that today’s young art pushes Kabakov’s or Bulatov’s conceptualism to the side, but at the same time “historicizes” it to overcome it. But it is precisely this exciting process of debate about dominant trends of “unofficial” art from the 1960s and 1970s that is not incorporated in the exhibition. It is in part because of Groys’ choice and point of view, as well as the Ludwig collection and its specifics. Trying to draw a line from moderate examples of Socialist Realism through unofficial art to current trends to justify the choice of collection, remains an intellectual creation. Groys‘ entwining of Stalinism and the avant-garde leads to the thesis that Russian art critiques ideology. He tries to prove this in Aachen, too. But appearance and historical context refute this approach. Soviet-Russian art created meaning within the provincial framework

of pure “dissident art,” when it accepted and processed the dialectic dependence of the surrounding aesthetic-socialist environment. This inner relationship is now broken. The dialectical, ironic counter-position has degenerated into pure nostalgia, which is clung to in New York or Paris, where it is commercially successful, but artistically worn out. Those left behind and those coming after must free themselves from this connection if they don’t want to deliver material fit only for philosophical theses. As Ekaterina Degot puts it, “The logical ‘end’ of the tradition is the pseudo-social involvement in exhibitions by artists from Tryokhprudny Lane, consisting of the endless design of a context for banal artistic statements in a radical self-stylization.”

FLUCHTPUNKT MOSKAU — A SHOW OF NEW ART WITH IRONY AT THE LUDWIG FORUM Birgit Kilp, “Fluchtpunkt Moskau—eine Schau des Forum Ludwig Neue Kunst mit Ironie,” Berliner Zeitung, March 21, 1994.

Again the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen has something special in store for the art traveler. Fluchtpunkt Moskau is the name of the show in a former umbrella factory that presents work by eleven artists. From the outset — Because we are all Idiots, by Sergei Mironenko (1990) — a painting of four lions, their backs to the viewer, looking attentively at a row of pictures against a bright red background, dominates. The king of the beasts plays an important role in other works as well. He is the linchpin of the installation Psalms by the artist duo whose grotesque painting Stalin and the Muses can also be seen in the umbrella factory, and which created a commotion in 1982, the year it was made. Komar and Melamid’s work satirizes religious hopes of salvation in a medieval manner. Comic-style demons convulse in front of the world court, while the good are absorbed in the glow of

the grail. Irony is an essential component of new Russian art, with participants creating work specially for the Aachen forum. Olga Chernysheva’s large installation deals with the school system in her country and the individuals lost within it. Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova raises an ironic memorial to empty symbolism and Orthodox glory with The Glamour of Outer Shells, three Egyptian sarcophagi beneath lace curtain pyramids. The Moscow conceptual group Medical Hermeneutics deliberates the collapse of the old doctrines and helplessness in the face of fading pomp. The paintings on the first and second floors support the show by giving an insight into the art history of the former Soviet Union. The display begins with Isaak Brodsky’s Lenin in Red Square (1924) and moves through to the tentative efforts of the Khrushchev “thaw.” Traditional icon painting, photo realism, and Sots Art, with its dogma and party symbolism, are also included. Eventually the visitor comes to the first conceptual artists of the 1970s and can see Soviet everyday myths by the great craftsman Ilya Kabakov, in his The Garden (1988). Knowing Cyrillic script can be helpful, because the written word in this show has a lot to say. […]

Boris Groys at the opening of Fluchtpunkt Moskau Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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VANISHING POINT MOSCOW Natalia Nikitin, “Tochka peresecheniya–Moskva. Vystavka v Aakhene,” Russkaya mysl’, April 7–13, 1994.

[…] The Aachen exhibition is titled Fluchtpunkt Moskau, which can be translated as “vanishing point Moscow.” It can also be translated as “escape point Moscow.” The exhibition comprises two sections: historical and contemporary. The first presents works of postwar Russian art, both official and unofficial, selected from the collection of the major German collector Peter Ludwig. The historical part of the Aachen exhibition begins with works by the classics of Socialist Realism, Isaak Brodsky and Dmitry Nalbandyan. Then the “severe style” is shown — in particular the pictures of Nikolai Andronov and Dmitry Zhilinsky. Natalya Nesterova and Tatyana Nazarenko relate to the so-called “nostalgists,” officially recognized artists referencing various movements in world art, from the Renaissance to moderate Modernism.

Andrei Filippov after the opening of Fluchtpunkt Moskau Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

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Unofficial art in the historical section is represented, first and foremost, by the NeoAvant-Garde— Vladimir Weisberg, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Eduard Steinberg, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Oskar Rabin, and others. The exhibition also includes Photo-Realist works by Semyon Faibisovich, Sots Art works by Komar and Melamid, Boris Orlov, Erik Bulatov, and Grisha Bruskin, and conceptualist works by Ilya Kabakov, Viktor Pivovarov, and Ivan Chuikov. The retrospective section of the exhibition, to the extent that Ludwig‘s collection allows, offers its version of the history of Soviet postwar art. Of course, this version can in no way claim to be comprehensive, as it is limited by the taste of its collector. As we know, Ludwig only loves pictures and sculptures, so his collection includes no documentations of performances, photographic works, objects, and so on. The hanging of the pictures in the historical section is clearcut and characterless, and, what‘s more, the works have been placed in cramped, low halls on the ground floor of the museum, with poor lighting.

Anatoly Osmolovsky (left) and Dmitri Prigov (right) after the opening of Fluchtpunkt Moskau Courtesy Natalia Nikitin

The installation of the contemporary section of the exhibition is also somewhat surprising. It is within the permanent collection on the ground floor of the forum, which is a vast hall with a glass ceiling and partitions that don‘t reach the ceiling, and the installations of the Moscow artists — Dmitri Prigov, Andrei Monastyrsky, Andrei Filippov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics (Pavel Pepperstein and Sergei Anufriev), Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Yuri Leiderman, Vadim Zakharov, Olga Chernysheva, Ilya Kitup, Anatoly Osmolovsky — are not separated from the collection. However, the proximity to the works of Lichtenstein and other renowned Western artists, it turned out, did no harm to the Russian installations, and the scrupulous German visitors, one must hope, will work out what is what. While the works of such artists as Prigov, Zakharov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics and Zvezdochotov have already been widely exhibited in Germany — and all of these artists have participated in prestigious international exhibitions — German viewers are encountering here, perhaps for the first time, the works of the artists of T­ ryokhprudny Lane. A representative

of the Tryokhprudny group of artists, Ilya Kitup, exhibited photo-documentation of their actions over the last few years. Olga Chernysheva, who has a show with Anton Olschwang in parallel at Krings-Ernst Gallery in Cologne, made an installation that is based on nostalgic recollections of childhood, with a stylistic nod to black and white television. The youngest participant in the Aachen exhibition, 26‑year old Anatoly Osmolovsky, defying authority and asserting a new revolutionary art, dedicated his installation to three representatives of the international avantgarde — Mayakovsky, Marinetti, and Breton. On the day of the opening, three tigers were released into his installation, embodying the wildness of the avant-garde, though they behaved extremely peaceably. Overall, the Moscow artists made a very good showing in Aachen. Their works are representative, they fully reflect the state of Moscow art in the 1990s. […]

Olga Chernysheva in front of one of her works in Fluchtpunkt Moskau Photo: Natalia Nikitin

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KUNST IM VERBORGENEN. NON-KONFORMISTEN RUSSLAND 1957–1995

1995–1996 WILHELM-HACK-MUSEUM, LUDWIGSHAFEN AM RHEIN, MARCH 4 – APRIL 23, 1995 DOCUMENTA-HALLE, KASSEL, MAY 7 – JUNE 18, 1995 LINDENAU MUSEUM, ALTENBURG, JULY 2 – SEPTEMBER 3, 1995

KUNST IM VERBORGENEN

Curators: Andrei Erofeev, Jean-Hubert Martin

Installation view, Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video still © Vadim Zakharov

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Artists: Natalia Abalakova, Giya Abramishvili, Pavel Aksenov, Yuri Albert, Nikita Alexeev, Sergei Anufriev, Yuri Avvakumov, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Sergei Bordachev, Leonid Borisov, Boris Boruch, Lev Bruni, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Armen Bugayan, Erik Bulatov, Igor Buryi, Igor Chatskin, Olga Chernysheva, Mikhail Chernyshev, Ivan Chuikov, Collective Actions, Dmitry Demsky, Alexander Djikia, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Elena Elagina, Vladimir Fedorov, FenSo group, Nikolai Filatov, Andrei Filippov, Valeriy Gerlovin, Rimma Gerlovina, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Andrei Grositsky, Sven Gundlakh, Georgy Guryanov, Dmitry Gutov, Sabine Haensgen, Francisco Infante, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Tanya Kaganova, Viacheslav Kalinin, Andrei Khlobystin, George Kiesewalter, Ilya Kitup, Viacheslav Koleichuk, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Igor Kopystiansky, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Kosolapov, Nikolai Kozlov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Evgeny Kropivnitsky, Alexander Kuzkin, Leonid Lamm, Leonhard Lapin, Konstantin Latyshev, Rostislav Lebedev, Yuri Leiderman, Georgy Litichevsky, Igor Makarevich, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Alexander Mareev, Lydia Masterkova, Boris Matrosov, Igor Meglitsky, Sergei Mironenko, Vladimir Mironenko, Maksim Mitlyansky, Andrei Monastyrsky, Valery Morozov, Ivan Movsesyan, Igor Mukhin, Irina Nakhova, Vladimir Nemukhin, Nest group, Alexander Ney, Timur Novikov, Anton Olschwang, Boris Orlov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Georgy Ostretsov, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Vadim Ovchinnikov, Nikolai Panitkov, Peppers group, Pavel Pepperstein, Ilya Piganov, Viktor Pivovarov, Dmitri Plavinsky, Dmitri Prigov, Oskar Rabin, Larisa RezunZvezdochotova, Mikhail Roginsky, Andrei Roiter, Mikhail Roshal, Vika Samoilova, Lisa Schmitz, Igor Seidel, Maria Serebriakova, Sergei Shablavin, Igor Shelkovsky, Alexander Shnurov, Alexei Shulgin, Anatoly Shuravlev, Sergei Shutov, Alexander Sigutin, Viktor Skersis, Simona Sokhranskaya, Leonid Sokov, Ülo Sooster, Vladimir Sorokin, Eduard Steinberg, Nadezhda Stolpovskaya, SZ group, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Sergei Timofeev, Toadstool group, Boris Turetsky, Oleg Vassiliev, Nikolai Vechtomov, German Vinogradov, Sergei Volkov, Sergei Vorontsov, Dmitry Vrubel, World Champions group, Andrei Yakhnin, Oleg Yakovlev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Alexander Yulikov, Valery Yurlov, Vadim Zakharov, Anatoly Zhigalov, Yury Zlotnikov, Anatoly Zverev, Konstantin Zvezdochotov

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Kunst im Verborgenen. Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995 (Hidden Art:­ ­Russian Nonconformists 1957–1995) was a major survey show of unofficial art from the Tsaritsyno Museum in Moscow. Exhibition co-curator Andrei Erofeev was Head of the Department of New Art at Tsaritsyno. The exhibition came about after Jean-Hubert Martin, then director of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, was approached by BASF, a chemical manufacturing corporation — which sponsored the show, along with partner company AG Wintershall — about an exhibition of Russian art for the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. Once the sponsors saw the size of the Tsaritsyno collection, they suggested traveling the show to two additional venues in Germany. The Tsaritsyno Museum collection of unofficial art was started in 1990 by a group of curators led by Andrei Erofeev. The collection was acquired with the intention of establishing a museum of contemporary art in Moscow, but due to limited state financing most of the works were donated or lent by the artists as a result of the three founding exhibitions which Erofeev curated between 1990 and 1994 (see chapter 6). The works were not on show at Tsaritsyno, but stored in a bunker. Kunst im Verborgenen was an ambitious attempt to present a chronology of Russian unofficial art from the 1957 World Festival of Youth and Students — the de facto beginning of Russian “unofficial” art — to the (then) present day. Many of the works in the exhibition were new or recent, which was partly due to a ­ vailability, but which also raised questions among critics as to a possible hidden agenda to bring artists to the art market.

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RUSSIAN ARTISTS AT THE PERIPHERY Jean-Hubert Martin Co-curator, Kunst im Verborgenen

I first made contact with Russian contemporary artists in 1976, when I started to travel regularly to Moscow in connection with the Paris — Moscow exhibition, which took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1979 and then in Moscow in 1981. I met several intellectuals and artists, most of them progressive and opposed to the Communist regime. Andrei Erofeev was among them. He had the enormous advantage of speaking fluent French. I also met many artists, including Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Oleg Vassiliev, Ivan Chuikov, Eduard Steinberg, Vladimir Yankilevsky, and Francisco Infante. I was struck by their talent and inventiveness, as well as by their knowledge of avant-garde Western art, and I was shocked that nobody cared about them in the West, on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It could be said that the Russian nonconformist artists were doubly peripheral, in that they were outside the Russian (Soviet) system and also outside the Western system of art. The indifference of the West to their work was very shocking, because the artists were part of European culture, and not so “different” from it as were African or Asian artists. Undoubtedly, this contact with Russian artists reinforced my belief that the sort of global survey provided by Magiciens de la Terre [Centre Pompidou, 1989] was an absolute necessity to open up the eyes of my contemporaries. The best way to make the artists visible was to show them in an ambitious exhibition in a Western metropolis such as Paris. By the time of Kunst im Verborgenen, I had already organized the Bulatov exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (1978); an exhibition of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris (1986); and several exhibitions with Kabakov (1985 –1986). 222

Kunst im Verborgenen was intended as a survey show. Andrei Erofeev planned to write the history of nonconformist Russian art, as he was the leading specialist. Unfortunately, he ran out of time and gave only a sort of sketch of it in the catalogue. I wish that the exhibition had attracted more attention and had been better attended. This is what a curator always hopes for when he shows unknown artists who he fully trusts. The three different venues for Kunst im Verborgenen were good museums, but they were not among the major institutions in Germany. Showing unknown artists or movements is a difficult task and needs time. I went on to curate a number of solo shows by Russian artists, the most recent being Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s installation in the Grand Palais for Monumenta 2014, as well as curating the 3rd Moscow Biennale (2009) and serving on the jury of the Kandinsky Prize. I think that many Russian artists are disappointed by the way art has evolved in the past twenty years. They feel that they have not received the recognition they deserve from the international art market. I agree with that. Russian artists often feel isolated and that they are not well understood. A consequence of this is that many are questioning whether they belong within Western art, which is very surprising to me. Excerpted from an interview with Ruth Addison, June 2, 2015.

Installation views, Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video stills © Vadim Zakharov

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At the opening of Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. Left to right: Sergei Epikhin, Dmitri Prigov, Valery Koshlyakov, Vadim Zakharov, Andrei Erofeev, Yuri Albert, Jean-Hubert Martin, unknown, Ivan Chuikov. Video still © Vadim Zakharov

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Installation views, Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video stills © Vadim Zakharov

THE ART OF THE NONCONFORMISTS Andrei Erofeev, “Iskusstvo non-konformistov,” in Kunst im Verborgenen (Munich/New York: Prestel Verlag, 1995), 9–16.

This book is about a collection of SovietRussian art from the 1960s to the 1990s, which we, a small team of Moscow art historians, have collected over the past five years at the Tsaritsyno Museum as the basis of a state museum of contemporary art, which, as is well known, does not yet exist in Russia. We were lucky. We managed to catch the main players in the Moscow and Leningrad artistic scene of the past 30 years at that moment when the principal characters were still accessible, had works in their studios, and the artists themselves shone with generosity and magnanimity, which they demonstrated by donating to us most of the works. This was the peak of perestroika. The Ministry of Culture was, for the first time, brave enough 226

to invest state funds in buying the works of “anti-Soviet” artists — nonconformists and representatives of so-called unofficial art. […] The reduction of the understanding of “contemporary Russian art” to the representatives of the unofficial movement is not a clan-based position or a settling of scores, but the result of a natural selection of the most intelligent and aesthetically meaningful phenomena. This kind of selection also took place within unofficial art, where, with time, there appeared exportable avant-gardist-clochards, devout and rapturous mystics, scabrous pornographers, and various kinds of “mould,” as one official writer called the nonconformists. […] The artists communicated with each other and with the public using the model of a communal apartment. Cultural life was a series of domestic actions and rituals, and the community of like-minded creatives formed a family clan, where the trend was

set not by professional roles but by familial and friendship ties. However, the most important function of the artist’s room was as the concrete, spatial, colorific, and material foundation for an ideal aesthetic reality, which the artist dreamed about and which he reproduced in his pictures. Simultaneously, in the same space, the daily life of the family flowed, and a wretched way of life took root, somehow moving away from the poverty of the postwar years. There was not even a symbolic distance between them, no partitions or barriers, which separated the sacred objects of creativity from everyday things. “Everything was like in a communal kitchen, where a person eats in the same place as they write, and shouts, ‘Get out of the way, I’m working here! Mom, why did you put the soup here?’” (Ilya Kabakov). […] The material product born of this domestic creativity was not particularly valued. There was virtually no art market and pictures, which cluttered the already cramped rooms, were generously given away. The result — a selfvalued, aesthetic object — was less important than the process of its making, the meditative states and bright ideas associated with it, which artists drew upon and relished. Plastic form was considered a means of description, a text, which impelled the viewer to discuss and comment. It is not surprising that the whole of unofficial art, even in its abstract form, is very narrative. The words, slogans, and expressions, which accompanied the showing of the work, over time migrated to the surface of the works themselves and in extreme, avant-garde manifestations, crowded out all other components of the artistic image. […] And now we come to the understanding of “marginality,” to that topos which was part of the self-identification of all the nonconformists: “life on the edge.” The first unofficial artists were annoyed, irritated, and even distressed by this situation. They strove for the imagined center. In 1958, Vladimir Slepyan left for Paris, paving the way for tens of other artists who created strong Russian artistic diasporas in Cologne, Paris, and New York. Dmitri Plavinsky, on the contrary, set off to travel within the country, to the archaeological sites of Central

Asia’s ancient civilizations, which he would later scrupulously recreate in his pictures. The next generation of nonconformists preferred movement along waves of linguistic codes to physical relocation. It ran from deathly official speech to living sources of “unspoiled” languages, unharmed by ideology. It is the style of railway posters, the fruit of the labor of anonymous craftsmen, and the anonymous “design-landscape” of the doors and walls of communal apartments which were used by Mikhail Roginsky; it is the form of the everyday object, allowing a pleiad of young sculptors — Boris Orlov, Alexander Kosolapov, Leonid Sokov — to overcome the cliché of academic vision; it is the appropriation of the formal “dialects” of traditional toys, lubok prints, etc. […] Unofficial art does not suit the new Russian society for the same reason it was not accepted by the old one: the desire of the nonconformists to be not participants, but spies in the social process; to keep a safe distance, outside social interaction; or to look on it with interest and aesthetic pleasure and analyze the mentality and psyche of their partners. New Russians don’t want to look in the mirror at the very unattractive sight of the collective unconscious, since all discussion of “repentance” ended along with the Gorbachev era.

Elena Elagina, Higher Hellish (1989), Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video still © Vadim Zakharov

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SOUVENIRS IN FRONT OF A RED HORIZON Hans-Peter Riese, “Souvenirs vor rotem Horizont. Nicht konform: Das Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen zeigt russische Kunst,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 28, 1995, 41. Courtesy Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Provided by Frankfurter Allgemeine Archive.

[…] When an exhibition is called Hidden Art and appeals to the visitor’s curiosity, then the art has to go above and beyond to trump that which has been shown over the past five years at various exhibitions. The envoys of the chemistry giant BASF must have felt as if a treasure chamber had opened when they were shown the depository of the Tsaritsyno Museum in Moscow, full of Russian art from the 1950s on. This collection is the basis for an ambitious contemporary art museum, which art promoter Leonid Bazhanov of the Russian Ministry of Culture dreams of creating. What the sponsors exhibited at the Wilhelm-HackMuseum doesn’t live up to its hype. In the fall of 1990, there was an exhibition with the beautiful title Another Art (in the lavish Ludwigshafen catalogue it was wrongly translated as “expensive”). In that exhibition’s two-volume catalogue, the “hidden art” of the Moscow nonconformists was properly shown. It pays to look at both catalogues side-byside. The [current exhibition’s] bilingual, glossy product seems to be a selling catalogue for Russian art, which has become popular in the West. Most of the work is already known, and, taking a closer look at the creation dates, it is evident that the majority of works are “fresh.” Erik Bulatov even shows a reproduction of his pictures, while important figures of nonconformist art like [Vladimir] Yankilevsky and [Eduard] Steinberg are either not represented or only by a small work on paper. For the uninformed visitor, the exhibition is like a maze where Ariadne’s thread is lost. The museum offered its space but wasn’t part of the conception or execution. The catalogue is garnished with smart texts, but it isn’t a great help. 228

The crushing weight of the Conceptualists and the obvious effort of the Russians to present many, including new, works (to the market?) in this exhibition has softened the basic art historical idea. The catalogue presents an important installation by Vladimir Nemukhin, Memories of Lianozovo, but it doesn’t explain to the German visitor the meaning of the Lianozovo group, nor do we find any work by Evgeny Kropivnitsky, who was the main representative of the group and who recently passed away. Leonid Bazhanov was smart enough to mention this omission in his opening speech and to praise the catalogue as a “replacement,” where you can find biographies of artists who weren’t part of the exhibition. But this is especially annoying, because the exhibition gives a false historical picture, and what’s worse, the art’s standard falls by the wayside.

ROOTS OF THE NONCONFORMISTS Jörg-Heiko Bruns, “Wurzeln der Nonkonformisten. Russische ‘Kunst Im Verborgenen’ in Alternburgs Lindenau-Museum,” Thüringer Allgemeine, August 9, 1995, 4.

[…] As an internationally sought-after Russian conceptualist, [Ilya] Kabakov brings a shine to the exhibition Hidden Art, previously shown in Ludwigshafen and Kassel and now at the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg. However, Kabakov doesn’t have to shine alone, because among the more than one hundred artists presented, there is a whole group of well-known names. The exhibition, divided into time periods, comprises Russian, Georgian, and Ukrainian art created since 1957 and represents a “second culture” which existed during the Soviet era. The exhibition title, Hidden Art, is a German invention, which does not match the involved artists’ intentions. As indicated in the subtitle of the exhibition, they are nonconformists, who lack official recognition in their homeland to this day. Under the guidance of well-known French curator Jean-Hubert Martin, Andrei Erofeev has given the twelve chronological sections titles such as Metaphysical Painting, Everyday Realism, Moscow Conceptualism, Sots Art, Apt-Art, and The Regional Idea of Beauty. This approach promotes thinking in boxes, but luckily it didn’t work like this in Altenburg. Here, due to issues with space, combination, entanglement, and even interchangeability are apparent. All in all, the exhibition is enjoyable, with many puzzles, even though some secrets regarding the art’s roots and associated events remain, despite the opulent catalogue.

Installation views, Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video stills © Vadim Zakharov

Vladimir Nemukhin, Memories of Lianozovo (detail) Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Video still © Vadim Zakharov

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1996 FÄRGFABRIKEN, STOCKHOLM, FEBRUARY 2—MARCH 17

Curators: Jan Åman, Viktor Misiano

INTEЯPOL

Artists: Johannes Albers, Bigert & Bergström, Ernst Billgren, Ulf Bilting, Alexander Brener, Maurizio Cattelan, Vadim Fishkin, Wenda Gu, Dmitry Gutov, IRWIN, Ulrika Karlsson, Oleg Kulik, Yuri Leiderman, Petra Maitz, Andrew McKenzie, Birgitta Muhr, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Ella Tideman, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Matthias Wagner, Dan Wolgers

Oleg Kulik’s performance Dog House at the opening of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Oleg Kulik

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INTEЯPOL: A SCANDAL OR AN EVENT? INTEЯPOL began in 1994 as the result of a series of meetings and conversations between curators Jan Åman and Viktor Misiano. On deciding that they wanted to ­collaborate, based on a shared interest in magazines, the initial idea was to produce a book. This idea then evolved into an exhibition that was supposed to take place in Stockholm and Moscow, charting a dialogue between artists from the “West” — represented by Sweden — and Russia, as the “East.”1 Eventually, the project expanded to include artists from around the world, which further complicated the premise. The concept of the exhibition, according to Jan Åman,2 arose from Viktor Misiano’s approach to creating process-oriented projects at his newly opened Contemporary Art Center in Moscow, where production was based on workshops and dialogue. Starting with a small network of artists that each curator knew, the participants expanded through invitations extended by those already involved. The idea was to create a meaningful cohort that could produce open communication in a closed political world. This intention did not materialize in the exhibition. Meeting in Stockholm and then Moscow, according to accounts, personal approaches to conversation were markedly different between participants and conversations never really flowed. Some became silent, some people dropped out, and others, like Wenda Gu,3 developed their own work i­ndependently of the outcome of the discussions. The show rose to prominence because of events at the opening on February 2, 1996. It was the first exhibition to take place in Farbfabriken, an art space founded by Åman in a renovated paint factory, in a suburb of Stockholm. During the evening, one artist’s work was willfully destroyed by another, and yet another artist attacked an audience member. Both incidents were instigated by Russian artists, and subsequently became the subject of an “Open Letter to the Artworld”4 by Western participants, who protested the attitudes of the so-called “Eastern” participants. Ultimately, the project reflected the inconsistencies of what communication—or socially engaged practice—meant to participants and the differing urgencies in artists’ forms of participation. Later this led to the production of a book on the incident, as well as to curator Hans Ulrich Obrist declaring the importance of the show—or at least its mythology—in the advent of the first nomadic European biennial, Manifesta (1996).

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The project was initially intended to be presented at Viktor Misiano’s newly opened Contemporary Art Center on Yakimanka Street, in Moscow. 2  Jan Åman, “One of Four Introductions,” in INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West, eds. Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 5–8. 3  American-based Chinese artist Wenda Gu’s installation took up almost a third of the exhibition space and was meant to symbolize a corridor between the two “sides.” At the opening, Alexander Brener, during an ecstatic performance with drums, smashed up Gu’s work, symbolically titled United Nations. Then, Oleg Kulik, in character as a dog, left his kennel and attacked visitors, later being taken away by the police. 4 Maurizio Cattelan’s project for the show was to award a prize of $10,000. It was won by Olivier Zahm, art critic and editor of the magazine Purple Prose, who drafted the “Open Letter to the Art World.”

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Viktor Misiano Curator, INTEЯPOL

In my foreword to the book INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West,1 I admitted how painfully stupid this whole story looked. The collisions associated with INTEЯPOL prompted in me neither righteous anger nor an outburst of polemics, but rather complete bewilderment. When the editor-inchief of Flash Art, Elena Kontova, asked me to write a response to the “Open Letter to the Art World,” which had been signed by the Western participants in the exhibition, I asked her several times if she was certain that such a laughable composition really needed a refutation. The response that I wrote at her request2 left me with a feeling of moral discomfort. It looked as if I was justifying my involvement in the event by applying meanings and semiotics to it that weren’t entirely there. But, even back then, in 1996, the artists of IRWIN, once again demonstrating their ability to identify socio-cultural facts, pointed out to me that INTEЯPOL was a genuinely significant event. INTEЯPOL turned into a media scandal as a result of the actions of Alexander Brener — who destroyed Wenda Gu’s installation at the exhibition’s opening — and Oleg Kulik who, in character as a dog, attacked visitors, biting some until he drew blood. On the initiative of the French critic Olivier Zahm, the Western participants in the exhibition signed a letter accusing the two Russian artists and their compatriot-curator — me — of revanchism, neoimperialism, anti-feminism, and other politically incorrect sins. This scandal has remained in the history of the 1990s because the conflict

between the participants revealed hidden contradictions in the post-communist world, demarcating the limits of globalization and its optimism about the end of history. However, in order for the transition from an arts scandal to a geopolitical event to be possible, certain circumstances were necessary. Firstly, INTEЯPOL’s methodology developed out of the series of processual projects — defined as “performative curating” by theorists3 — that I made in the first half of the 1990s. This involved joint dialogic work with artists in the creation of new social relations, which essentially, was the point of interest of those artists participating in the project, who were defined as “artists of interaction.”4 In other words, an experiment with new forms of life was a search for new possibilities in art. Secondly, the methodology was rooted in the specifics of the moment. The world, in the first decade of globalization, was obsessed with the establishment of a new order, founded, in part, on new possibilities of communication. Because of this, the artistic and performative, more than ever before, became part of a political and social framework: art, not remaining on the sidelines of the demands of the time, devoted itself to social engineering, seeing its role as being an artistic laboratory. Thus, in my series of Moscow projects there was a search for a new, postSoviet type of community, while INTEЯPOL, as an international project, saw its goal as the presentation of a new, united Europe that had gotten through the Cold War. Thirdly, this kind of work created extremely ambiguous relations between art and life, between the artistic community and other communities. Although Brener and Kulik’s actions might be judged as being morally reprehensible and legally punishable, in the

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Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano eds, INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 92–95. 2  Ibid., 25–27 and Viktor Misiano, ‘Drugoi’ i raznye (Moscow: NLO, 2004), 160–165.

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Alex Farquharson, “Curator and Artist,” Art Monthly 270 (2003), accessed February 1, 2015, http://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/article/ curator-and-artist-by-alex-farquharson-october-2003. 4 Ibid.

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context of artistic practice they were legitimate. During the course of prolonged joint work, the participants in INTEЯPOL delegated to one another the right of full freedom of expression, and the actions of the Russian artists could not have been unexpected for them. Paradoxically, the fact that the opening of INTEЯPOL resulted in a scandal didn’t mean that it was a failure. This, after all, is the way in which an artistic project trying to demand a new Europe was able to identify the hidden contradictions of the political project. In becoming a political metaphor, INTEЯPOL didn’t stop being a factor of art, as its scandalous résumé is part of the history of the relations of the participants in the project, for whom relations were a theme and subject of creative work. In turn, the project’s breakdown wasn’t just an argument or hooliganism, it was a fact that was artistically designated, and its metaphoric meaning was not only political and social — it was also aesthetic. This is one of the qualifying features of an event: unlike a scandal, it cannot be a fact that is only designated in one field of meaning. In

order to qualify, an event — even where accomplished in a specific field — must resonate with other fields, linking them. And fourthly, from the outset, INTEЯPOL — which envisaged its goal as establishing a new form of life — in no way aimed to create a scandal. After all, this is always a rupture, rather than a coming together. However, it seems that the situation was the very reason why INTEЯPOL was able to become an event, which was not only potentially linked with a certain displacement in the order of things, but that established something with a long-term perspective. It is only in this way that in the future it can serve as a starting point in the past for the explanation of something that is happening in the present. For this reason, an event, unlike a scandal, cannot be specially prepared and provoked. More often than not, it takes place unintentionally, and its authentic meaning and status become clear only with the passing of time. I, too, only realized much later than January 1996 that I had been a participant in an important occurrence, and not, as I thought at the time, a silly incident.

Wenda Gu’s installation United Nations (1996) after being destroyed by Alexander Brener at the opening of INTEЯPOL

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Oleg Kulik’s performance Dog House at the opening of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Oleg Kulik

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ON INTEЯPOL Carl Michael von Hausswolff Artist

I was invited to take part in INTEЯPOL by Jan Åman in 1995. The idea wasn’t so much about Swedish artists collaborating with Russian artists. It was about producing artworks and exhibiting them together — ­Swedish and Russian artists in the same space. To enhance the idea of collaboration, each artist was able to invite another artist to work with. This newly invited artist didn’t have to be Russian or Swedish but could be of any nationality. I invited British sound artist Andrew McKenzie and computer programmer Ulf Bilting. In 1995, before starting making artworks and inviting collaborators, the Swedish artists were invited to Moscow by Viktor Misiano and Jan Åman. We spent a few days in round-table discussions that started the “dialogue.” I got on very well with most of the Russian

Wenda Gu at the dinner organized by Dmitry Gutov as part of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Dmitry Gutov

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artists — Alexander Brener, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Yuri Leiderman, Vadim Fishkin et al. — and also with Maurizio Cattelan and IRWIN. I witnessed the “scandal” during the opening. I felt a bit sorry for Wenda Gu as he had worked for quite a long time on his piece, but I didn’t much care for it as I thought it was rather pretentious and naively over-symbolic. That said, I was stunned, startled and provoked by Brener’s unorthodox behavior. I walked over to my work, prepared to defend it if he started to come in my direction. Then there was a second ­“scandal” when Kulik started biting people and was subsequently escorted naked (as he was a “dog”) to the police station. After INTEЯPOL I met Fishkin, Leiderman, Kulik, Brener, IRWIN and Cattelan several times. I also worked with Misiano on Manifesta 1, which opened later that year in Rotterdam. Excerpted from an interview with Ruth Addison, September 23, 2015

Oleg Kulik’s performance Untitled at the opening of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Oleg Kulik

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A dinner organized by Dmitry Gutov as part of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Dmitry Gutov

A dinner organized by Dmitry Gutov as part of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Dmitry Gutov

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Alexander Brener’s performance Untitled at the opening of INTEЯPOL Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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“An Open Letter to the Art World,” published in INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West, eds Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 22–24.

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Invitation to a reception, hosted by the Swedish Cultural Counsellor, to mark the visit of INTEЯPOL participants to Moscow, February 5, 1995 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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AN OPEN LETTER FROM OLEG KULIK

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano, eds., INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 9–11.

Oleg Kulik and Jan Åman Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

RESPONSE FROM JAN ÅMAN Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano, eds., INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 92–95.

INTEЯPOL was an attempt to make a “flat” structure, i.e., all involved had the same responsibility. We agreed to help produce works, but there was a big difference in how this was handled by the different artists. Some just sent faxes and relied on us to make it work, others took an active part in the process and work themselves (regardless of whether they lived in Sweden or not). […] And then there were the “performances” by Sasha [Alexander Brener] and Oleg [Kulik], and me doing something that goes against my own thoughts and wishes, kicking Oleg (after trying to talk to him, not getting an 244

answer, and after a while emotionally reacting to the fact that a lot of people were hurt and shocked). I don’t know, but I think you need to discuss this as open-mindedly as possible. As I see it, there are a few important things to reflect upon. Like Viktor, with INTEЯPOL I wanted to make a project that broke with the “fatigue” of the world / art world that perhaps pointed out different ways of doing things. But from my point of view, in Sweden / the West the results produced by Oleg and Sasha were to the contrary — to fulfill the expectations of the media, the tabloid mentality, etc. And, even more important, it was to fulfill an expectation of Russia / the Russian artist. It might have been successful as self-promotion, but on a more general level it was a promotion of isolation. […]

Kulik wrote an open letter explaining his actions at the request of the organizers of Manifesta 1 (Rotterdam, 1996) and one of its curators, Hans Ulrich Obrist. They were sure that after the INTEЯPOL scandal, Kulik’s participation in Manifesta 1, would raise too many questions. The letter was p ­ ublished on Manifesta’s website. […] I was invited to Stockholm by the curator of the exhibition, Jan Åman, and the artist Ernst Billgren, who proclaimed that within a project built upon communication, he preferred a dialogue with animals to one with people. I was invited as a dog, as a readymade. I was surprised how quickly they’d reacted to my zoophrenic image. I came to Stockholm and was open to any form of collaboration. To my surprise, Billgren’s work had already been made — he was not prepared to collaborate. So I was made to become something different to what I could have become in a dialogue. I became a “reservoir dog.” Indifference, frenzy, and falsification was in the atmosphere of Färgfabriken — the initiator of the project on communication between East and West. […] In Stockholm I didn’t bite just any person, but a person who ignored the sign “Dangerous” beside my kennel. By my action I proclaimed one idea: stay away from communication, think about your own and the world’s future. This turned out to be impossible. Obviously I am ready to apologize to the victims of my action. I did it personally in Stockholm and now I am ready to confirm it in writing. I hope I wasn’t too pathetic for a dog.

A TICKET THAT EXPLODED Alexander Brener, “A Ticket That Exploded,” in INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West, eds. Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 9–11.

[…] We all came to the opening ceremony. The exhibition — ostensibly a complex and multilevel collaboration between the participants — looked rather strange. Wenda Gu‘s installation made of human hair towered in the center of the hall. It was his personal installation, ­without a trace of collaboration with other a ­ rtists! Everyone was hiding in their own corner. East and West were cynically, or rather stupidly, hiding, shying away and avoiding each other. The IRWINs drove their car around showing an interview between the two quarreling curators. It was pathetic! I started my drum performance and then destroyed Wenda Gu‘s installation. Why his? In my view, it was a symbol of this collapsed and failed project with an idiotic name, INTEЯPOL. The next day there was a news conference at which I was called a fascist. No, my dear fellows, I don’t agree. At this exhibition I was the only democrat who had openly declared his position and demonstrated his disagreement with the organizers. ­Radical democracy in action! […]

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THE CULTURAL WAR Wenda Gu, “The Cultural War,” in INTEЯPOL: The Art Exhibition Which Divided East and West, eds. Eda Čufer and Viktor Misiano (Ljubljana and Moscow: IRWIN and Moscow Art Magazine, 2000), 39–41.

[…] Initially the curators chose artists from Sweden and Russia. The international participants were invited later. As a Chinese person who has been living in New York for eight years, my role was as a third party working in between the two groups. […] The Russian artists, under the direction of their curator, Misiano, frequently attempted to conceptually control the planning of the whole exhibition, and even the show’s catalogue. Evidently, it reflected the ambition of these Russian artists, who, from a collapsed superpower nation, the former Soviet Union, still have a somewhat twisted notion of their former strength. Comparatively, the Swedish artists, who live in a privileged Social Democracy, have never really experienced hardship and tragedy, not even during World War II. Because of these disparate experiences, the two groups approach theoretical dialogues from completely different perspectives. At the time of the show’s planning, I was wondering how to represent these conflicts behind the two groups. […]

Installation view, INTEЯPOL Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

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I decided to construct a pure hair tunnel made of Russian and Swedish hair which had been collected from barbershops since July 1995. In the middle of the tunnel, I suspended a genuine rocket, loaned to me by the Royal Swedish Army. The visual impression was that of running through the long, narrow hair tunnel as a hint of using military action to control the cultural battle. I wanted this work to stand as a referee of cultural confrontation. As Alexander Brener began playing the drums and screaming at the opening, I paid special attention to him as I was videotaping the performance. I realized that he was not emotionally engaged in playing. Rather, he was watching the crowd’s behavior and paying close attention to my every move. I left the exhibition space briefly to meet friends in an adjacent part of the building. One minute later, a German artist ran up to me shouting that my work had been destroyed by Brener. I followed him back to the show to find the audience of about 1,000 shocked into absolute silence, staring at my piece. At that moment, I was very emotional; I had never experienced this kind of situation before. […] The INTEЯPOL incident has left ice-cold relations between the Swedish, international, and Russian artists. My installation bears ­witness to this cultural war.

At the Contemporary Art Center, Moscow, 1995. Left to right: Miran Mohar, Dan Wolgers, Viktor Misiano, Yuri Leiderman, Eda Čufer, Jan Åman Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

Artist Mats Bigert, Moscow, 1995 Courtesy Viktor Misiano Archive

DIALOGUE WITH RUSSIA: THROUGH THE PRISM OF INTEЯPOL

Brener accompanied by drums. […] The singing and drums died off unexpectedly. Alexander Brener went up to Wenda Gu’s work and destroyed it. Kulik began to howl. The Swedes were somewhat embarrassed. […] They could have undoubtedly coped with their confusion, if from a dog kennel in the corner, with gloomy, prison lighting, and the warning “DANGEROUS!,” they hadn’t heard shrieks of pain and horror — a naked Kulik, on a long chain, was frenziedly biting visitors. The curator Jan [Åman], kicked the artist hysterically. The administrators called in the police. Kulik was arrested. […] February 3. At the Färgfabriken, the academic conference Inside / Outside opened, covering the same theme — the prospects for dialogue. On the evening of the same day, Wenda Gu called a press conference where he warmly thanked Sweden for the hair, and expressed his astonishment at the disrespect that had been shown to the country and to him. Rumor had it that a figure of $ 200,000 would serve to dampen his astonishment. At the press conference, Brener announced that on the previous evening all those present had seen the art of slaves, and that he hadn’t in fact destroyed Wenda’s work; he had destroyed the framework of the false and hypocritical exhibition that all contemporary art exhibitions are today. […] February 3–6. All of Sweden’s newspapers are full of photographs of Kulik-Brener-Wenda Gu, and astonished and indignant reports on the exhibition. […]

Lyudmila Bredikhina, “Dialogue with Russia: Through the Prism of INTEЯPOL,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 23, 1996.

[…] February 1. The artists gathered round a table, communing for a last time, snacking on lobster and stuffed crab (a project of the materialist [Dmitry] Gutov, who is also the Lifshitz Institute). It became evident that two years of close interaction had not added to the basis for collaboration, but destroyed the hope of the Russian artists for the success of their individual projects. […] Sitting at the Lifshitz Institute table, Maurizio Cattelan decisively distanced himself from the Russian despair. […] On February 1, only Wenda Gu, a Chinese artist from New York, was effulgently welcoming. For two years Sweden had been donating hair for his giant installation United Nations, which filled the Färgfabriken space. A month of painstaking work, fifteen hours a day, in no way impeded his communicativeness — he remained the most open to contact. February 2. The exhibition was immersed in semi-darkness and the hair of United Nations. […] Visitors could ride around the exhibition in a mobile embassy of the NSK group IRWIN, listening to the free-style singing of Alexander

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This section comprises a selection of articles on contemporary Russian art, artists, and exhibitions from the period 1986–1996. Articles in English appear in their original form; articles in Russian have been translated, but are prefaced by the first page of their original form.

Sylvia Hochfield, “In a Neutral Zone,” ARTnews, December 1989, 47–48 | 250

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

Margarita Tupitsyn, “The Taming of Ideology. Art in the Era of Glasnost,” in Margins of Soviet Art: Socialist Realism to the Present (Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1989), 117–138 | 252 Amei Wallach, “Import/Export. Marketing Perestroika,” Art in America, April 1989, 53–67 | 275 Enrico Crispolti, “Considerations on the Past and the Future of New Russian Art,” in Contemporary Russian Artists, edited by Amnon Barzel and Claudia Jolles (Prato: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 1990), 72–74 | 284 Boris Groys, “The Russian Artist of the Eighties or a Life Without an Oedipus Complex,” ibid., 83–90 | 287 Viktor Misiano, “Soviet Art on the Road to a New Identity,” ibid., 104–107 | 295 Jamey Gambrell, “Report from Moscow Part I. Brave New World,” Art in America, September 1992, 42–49 | 299 Georgy Litichevsky, “Moscow Song,” Moscow Art Magazine, 1 1993, n.p. | 306 Ekaterina Degot, “A Rendezvous with Russian Art. Post-Soviet Russia at the Venice Biennale,” in Russkie khudozhniki na Venetsianskoi biennale 1985—2013, edited by Nikolai Molok (Moscow: Stella Art Foundation, 2013), 80–95 | 314

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

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SYLVIA HOCHFIELD

SYLVIA HOCHFIELD

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

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MARGARITA TUPITSYN

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Originally published in Art in America, April 1989, pp. 53–67. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

274 MARGARITA TUPITSYN AMEI WALLACH

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276 AMEI WALLACH AMEI WALLACH

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Originally published in Art in America, April 1989, pp. 53–67. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

278 AMEI WALLACH AMEI WALLACH

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Originally published in Art in America, April 1989, pp. 53–67. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

280 AMEI WALLACH AMEI WALLACH

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Originally published in Art in America, April 1989, pp. 53–67. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

282 AMEI WALLACH AMEI WALLACH

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Originally published in Art in America, April 1989, pp. 53–67. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

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ENRICO CRISPOLTI

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BORIS GROYS

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BORIS GROYS

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Originally published in Art in America, September 1992, pp. 42-49. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

298 VIKTOR MISIANO JAMEY GAMBRELL

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300 JAMEY GAMBRELL JAMEY GAMBRELL

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Originally published in Art in America, September 1992, pp. 42-49. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

302 JAMEY GAMBRELL JAMEY GAMBRELL

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Originally published in Art in America, September 1992, pp. 42-49. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

304 JAMEY GAMBRELL JAMEY GAMBRELL

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Originally published in Art in America, September 1992, pp. 42-49. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

FROM THE ARCHIVE...

MOSCOW SONG Georgy Litichevsky

California isn’t what it used to be. Neither is Rome. There is no imperial city. There are no societies of lunatics left. Where should we go? Berlin? Vancouver? Samarkand? Jean Baudrillard Cool Memories Thrice blessed be he who brings a name to song. Osip Mandelstam The Horseshoe Finder

Soviet art no longer exists. By now, it has receded into the realm of history together with the state after which it was named. However, this disappearance has left behind plenty of artists who enjoy the best of health and have plenty of strength left, artists who were considered Soviet until recently, ­artists who will have to solve the problem of self-identification in the nearest future. Incidentally, the demand for rethinking self-identification anticipated the official dissolution of the USSR. For example, three years ago, in the catalogue of the exhibition Iskunstvo, next to an article that utilized a rather canonical definition of “Soviet art,” one could find another article in which the adjective “Soviet” was used far less frequently and with far less enthusiasm than adjectives such as “Russian” (meaning “non-German” in this case) and “Moscow” (i.e. “Moscow artists”). At present, we only have these two words at our disposal in order to identify what remains of artistic culture, if we aren’t to limit ourselves to “contemporary art” and to throw spatial categories overboard altogether. It immediately

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GEORGY LITICHEVSKY

becomes clear that the “Russian” identifier loses out to its “Moscow” counterpart. On the one hand, “Russian” is far too broad a term and hardly entails any kind of specificity. On the other hand, it is far too narrow, since it hardly satisfies any universal ambition. “Moscow art,” however, seems ideal. Pointing at one’s connection or roots in Moscow is a long-lived tradition. Just as the Soviet empire saw itself as heir to the state of Muscovy, Moscow understood itself as the epicenter of experimental statism. It is hardly coincidental that one of the latest aesthetic developments [of recent years] addressed the theme of “Moscow, the Third Rome.” Yet now, as Moscow’s role becomes less obvious, the question inevitably arises: was Moscow really ever in the position of the Third Rome? After all, before Peter the Great, the Third Rome only denoted a ­project in the context of a certain raison d’état, and when this same reasoning moved the center to the banks of the Neva, Moscow was left alone for a few centuries. In turn, the restoration of

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Moscow’s metropolitan rights after 1917 was accompanied by the breaking of many other legal norms connected with the Roman tradition. No one really knows what might have happened to the idea of the Third Rome in its late Soviet meaning, had events developed following a different evolutionary logic. But the gradual passage of time was broken; the mirage of the Third-Roman idea, which had suddenly appeared somewhere on the horizon, was dispelled just as suddenly as it had arisen, along with all the other hallucinations of the late Soviet era (if, indeed, only for a short while). But if Moscow was never the Third Rome, what exactly was it? Perhaps we should think of it as a city like any other? No-one would ever dream of doing so. Isn’t Moscow nothing but a big village, as they say? Well, in fact, those drafts that reign over its all-too-broad avenues can hardly ever be mistaken for the winds of freedom; they are even bereft of the aroma of the city air that, as we know, makes you free. Instead, they are massive gusts of wind from the frontier. Moscow was always either a border fort of the princes of Vladimir, or the residence of Muscovite-Russian-Soviet despots. Consequently, whenever we spoke of Moscow art until not very long ago, we did not actually mean the art of the city of Moscow, but the capital city’s modification of the art of the Muscovite state. Even though it took on all the qualities of elitism, this modification did not only answer for itself, but for the state as a whole. The complexity of the present moment, however, lies in the fact that it is even more difficult to say anything coherent about the Muscovite state than about the city of Moscow. While the city’s location, boundaries, and even its name are relatively stable, its surrounding territories were never a unified whole. The growing lack of clarity as to the territorial ramifications of the state was accompanied by increasing efforts to establish Moscow’s autonomy with regard to the territories that

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were under its control. One could argue that this does not necessarily bear witness to the decline of the idea of the state in general, but provides evidence for the transferal of a multi-territorial power (imperium) to a civil structure (civitas), from an empire to a citystate, or simply a city. In all appearances, it seems that contemporary art in Moscow will have to relocate to the hard asphalt of the city’s pavements, leaving behind the dust-worn roads of statehood’s vast expanse. By doing so, Moscow could become a sanctuary for urban art. Even if Moscow was never really a city in the full sense of the word, it could easily become one. After all, it combines a certain level of urbanization with an age-long tradition of free-thinking, a tradition with its own specific weight. However, art in Moscow cannot wait for the final urbanization to take place. It needs to outpace or anticipate the events that will lead to its city’s final becoming, orienting itself toward a certain project of the City that it will have to realize rather than any real Moscow. In his Story of the Warrior and the C ­ aptive, Jorge Luis Borges describes the ­phenomenon of the City through its opposition to the non-city, the Pampas. In doing so, he finds an especially vivid way of expressing his idea of the symmetrical complementarity of the city and the wild spaces that surround it. One could draw the conclusion that City and Pampas only exist independently from one another in their pure forms on some psychological level, and that in order to reach this purity, one would need “an outsider.” In Borges’ narrative, one of these “outsiders” is a Lombard warrior who falls in love with Ravenna and then betrays his fellow Lombards in order to defend the city he has come to love. The other “outsider” is an Englishwoman. She is unable to leave and return to civilization: the Pampas has taken her hostage. In and of themselves, both City and Pampas are obviously bereft of any ontological meaning. The ontological effect only arises through their mutual equilibrium. In this

sense, the respective allocation of the roles “City” and “Pampas” to Moscow and its ­surroundings could provide us with some hope of clarifying the relationship between them, eliminating their inherent misbalance, ontologizing or de-psychologizing their respective situations. In doing so, it becomes important to clarify that we are not attempting to establish hierarchy but equilibrium. We should not misread Borges’ model of the relationship between Pampas and City as a relationship of cause to effect, of barbarism to civilization, of the low to the high, of simplicity to difficulty. In fact, in a sense, the Pampas is more complicated than the City; it never vanishes without a trace as civilization expands. One can assume that even the sweeping plains of the uncivilized Pampas are broken by punctual interruptions in its Indian monotony, by basic elements of the urban mindset. The entire extent of the Pampas’ surface is riddled with the endless writing of roads and footpaths traveled by its aboriginal tribes. Its borderless reality is thoroughly saturated by the system of symbolic polyvalence developed by Indian ­consciousness. The dominance of signification that suppresses its subordinate reality ends wherever the calligraphic line of the Indian footpath runs up against a crossing with another footpath, traveled by another tribe. However, the other tribe has its own system of signification, a system which is ­different and therefore meaningless, rendering the accustomed sign-system null and void. The meeting with the unforeknowable other amounts to an undesired collision with another reality, a reality that is intractable, undesignated, hostile. The first and most natural reaction is to respond with physical annihilation. Yet due to the lack of a means for physical agency, a mechanism of sublimation takes hold and the battlefield become an improvised bazaar or marketplace, where deals are made and goods are exchanged. Here, the former enemy becomes a comrade;

the other becomes a friend; the hostis becomes both host and guest, xenophobia is replaced euxenia (acceptance of everything foreign), giving rise to the feeling that prefigures the city’s birth. In the course of this exchange, the objects and armaments of utility lose the symbolic significance with which they had been loaded by mythological consciousness. Having slipped the symbolic hold of language, they once again become fragments of reality. In the pre-urban space of the marketplace at the crossroads, whatever was introduced to these objects above and beyond utility is now understood as beauty and temptation. Yet perhaps it is actually this first meeting that marks the beginning of everything else. Maybe solitary wanderings through the Pampas’ vast expanse only come after the peaceful parting of the tribes that had met so unexpectedly. It could well be that the ­ordinary thing only gains symbolic significance above and beyond its quality as a thing in the course of this meeting by becoming a gift or an expiatory offering, embodying good will and, consequently, the will to survival as suggestion or temptation. It is only later, in the metaphysical silence of the prairie, that the thing loses its initial seductive charm and is overgrown with the additional constructions of nomadic consciousness that “inner dialogue” will provide. Time and time again, the Pampas will deliver yet another redundant tribe, a tribe that is not convinced of the rightness of its own cosmology enough to stand on its own, a tribe of castaways that sets out in search of itself, only to find some symbolic erotic act through which it shares the impotence of loneliness with the others, multiplying the forces of mutual survival (synoikism) by filling up the rifts in their cosmological convictions with corporeal-suggestive urbanism. After all, the City is a body. Its walls and enfilades are riddled with apertures and orifices, gates that lead down the boulevards

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and alleyways of seduction. Speaking of seduction, we should note that the city is also an enclosed garden, a garden-city, a garden per se, and, if you will, the Garden of Eden, both the archetype and the antipode of the barbarized forest-steppe, the semantic beginning of all beginnings. At any rate, it is impossible to understand what exactly came first, City or Pampas. Perhaps we simply need to admit that human existence has long since fluctuated between these two nostalgic images. The City is associated with the dream of the forbidden fruit, of seduction, of the erotic freedom of choice, of the free right to ignore the call of reality and to rise against it through the suggestive invention of artistry, while the Pampas gives rise to the hope that reality might reveal its secrets to the immaculate nomad, pushing his subtle consciousness’ expanding possibilities to its very boundaries and polishing his language to the impossible ability of reading and symbolically ­producing the entire chain of the inexhaustable Pampas’ polyvalent phenomena. Yet both City and Pampas are nothing but imaginary projections, at least ever since the surface of the world was covered by cities and all territories became subject to civilization’s agency. They exist inseparably from one another, alternately emerging victorious, caught in the mutual tension of an irresolvable antagonism. Yet still, the free city does not refrain from exploiting the energies of its surroundings. The surroundings (village, province) are enchanted by the City’s technological spell, but at the same time, they seek revenge for having been humiliated. This is why they try to swallow the city, paralyzing its freedom under a net of provincial prejudices and i­deologies, imposing its physicalism and ­driving off the artistry that is the city’s foundation of foundations. Rome has been lucky, of course, even if it has not escaped the fate that any city is subject to. Rome was founded by young

men in an excess of youthful energy; Rome immediately started kidnapping women from neighboring tribes once the city walls had been drawn up. From the very moment of its foundation, Rome displayed an urban spirit that was so indomitable that neither the burden of the empire nor the envy of its barbarian provinces—neither corrosion through alien, esoteric ideologies nor the blazing fires of physical destruction—could ever deprive it of its prototypical renown as the urbis aeternae, the eternal city. Rome was, and still is, “the home of all human souls,” as Gogol put it. One might add that it was also the home of all artistic souls, although, as we know, “jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler” (Joseph Beuys’ maxim, “every human being is an artist.”) However, as we can see from the epigraph of the present text, this is hardly clear to everyone on the territories of what used to be the Western Empire, where the perception of Rome hardly corresponds to the high appraisal that the outsider from the state of Muscovy will inevitably supply. But to be honest, the theory of simulacra has little meaning for us Muscovites. Whenever we travel to the West, everything seems extremely authentic and corresponds to what we imagined it would be. Our ­disappointment does not stem from the recognition that everything around us is a simulation, but arises from the fact that here, in the West, we encounter reality, although this reality is essentially exactly what we left at home. On the other hand, when we return to Moscow, we encounter the presence of something that does not exist anywhere else. This state of affairs does not bear witness to the inadequacy of the self-image of the Western intellectual as much it belies the real crisis of the global-village-ideologies and their optimistic dream of a world-empire of information flows. Conversely, it also shows that it is here, in the depths of the Moscow Pampas, that the real dream of a new City is beginning to break its way to the surface.

This is exactly why Moscow, which was never in fact a real city, is worthy of the hope of becoming one. Rome, which once broke free from its captivity in tribal monotony, survived republican, imperial, and papal evolutions, as well as blazing, razing revolutions. Moscow will have to make all of these experiences in reverse. After undergoing the evolution from princely state to great power, after being humiliated by revolutions both Tsarist and communal, Moscow will now need to reach the point of involution. It will need to curl up and tighten into a bundle of urban energy, indifferent and disinterested to all of the Pampas’ pretenses, regardless of whether they come from the West, East, North or South. The plastic arts or, to use a term of Gadamer’s, the statuary arts, will need to play a central role in this process. In doing so, they will need to remember their ontological responsibility. From now on, the fate of Moscow itself, and of the art that calls itself “art from Moscow,” can no longer be indifferent to one another. It is symptomatic that one of the last texts of the Moscow Noma circle is entitled The Battle for Moscow. One can only hope that now, after Noma’s dissolution, artistic praxis will no longer accentuate the the aesthetic export of exotic specialities from some elitist administrative district in the imaginary empire of art (such is the art of Egypt), but that it will focus on the artistic development and the aesthetic urbanization of the place from which these practices draw their name. This would signal great changes in these practices and would bring about a significant reevaluation of traditional categories, aesthetic categories par excellence, categories such as beauty, artistic quality or artistry. At the same, it could slow the tempo of the process of aesthetization, which has speeded up to an extreme of late, leading to a social reflection of entities outside of traditional aesthetics, such as sociality, ideology, language, and consciousness. The fact that aesthetics

swallows everything that is initially foreign or hostile to their order of things expresses a will to beauty that is urban in origin. But the City needs pure forms of beauty. Pure beauty in many forms, including the forms of art. We should remember what Gadamer wrote: “Even if aesthetic consciousness has become autonomous, it cannot deny that art is something more than just its own consciousness of the ability for perception.”1 It is this “something more” that we need. We need art, beauty, and even decoration, decorum, “an ancient notion that it would be advantageous to reconstruct,” as Gadamer suggests,2 liberating it from its artisan associations with handicraft, finally recognizing its artistic and ontological essence. This is especially true for urban art, where decorum is the immaterial conclusion of material urbanization, rising above the walls that fill urban space with architecture. According to the needs of the city, it is the ability to decorate, to suggest beauty that is awarded the status of art. However, at ­present, it is still customary to reduce all non-aesthetic realia to aesthetic reflections of language systems. It is important to realize that the results of these reflections do not become art automatically, but take on meaning as a special kind of mental material that can be used arbitrarily or not at all, for that matter. Needless to say, this does not mean any refusal to engage in these kind of explorations on the whole, since such refusals would entail a refusal of any artistic search for the use of artistic material in general. But like the general study of material, the forms of its refined aesthetic are autonomous in relation to art itself. As such, it becomes an auxiliary discipline, more closely connected to the toolkit of the artist than to the immediate artistic result that this instrumentarium produces. Incidentally, there is nothing strange about the fact that aesthetic reflection and art have been equated to one another for so many decades, beginning with the avant-garde. 1 

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Istina i metod (Moscow: Progress, 1988), 199. 2  Ibid., 209

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Art could be nothing other than this at that stage of the battle between the City and the Pampas, when the city did not yet recognize its own superiority a priori, when the city did not yet understand itself as the center and the source of the universe’s Being, when it was still caught up in the imaginary nets of imperial, ethnic, social, physicalist ideologies, when it was still fighting for ways to break free of these fetters, fully recognizing the real presence of power in all kinds of ideologies, in logic, in language on the whole. Of course, this battle for liberation is, in fact, a war of attrition with no exit, since it rested upon a reality that was false and full of lies from the very beginning, a reality in which any victory over all the ghosts only leads to more certain confirmations of their existence. This battle is now drawing to a close. The reason for this closure is not to be found in some shift in the balance of power. Instead, it is connected to some external event, some asteroid or catastrophe. The result is that the grand antagonism of the past now appears as a strange, crawling heap, in which the two opposing sides can no longer be differentiated from one another. It has suddenly become clear that the empire of evil no longer exists and that its transformation into part of the world-wide empire of good (Baudrillard) was marked by a series of irrational catastrophes. These catastrophes are not only natural or technological cataclysms, but social and aesthetic disasters: that which ideology finds itself incapable of explaining. If people once saw “language, not death, in opposition to life,”3 it is now only death that opposes life and nothing more. Language and discourse, once considered as the source of all troubles, find themselves at loose ends. In this situation, the seizure of language—deconstructing its system by charming language, by speaking in tongues— now only makes sense as a form of pedagogy; other than that, it has lost all meaning. From now on, it becomes important to use

language to make concrete statements; all linguistic reflection entails an apology for the Pampas and its archaic magic of the word. As the empire of evil disappears, it becomes clear that that there are, in fact, no empires at all. It also becomes clear that we are surrounded by nothing but Pampas, buzzing, twinkling, and honking as far as the eye can see. The time has come to seize the moment. We need not fight for freedom. We need to defend and gird ourselves, to build our fortifications, to draw up and decorate our walls, here and now, in Moscow; it doesn’t matter what’s going on elsewhere, that’s their affair and none of our business; if need be, they’ll invite us on their own, no need to make a fuss, but don’t put it off, don’t dilly-dally, don’t wait around until the Pampas gives birth to new specters, even more verisimilar than those that have haunted us to date. May Moscow think only of itself! May it forget that it was once attributed with the quality of a Third Rome, the capital of the 1980 Olympic games and whatever else! Moscow doesn’t need all of these presents from the Pampas, these flattering expression of the Pampas’ provincial-imperial sycophancy. Moscow’s much bigger than that. After all, Moscow is an entire Cosmos unto itself, a center and source of the universe’s being. It is the only urbs. Neither caput, nor oppidum nor municipium: there are many of those around. Let anyone who wishes follow Moscow’s example, if they can. Moscow won’t mind, but it also won’t care. It will have given itself away to the lightheaded joy of its first meeting with the artist so completely that it will hardly notice anything else. The City isn’t afraid of the Pampas, come what may, even if the fates of all cities are one and the same. The City is young; the Pampas is old. It comes down to age: the Pampas is the city as a senior citizen, degraded, demented, falling apart. Just like old age seduces and kidnaps youth, the Pampas kidnaps the city’s women. The City, in turn,

is youth; it owes its inception to the strong hands of young nomads that have broken free from the embrace of the Pampas, traitors one and all. After all, it was Droctulft’s treacherous enthusiasm that supplied Ravenna with its youthful city-charm, though we might wonder if Ravenna even deserves to be called a city, if it isn’t simply a provincial imitation of Rome? So what if it’s an imperial residence? Is this what the empire has come to in its senility? To be come into being anew, Moscow can rely on nothing but the artist’s youthful exaltation; only his unfathomable, irrepressible will to beauty can compensate feeling guilty for that hidden act of treachery against the tribe’s forgotten laws. This will is no more and no less than the spirit of passion, engulfing its willing subject to the point of self-sacrifice. The artist must be more than he is. He really needs to fall in love with beauty, to become its lover. It is this category of people—simultaneously philosophers, while being faithful to the muses and to love—that takes first place in Plato’s stratification of souls. They are more than just philosophers: their souls have wings. Most artists, in fact, only inhabit the sixth or seventh level of the scale that Plato uses to describe the candidate-soul’s struggle for salvation in Phaedrus. Much has been said of the salvation that the world’s beauties could bring. But no-one has ever paid too much attention to the fact that beauty and world, cosmos and decoration are synonyms: ornamentum, mundus. To speak of their mutual salvation only leads to tautologies. Plato points toward the dedication to beauty and falling in love as the only guarantee for salvation. Plato doesn’t mean anonymous beauty, but the beauty of someone like Phaedrus or Alkiviadis, Laura and Beatrice in their Neo-Platonist variant. But behind these images of Platonic love, there is plastic kalokagathia or the inspired physicality of the Hellenic polis or the Renaissance town. Art is a variety of Platonic love. It is consummated in the decorum of the town, which, in

this case, is Moscow. For now, Moscow is little more than its own possibility, no more than a participant of the mystical copulation in the course of which mutual ejaculation is bound to occur, thanks to the assiduousness and dexterity (artistry) of the artist, whose goal will never be blinded by the perspective of premature ejaculation. The only way of attaining salvation is by saving others. Everyone remembers the myth of Orpheus. What was his mistake? Everything was at his beck and call, so he should have mustered some patience; he should have led his inamorata from hell by placing his trust in his own agile fingers, in the sonority of voices and strings. But all he was missing was patience as well as sensitivity, trust and belief in himself, so he turned back. And so, here we are again, at the very bottom of this underground, this dungeon, alone with someone who we have no hope of seeing through all this fog. We have to get up and to sweep away all the sublimated forms of seduction away with us, away from the murk of non-being to the light of life. The road that lies before us is possibly far longer than the path that Orpheus traveled.

3 

Roland Barthes, Izbrannye raboty. Semiotika, Poetika (Мoscow: Progress, 1989), 454.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE...

A RENDEZVOUS WITH RUSSIAN ART. POST-SOVIET RUSSIA AT THE VENICE BIENNALE Ekaterina Degot

The Venice Biennale was formed at the meeting point of two nineteenth-century obsessions: the nation state and classical art. The Soviet Union radically refused both ideas at the moment of its formation. The country which inherited the Russian pavilion, designed in a retro style, conceived itself not as a state of Russians (or even of Russians together with others), but as a state of workers and peasants who should have a completely new art. Public art, architecture, design, books, amateur theater (performance, in today’s parlance), didactic display (for which we would use the word “installation” today), cinema, and collective creative endeavors, dominated the artistic hierarchy. With such aims, the Soviet Union could have taken a very particular — alternative — position at the Venice Biennale. However, in the mid-1930s, a neo-bourgeois “Thermidor” took place in the field of art and other spheres in the Soviet Union and this did not happen. Instead of that, after 1968, an alternative “imagined Soviet Union,” which exists to this

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EKATERINA DEGOT

day, formed in international contemporary art and, in particular, at the Venice Biennale: progressive anticapitalist art in which the media listed above dominate; exhibitions didactically structured by theme; and creativity instrumentalized in favor of social action. Regardless of the Cold War, the culture of the West (not to mention politics) required a Soviet component, recalling that the Soviet Union diverted from the right track and awaited reform which would reveal its true face (and not a turn to capitalism). The Soviet Union had completely ­different plans, which defined the history of the pavilion.

1990–1993. THE LAST CHANCE FOR THE SOVIET UNION In the 1980s the Soviet pavilion continued to observe the communist hierarchy of the arts — in 1984 and 1986 it featured theater, cinema and book designers. However, in 1988 — at the beginning of Gorbachev’s perestroika — classic Soviet painter Aristarkh Lentulov, one of the most bourgeois artists in the genre’s history,

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unexpectedly became the hero of the pavilion. His softer version of Cubism with national motifs and commercial potential made Lentulov one of the key figures in the emerging epoch of new Russian nationalist capitalism. Today he is one of the most desired painters among Russian collectors. The first exhibition of the new epoch — still within the framework of the Soviet Union — was Rauschenberg to Us — We to Rauschenberg, put together by a group of young Russian artists connected with First Gallery (Guram Abramishvili, Sergei Volkov, Evgeny Mitta, Aidan Salakhova, Alexander Yakut, Andrei Yakhnin). First Gallery was not entirely commercial, more a game for the gilded youth, nor was it an underground artists-run space which stood in opposition to the establishment. The owners of the gallery were Mitta, Salakhova, and Yakut, who at the time were young and privileged (thanks to family ties) members of the USSR Union of Artists, as a result of which they met Robert Rauschenberg, who had rushed to the new Moscow to do a solo exhibition. As a result, the pavilion featured paintings and screen prints by young Moscow artists in dialogue with a large work by Rauschenberg himself who, it appears, financed the exhibition. Vladimir Goryainov, the permanent curator of the pavilion, wrote an article about the exhibition in the Biennale catalogue which characterizes this very short moment in history. With surprising ingenuousness he shows pride in the fact that the young a ­ rtists of the 1990s are similar to Rauschenberg in the 1960s: “Rauschenberg found himself in a 30‑year-old atmosphere, a time when he and his friends advocated the same ideas…”.1 It was exactly this which predetermined the relatively cool reaction of western professionals, for whom Rauschenberg was nothing new. This audience measured innovation using the criteria of historical newness and originality (being the criteria of the capitalist market, which requires newer and newer things of the artist).

Goryainov, the faithful son of communist art history, praised the artists for their search, for their youth and for their endless “lack of calm.” His idea of innovation is as yet untouched by the rhetoric of competition (when there is a need to be newer than others) — from this point of view it is necessary to be newer in relations to oneself. As Goryainov writes, “in the context of contemporary Moscow life, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Hyperrealism took on a different color…”.2 It is as if he foresees that Soviet and Russian art will soon come up against accusations of a lack of originality and states that the main thing in art is the figure of the artist. “A street market turns in to a performance. This isn’t taken seriously… There’s only one thing they think about seriously here — the artist and their right to be themselves.”3 Goryainov links the right to be oneself — the right to individualism — with the image of the “street market” (which is “not taken seriously”). It’s not clear why this image of a romanticized art market appears in his text. These two ideas — individualism and the market — were an obsession for post-Soviet art for several decades, but nowhere else has it been stated so plainly. The most unexpected of Goryainov’s ideas is that young Soviet artists differ from their contemporaries in the West because they are more political. “The object of their ironic ideology is not the “consumer society,” but the socio-virtual structures of society as a whole. Socio-political passions take the form of more or less well-known creative decisions, and this alone distinguishes the young art of our country from many of the directions in foreign art.”4 Here he apparently considered (a little idealistically) that young artists of the age of perestroika are changing the picture of the state and society (for example, by organizing a commercial gallery) and that their actions have considerably more weight than all of the critical work of Western artists. This logic remained completely Soviet.

The exhibition Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg was positioned as a renewal within the Soviet Union and for this reason it received an Honorable Mention from the jury. However this internal renewal of the Soviet Union — perestroika — did not last very long. Instead of doing a little stimulating gymnastics, the Soviet Union was completely destroyed and, in 1993, during the following Biennale, new Russia had neither the money nor the will to make the pavilion. As a result of political maneuvering, the pavilion was made by Ilya Kabakov, with the help of a foreign gallery. The project Red Pavilion summed up the understanding of the “Soviet Pavilion,” although the Soviet Union no longer existed. One should note that this was the only site-specific installation during the existence of the pavilion — both Soviet and Russian. Oddly, no-one else ever questioned the raison d’être of this highly ideological building, the work of the one of the most ideological Russian architects, who designed Lenin’s Mausoleum. Kabakov left the building in the half-ruined state in which it found itself by summer 1993, surrounded it with a fence, and put inside objects which appeared to be part of a reconstruction project, laying out a barely noticeable path to the balcony. From the balcony the real Red Pavilion could be seen, a deliberately primitive, laughable variation on Rodchenko’s 1920s theme of “radio announcers.” It broadcast the chaotic sounds of a May Day parade (the soundtrack was by Vladimir Tarasov). Kabakov’s question to the installation in his text is not from him, but from an imagined, doubting viewer. “Is it possible that a totalitarian symbol is represented at the Biennale?”5 As we know, it is not only possible but it even received the approval of the West at other international exhibitions: Red Pavilion was a natural continuation of El Lissitzky’s “export” installations of the 1920s and 1930s, and of other Soviet “export” pavilions. Up to that point Kabakov had already shown

1 

2 Ibid.

5 

Vladimir Goryainov in 44th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia (Venice: La Biennale di Venezia, 1990), 230.

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3 

Ibid., 231.

Red Pavilion (1991), Toilet (1992), and Big Archive (March 1993), and was at the stage of creating metaphorical images of things Soviet, which intended to render the historical existence of the Soviet Union its due and excuse its existence through the presence of a thinking, critical subject. In Red Pavilion the West saw that which it had long anticipated — an original work in the Soviet tradition, which would bring the artist level with the West in his ability to be critical of “his” socialism in the same way that a Western artist is critical of capitalism. The use of the outdated word “West” is legitimate here because, in 1993, the West still existed and the epoch of global art had not yet begun. However Kabakov — who, several years earlier, had taken part in the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre alongside artists from Africa — was there at the beginning of the epoch. In the eyes of the international audience he was “original,” in that he referred to his own sources, not to those of others. At this moment in history, when, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, economic and political opposition was interpreted as cultural diversity, the international scene was prepared to accept the Soviet Union, but only as a loyal, exotic culture, one more nationality which enriched the market of identities with another original dance with a tambourine — or, to be more exact, with a hammer and sickle. These historical hopes were not destined to be fulfilled. Instead of “socialism with a human face” Russia quickly turned in to capitalism without one. This chaotic ­situation gave opportunities to an entirely different type of person than commissar Goryainov (who resigned due to lack of money), and even the artist Kabakov (who since then has only taken part in the main projects of the Biennale). These new people — curators and artists of the epoch of neo-capitalism — found opportunities in a situation where there was no budget at all, a completely disinterested state, and a strong dependence on sponsors.

Ilya Kabakov, Installations 1983–1995 (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1995), 188.

4 Ibid.

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In the early 1990s, the appearance of a new generation of Russian artists on the international art scene, and in particular at the Venice Biennale, was accompanied by characteristic misunderstandings. The artists, like many critics and curators, decided that they had met the “real West,” with its English lawns which, as the joke has it, are easy to look after — one only needs to water and trim them for 400 years. In fact what they saw had only just begun to take shape at the end of the 1980s and was to a large extent the result of their own appearance. The birth of the international and, shortly afterwards, the global contemporary art scene as (in sociologist Pascal Gielen’s definition6) a mobile and hyper-communicative transcontinental community, and also the growth of the prestige of contemporary art, the appearance of the independent curator, the secondary nature of art history in comparison to theory, the accent on installations and enormous video projects — everything which amazed the Russian artists who first came to the Venice Biennale was in the main connected with the end of socialism in both the West and the East, the revolution of Post-Fordism, liberal metaphors for freedom, and the exchange of “political-economic” problems for “cultural” ones. Simultaneously “relational aesthetics” and “participatory art” of the 1990s created in the field of art the same kind of horizontal and united social connections which had only just been the norm, at least in the Soviet Union! For artists arriving from “the cold” of the East the latter had not yet been completely destroyed.

1995–2005. THE SURPLUS VALUE OF CURATING When, in 2001, the Ministry of Culture invited me to be curator of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, I discovered that two artists (Leonid Sokov and Sergei Shutov) had already been selected, as their projects had funding.

It was suggested that I insert all of this into some kind of overall concept, but I said that I could only curate my own project and proposed another artist, Olga Chernysheva. However, there were no curators for the other rooms of this communal apartment and, as a result, I was often credited as the curator of the whole pavilion — a pavilion in which there were three wonderful artists, each of whom deserved a solo exhibition. Chernysheva and I came under pressure because her personal project (a series of photographs) for some reason had a curator and we felt the necessity to display these expressive photographs in a special way, in the form of an installation with living trees and the sound of birdsong. Chernysheva did not show her work this way again. A question arose: why was this situation of a group exhibition created and why was a curator necessary, especially one who had no authority other than to name an artist? For the answer one needs to return to the nineties. For that entire decade Russian journalists insisted to their readers, among whom were representatives of the Ministry of Culture, that the national pavilion should have, first and foremost, a curator, that this is the main figure to select, and then the curator selects the artist. In fact for any countries (e.g. France and the USA) this system works in the opposite way: a “national artist” is chosen and then a curator is selected as a relatively auxiliary figure. Usually this is a solo exhibition by a classic artist of the older generation or a rising star who has already been exhibited internationally and who will become famous after the pavilion. In 1990s Russia the latter type of artists still did not exist (in 1999 there was an attempt to present Sergei Bugaev (Afrika) as such), but the former did, especially among the emigrant artists. However, they were not supported by major galleries and collectors and, until the mid-2000s, the presence of confirmed financing was the condition for accepting a project. In 1997 there was an idea to show Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid’s project

People’s Choice, but they did not find money and, at the last minute, with the financial assistance of Deutsche Bank, the conservative painter Maxim Kantor took over the pavilion. Kantor tried to represent himself as a national classic, which only confirmed the fears of the Russian art scene that a solo exhibition in the pavilion is, in principle, reactionary. In fact, strange as it may seem, the showing of any solo exhibition in the pavilion was opposed not so much by the Ministry of Culture, but by the [Russian] art world, which wanted above all to promote conceptual curatorial projects and passionately believed in the figure of the curator as a guarantee of the intellectual value of the project. From the mid1990s to 2011 we would, as a rule, see the big names of Russian art in the main project of the Biennale, and in the Russian Pavilion there were attempts to create a group exhibition like a “curatorial project” or, more often than not, its imitation. The international enthusiasm of the 1990s for the figure of the independent curator was directly connected with the Post-Fordist turn to “immaterial labor” and the domination of the “idea,” as well as the end of the welfare state (including the Soviet Union) and the increasing prestige of personal choice which is, in fact, embodied lack of democracy. In post-Soviet circumstances it was the curator who had to guarantee to show “the best,” to create a “Western,” “presentable” event, which can be read as “capitalist” as opposed to “spontaneous.” In the Soviet Union there were no curators and the choice of works for an exhibition was made by the artists (and, to be more exact, by the bureaucrats of the art world). The procedure was not democratic, but the resulting exhibition often looked like a jumble of a bit of everything, therefore in the neo-capitalist era the hierarchy of names began to be represented in a more contemporary and paradoxical way, with a fairer approach through which everyone had their notorious “chance,” the

main fetish of the epoch of early capitalism. In principle such a hierarchy could have been incarnated by a normative history of art, but due to the complete collapse of academic life in post-Soviet Russia its place was taken by the romanticized “creative wave” of the curator, a mass media manipulation of ideas which could turn any choice of artists in to a shinily-packaged “concept.” This is what was expected of a curator in the 1990s and 2000s. In Russia the unequal relationship of the artist and curator deepened and continues to deepen because the curator, as a rule, is more educated, speaks foreign languages better, has a lot of international experience and, as a result of this, he or she is allowed to talk to sponsors. The relationship of the Russian art bureaucracy to the curator and the artist for the whole of the 1990s and 2000s was completely partial, and that partiality was strongly classbased. The curator is always considered “one of us,” and the artist is a foolish, wild creature who needs to be seated at the farthest table at dinner. Curators were much more acceptable, more predictable partners for the Ministry of Culture than artists — the curator agreed to take on both bureaucratic and censorship functions and he or she deputized for the paternalistic figure of power. Simultaneously, the “creative class,” the at that moment unemployed and precarious intellectual producers — curators, critics, journalists — were attempting to fix their own criteria for prestige in a new system where, as they already sensed, only money would have value. The only possible criteria became “conceptuality,” the presence of the “added element” of an idea in comparison to the “simple demonstration” of separate works. The creative intelligentsia was prepared to do a lot to protect its monopoly — to insist, for example, on the unintelligibility of contemporary art which was, apparently, impossible to grasp without an expert opinion. The beginning and end of this epoch were marked by two paradigmatic projects by the

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Pascal Gielen, The Murmuring of Artistic Multitude. Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2009).

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curator Viktor Misiano, the first of which (1995) defined for many years the notion that exhibitions in the pavilion above all required a curator, some sort of “idea,” and its “explanation.” Reason is Something the World Must Obtain Whether it Wants it or Not was a group exhibition featuring Evgeny Asse, Dmitry Gutov, Vadim Fishkin and Misiano himself, in which the participants spent a long time discussing what could be shown in the pavilion and where the word “Russia” was written on the facade for the first time, a gesture not weaker than the strong social reality of the moment. The process of reflection was reflected in the collective project. The Chechen war, political assassinations, grotesque figures of the epoch of the early capitalism, and the comical sexual freedom of the mass media were shown in the documentation. The main metaphor for the weakness of art and language in the face of harsh reality was a clip from an archive cinema chronicle in which an amateur village “performer” agonizingly whistled Tchaikovsky’s Neapolitan Song, shoving his fingers in his

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mouth. It was filmed in 1932, at the height of Stalinist industrialization — the carefree nature and pointlessness of art, incarnated in the figure of a “dumb” whistler, were in stark contrast to the reality off-camera. The name of this project which is undoubtedly one of the key works of Russian art of the 1990s, was a quote from Marx. In his introductory text the curator (the text is unsigned but Misiano’s hand can be guessed from its style) wrote that this is not important, wishing, apparently, to sever the link with the Soviet epoch and open up to an indeterminate future. In parallel, the main project in 1995 was curator Jean Clair’s historical exhibition, which featured Soviet realism as an alternative to Western Modernism, but few were able to connect the two exhibitions at that time, as Soviet history was considered to have ended. Misiano planned several successive ­exhibitions in the pavilion, but the next time he was able to make one was in 2003. This was the end of the epoch of precarious “creative curators.” […]

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CHRONOLOGY 1986–1996

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1986 January 1

For the first time in the history of Soviet-American relations, the American President — Ronald ­Reagan — congratulates the Soviet people at New Year in a televised address. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, congratulates the American people in return.

January 18

Along the Margins by Ilya Kabakov opens at Galerie de la Vieille Charité in Marseille, traveling to Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Dusseldorf, and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris.

February 14

of Congresses. This is the first Communist Party congress since the adoption of reforms in the social, economic, and political spheres, a restructuring known as “perestroika.” Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech focuses on economic development, with an emphasis on the concepts of “acceleration” and “glasnost” (openness).

March 10

Oh Malta! opens at the Maltese Embassy in Moscow, reuniting the exhibitors of APTART Gallery: Nikita Alexeev, Yuri Albert, Andrei Filippov, George Kiesewalter, Sergei Mironenko, Vladimir Naumetz, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Mikhail Roshal, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

We are Building Communism opens in various Moscow locations, including the Manege and the Central House of the Soviet Army (now known as the Cultural Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation). A survey of Soviet art during the previous five-year plan period, prepared for the 27th Congress of the Communist Party, it includes work by Leonid Baranov, Mihai Grecu, Viktor Ivanov, Ando Keskülla, Tatyana Nazarenko, Galina Neledva, Anatoly Nikich, Mikhail Ombysh-Kuznetsov, Viktor Ryzhikh, Tair Salakhov, Alexander Shilov, Aleksei and Sergei Tkachev, and Oleg Vukolov.

February 20

Stages of the Great Journey, one of the first comprehensive exhibitions of Soviet art of the period from 1917 to the 1930s, opens at the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. It forms the basis of what will be the permanent exhibition of Russian avant-garde art at the Tretyakov’s Krymsky Val space.

February 25

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The 27th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union opens at the Kremlin Palace

June 3—30

The spring exhibition of the Fellowship of Experimental Fine Art takes place at the Palace of Youth in L ­ eningrad. As well as the older generation of ­Leningrad nonconformists, the exhibition includes works by m ­ embers of the New Artists m ­ ovement — Sergei Bugaev (Afrika). Oleg Kotelnikov, Evgeny Kozlov, Andrei Krisanov, Oleg Maslov, Timur Novikov, Inal Savchenkov, Ivan Sotnikov, Viktor Tsoi and the ­Necrorealists — Yuri Karasev (Tsirkyul), Andrei Kurmayartsev (Mertvy), Evgeny Yufit, and others. The exhibition also includes concerts by Popular Mechanics.

July 4

In Moscow, the first Goodwill Games opens, a sporting event that involves competitors from more than seventy countries. The initiator and main sponsor of the games is American media mogul Ted Turner.

August 28

A Council of Ministers resolution eases restrictions on personal travel.

February 18

The Art of the East in the Struggle for Peace and Humanism opens at the Museum of the Arts of the Eastern Peoples in Moscow. It includes works by various generations of artists from the Caucasus region, Central Asia, and Kazakhstan. Works by artists from India, Tanzania, Indonesia, and Japan are displayed in a separate room and are dedicated to “the struggle of the peoples of the East for political, economic, and cultural independence.”

April 26

A fire in the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant leads to its total destruction. The Chernobyl disaster is the most serious accident in the history of atomic energy.

September 26

Vladimir Sorokin, Nikolai Panitkov, and Elena Romanova at the exhibition Oh, Malta!

March 21

Soviet schoolgirl Katya Lycheva’s two-week “mission of peace” to the USA begins. It follows American schoolgirl Samantha Smith’s 1983 visit to the Soviet Union. Lycheva visits a number of cities and meets President Ronald Reagan.

April 12—June 12

Sots Art takes place at the New Museum, New York (see chapter 1).

April 17

As a result of the 27th party congress, the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopts the resolution “On the principal courses for accelerating the solution of the problem of housing in the country.” By the year 2000, every Soviet family will have their own apartment or house.

Masters of Culture for Peace, designed by the Estonian artist Ando Kessküla, opens at the Manege. The exhibition includes work by Nikolai Andronov, Yury Arrak, Olga Grechina, Gely Korzhev, Anatoly Nikich, Mikhail Ombysh-Kuznetsov, Sergei Ovsepyan, Tair Salakhov, Aleksei and Sergei Tkachev, Boris Ugarov, and Oleg Vukolov, as well as artists from Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Japan, Nicaragua, North Korea, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, and Vietnam.

November 12

The Soviet Cultural Foundation is created, headed by academic Dmitry Likhachev. Its founders include more than fifty cultural organizations from across the Soviet Union.

November 18—January 23, 1987

Sots Art takes place at Glenbow Museum, ­Calgary (see chapter 1).

November 26

The 17th Young Moscow Artists Exhibition opens in the two Moscow Union of Artists exhibition halls at 11 and 20 Kuznetsky Most Street. Organized by the USSR and Moscow Unions of Artists, along with the Moscow committee of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), it forms part of a program of sociological research entitled “Improving the effectiveness of artistic exhibitions.” The exhibition includes a special section for “unofficial” youth culture, which is shown in an official exhibition for the first time. Those artists not selected for the exhibition are permitted to organise one-day exhibitions in the back rooms at 11 Kuznetsky Most.

November 26

Artist Mikhail Roshal organizes the exhibition-action Fight for Art (Art Against Commerce) in Bitsevsky Park, Moscow. Participants include Nikita Alexeev, Alyona Kirtsova, Mikhail Roshal, Maria Serebriakova, Anatoly Shuravlev, World Champions group, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

October 11–12

Talks take place in Reykjavik, Iceland, between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, aimed at improving Soviet-American relations. An attempt to stop the arms race ends in failure. Nikita Alexeev at The Fight for Art happening, Moscow, November 1986

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1987 January 13

May 19—June 7

January 27—28

May 28

The Supreme Soviet adopts a decree on the activities of joint enterprises — international associations which involve both Soviet and foreign organizations. During the first two years of activity, joint enterprises are not subject to taxes, resulting in foreign capital investments in the Soviet economy.

Object-1, curated by artist Vladimir Nemukhin, takes place at the City Committee of Graphic Arts (Gorkom) exhibition hall at 27 Malaya Gruzinskaya in Moscow. The exhibition’s focus is the object in unofficial art, and it includes works by all generations of the Moscow underground.

September 22—November 1

Retrospective: Works by Moscow Artists, 1957– 1987, organized by the Hermitage Amateur Association, takes place at the exhibition hall at 100 Profsoyuznaya Street in Moscow. It is the first time that works of unofficial artists from the 1960s to 1980s are shown officially in a historical context. Representatives of the KGB and the Moscow Soviet unsuccessfully attempt to break up a creative evening organized by the Lianozovo group. Collector and archivist Leonid Talochkin and critic Leonid Bazhanov play a major role in the organization of the exhibition.

Contemporary Soviet Art: A Selection of Works from the KNIGA Collection opens at Galerie de France in Paris as part of the FIAC art fair. Artists include Ivan Chuikov, Evgeni Dybsky, Nikolai Filatov, Francisco Infante, Ilya Kabakov, and Natalia Nesterova.

October 21

Sots Art takes place at Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse (see chapter 1).

At a regular plenary session of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the head of the party's Moscow City Committee, Boris Yeltsin, gives an emotional speech harshly criticizing the work of Politburo member Yegor Ligachev and pointing to a slowing down in the pace of perestroika and Gorbachev's developing “personality cult.” The participants in the plenary session come out unanimously against Yeltsin. He is soon removed from his position as 1st Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU and freed of his duties as candidate for membership of the Politburo. From this point onwards, supported by broad sectors of the population, Yeltsin becomes the leader of the internal party opposition.

February 5

October 30

At a regular plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev gives a report titled “On the restructuring (perestroika) of the personnel policy of the party.” It is the first time that a senior figure publicly acknowledges that the Soviet economy is in dire straits and that the party leadership is at fault. The report marks the beginning of a purge of party ranks.

A light-sport aircraft piloted by a 19‑year old German amateur pilot, Mathias Rust, lands on Red Square. The Soviet Defense Minister and the head of antiaircraft defenses are fired.

February 2—March 29

The Council of Ministers of the USSR adopts the resolution “On the creation of cooperatives for social catering.” Within a few days, resolutions come into force regulating commercial activities in the spheres of consumer services and the production of goods for mass consumption. They create a basis for private business.

February 6—27

The Artist and Modernity, organized by the First Creative Association (part of the Moscow Union of Artists), opens at the Na Kashirke exhibition hall in Moscow, featuring works by members of the Moscow Union of Artists as well as former nonconformists. Artists include Erik Bulatov, Evgeni Dybsky, Igor Ganikovsky, Ilya Kabakov, Maxim Kantor, Elena Keller, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Rostislav Lebedev, Boris Markovnikov, Irina Nakhova, Boris Orlov, Nikolai Ovchinnikov, Dmitry Prigov, Natalia Smolyanskaya, Eduard Steinberg, Alexander Sundukov, Lev Tabenkin, Vladimir Yankilevsky, and Irina Zatulovskaya.

May

The practice of jamming Russian-language radio broadcasts of Voice by America ends.

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October 10–18

The Land of Soviets, an exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, opens at the Manege. Artists include Igor Obrosov, with his triptych Dedicated to My Father, on the theme of the Stalinist repressions, Ivan Lubennikov, Oleva Subbi, and Maya Tabaka.

The light-sport aircraft piloted by Mathias Rust on Red Square, Moscow, 1987 © Fotokhronika TASS

December

June 11

The leadership of the Soviet Union attempts to make changes in the economy, combining socialist planned management and a free, capitalist market. The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopt the decree “On the transferring of associations, enterprises, and organizations of the economy to full accounting and self-financing.”

September 3

The Artist and Time opens at the Manege to mark the 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The exhibition features works by both the classics and the outcasts of Soviet painting, including Alexander Drevin, Boris Ioganson, Nikolai Kasatkin, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Aristarkh Lentulov, and Ilya Mashkov. Contemporary Soviet art is also represented by Nikolai Andropov, Viktor Ivanov, Dmitry Zhilinsky, and others.

Flyer for the exhibition Retrospective: Works by Moscow Artists, 1957–1987, Moscow, 1987

September — October

A series of newspaper publications criticize the exhibitions of the Hermitage Amateur Association, which showed works by émigré artists such as Ernst Neizvestny, Oskar Rabin, and Igor Shelkovsky for the first time.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Joseph Brodsky who has lived in New York since being expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972.

December 8

In Washington, DC, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan sign an agreement on the liquidation of medium and short range missiles. In essence, this event signifies the end of the Cold War.

October

Accurate Tendencies in the Work of the “New” takes place at the Znamya cinema in Leningrad. It features works by the New Artists, including Evgenij Kozlov, Timur Novikov, Vadim Ovchinnikov, and Ivan Sotnikov.

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1988 January 28

Red Wave: “Unofficial” Contemporary Art and Music from the USSR, organized by Joanna Stingray, opens at Jerry Solomon Gallery in Los Angeles. It features the Leningrad New Artists, including Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Georgy Guryanov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Andrei Krisanov, Timur Novikov, Ivan Sotnikov, and Viktor Tsoi.

of Culture and Deutsche Bank. The twentieth century section includes works by Ernst Barlach, Otto Dix, Rainer Fetting, George Grosz, Maxim Kantor, Anselm Kiefer, Käthe Kollwitz, Aidan Salakhova, and Vadim Sidur. The exhibition had previously been shown in Hamburg and Munich in 1987.

March 25

June 8 — July 3

The Second Exhibition of Conceptualists from the Avant-Garde Club takes place at the Proletarsky district exhibition hall in Moscow. Artists include Yuri Albert, Andrei Filippov, Ilya Kabakov, Maria Konstantinovna, Andrei Monastyrsky, Dmitri Prigov, World Champions group, and Vadim Zakharov.

The ASSA Art-Rock Parade takes place at the Palace of Culture of the Moscow Electric Lamp Factory. It includes the Moscow premiere of Sergei Solovyov’s film ASSA, made with the active participation of the young Moscow Conceptualists and Leningrad’s New Artists. The film’s production designer is Sergei Shutov, and some scenes feature works by the Nest and Toadstool groups, Nikola Ovchinnikov, and others. ASSA, which was to become a cult film, was first screened in 1987 at the Palace of Youth in Leningrad.

Red Wave. “Unofficial” Contemporary Art and Music from the USSR, Jerry Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles, 1988 Courtesy Joanna Stingray

February 27–29

In the town of Sumgait in the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, a pogrom is unleashed on the Armenian population. Several dozen people are killed and hundreds injured. Streams of Armenian refugees head for the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the ASSR and for Armenia.

March 5–27

Geometry in Art takes place at the Na Kashirke exhibition hall. It is the first serious retrospective of geometric abstraction in unofficial art of the 1960s to 1980s. Artists include Sergei Bordachev, Leonid Borisov, Ivan Chuikov, Franciso Infante, Alyona Kirtsova, Boris Kocheishvili, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Vladimir Nemukhin, Alexander Poteshkin, Eduard Steinberg, Boris Stuchebryukov, Alexander Yulikov, and Yuri Zlotnikov.

March 15—April 28

An exhibition of Russian and German art of the fifteenth to to the twentieth centuries, entitled War and Peace Through the Eyes of Artists, takes place at the Tretyakov Gallery, organized by the USSR Ministry

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June 3

In Vilnius, a meeting of the Lithuanian Movement for Perestroika initiative group is held, on the basis of which the social and political organization Sąjūdis is formed. Its goal is the removal of Lithuania from the Soviet Union.

June 3 — August 14

Labyrinth takes place at the Moscow Palace of Youth, presenting twenty-six recently-created artistic associations which unite 220 artists, including the Moscow Union of Artists Creative Association, Center, Periphery, 21, Hammer, Arbat, First Gallery, Hermitage Amateur Association, the Avant-Garde Club, World Champions group, Comradeship of the Krasnogvardeisky district, and the Theater of Architectural Forms. In 1989, the exhibition will tour to Hamburg under the title Labyrinth: Neue Kunst aus Moskau (Labyrinth: New Art from Moscow).

ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/Берлин-Москва takes place at Künstlerbahnhof Westend in Berlin (see chapter 3). In 1988, Ilya Kabakov first obtains official permission to leave the Soviet Union, having received a grant to visit Graz, Austria. In this year, his work is shown at Opernhaus Graz; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Kunstverein Bonn; and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main. Kabakov’s installation Before Supper (1988) is also shown at the Aperto exhibition at the 43rd Venice Biennale.

September 14 — November 11

An exhibition of works by Günther Uecker takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4).

March 25 — April 8

Da Da Majakowski takes place at Dionysus Gallery in Rotterdam. Artists include Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Georgy Guryanov, Andrei Khlobystin, Andrei Kirsanov, Oleg Kotelnikov, and Inal Savchenkov.

September 12 — November 2

September 22 — November 6

An exhibition of works by Francis Bacon takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4). The Second Exhibition of Conceptualists from the Avant-Garde Club, Proletarsky region exhibition hall, Moscow, 1988 Photo: George Kiesewalter

June 11 — August 14

I Live I See: Moscow Artists of the 1980s takes place at Kunstmuseum Bern, featuring works by Moscow unofficial artists. Artists include Erik Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov, George Kiesewalter, Vladimir Nemukhin, Dmitri Plavinsky, and Oleg Vassiliev.

June 28

The 19th Communist Party Congress opens in Moscow, where the policy of perestroika receives widespread support. Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposal to reform the political system is approved.

October 7—November 5

Beyond the Ironical Curtain takes place at Galerie Inge Baecker in Cologne. Artists include Semyon Faibisovich, Alexander Kosolapov, Vladimir Mironenko, and Nikola Ovchinnikov.

December 7

A powerful earthquake in Armenia destroys the town of Spitak. The towns of Leninakan (Gyumri), Stepanavan, and over 300 other settlements also suffer. Tens of thousands of people are killed.

July 7

The Sotheby’s auction of Russian and Soviet art takes place at Sovincentr in Moscow (see chapter 2).

September 11

On Pevchesky Field in Tallin, the Song of Estonia music and politics festival attracts 300,000 visitors, who declare their wish for independence from the Soviet Union. This event goes down in history as the “singing revolution,” as Pevchesky translates from Russian as “singing.”

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1989 January 31

A branch of MacDonald’s opens on Pushkin Square in Moscow. It is the first fast food restaurant in the Soviet Union, and the largest in the world.

February

One of the Soviet Union’s first private galleries of contemporary art, First Gallery, opens on Strastnoi Boulevard in Moscow. The company had been registered in 1988 by artists Evgeny Mitta, Aidan Salakhova, and Alexander Yakut, along with businessman Mikhail Kruk.

February 1 — March 5

An exhibition of works by Robert Rauschenberg takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4). A parallel exhibition of work by Moscow artists, entitled Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg, takes place at First Gallery.

May 6

The demobilization of Soviet forces from the German Democratic Republic begins.

May 14 — August 6

10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters takes place at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, organized by the American private foundation InterCultura, Inc. with the support of the Soviet Ministry of Culture. Artists include Yuri Albert, Ross Bleckner, Leonid Purygin, David Salle, Sergei Shutov, and Mark Tansey. It tours through the end of 1990 to the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo; Art Museum, Milwaukee; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Central House of Artists, Moscow; State Picture Gallery of Georgia, Tbilisi; and the Central Exhibition Hall, Leningrad.

February 12 — November 19

Snapshot: Young Art from Moscow takes place at the Altes Stadtmuseum in Muenster. Artists include Yuri Albert, Sven Gundlakh, Sergei Mironenko, Vladimir Mironenko, Andrei Roiter, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Later that same year, the exhibition tours to Stapelhaus Frankenwerft in Cologne and the Ravensberger Spinnerei in Bielefeld.

May 25 — June 9

At the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR begins work. Millions of Soviet citizens follow the Congress' work, thanks to live television and radio broadcasts. Each session sees a bitter conflict between ­reformers and communists, who have the majority of seats. The democratic minority, headed by Andrei Sakharov, Yuri Afanasiev, and Boris Yeltsin, gets significant support from citizens.

June 1 — July 20

ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/Берлин-Москва takes place at the Construction Pavilion of VDNKh in Moscow (see chapter 3).

June 14 — July 16

Art Instead of Art: Seven Artists from Moscow takes place at Mucsarnok Gallery in Budapest. Artists include Yuri Albert, Andrei Filippov, Sven Gundlakh, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

The last Soviet military detachments leave Afghanistan. Paintings 1971–1988 by Erik Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov’s installation The Untalented Artist and Other Characters (1988) are shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.

May 18

The first relatively free elections in the history of the Soviet Union are held for delegates of the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.

April 7 — July 1

May 24 — July 30

Beyond Disputes: New Art from Moscow takes place at Krings-Ernst Galerie in Cologne. Artists include Yuri Albert, Grisha Bruskin, Andrei Filippov, Rostislav Lebedev, Yuri Leiderman, Sergei Mironenko, Boris Orlov, Dmitri Prigov, Sergei Volkov, and Alexander Yulikov.

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The exhibition 10+10: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters, Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1989 © Vadim Zakharov

The Supreme Soviet of Lithuania adopts a declaration on the sovereignty of the Republic, which de facto signals that the Republic is leaving the Soviet Union. Armenia declares its sovereignty on May 28, Latvia on July 27, Azerbaijan on September 23, and Georgia on November 20.

March 26

Transformation: The Legacy of Authority. Recent Art from the Soviet Union opens at Camden Arts Centre in London. Artists include Svetlana Kopystiansky, Rostislav Lebedev, Georgy Litichevsky, Arkady Petrov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. It later tours the UK to Cleveland Art Gallery, Middlesborough; Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr; Cooper Gallery, Burnsley; and The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester.

October 6–7

Mikhail Gorbachev visits the GDR to mark the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the Republic. This, however, doesn't save East Germany, and on November 8, Erich Honecker's Politburo of the Social Unity Party of Germany resigns. On November 9, the Berlin Wall, which has divided the city and the country into two parts since 1961, falls.

October 24 — December 17

Moscow — Vienna — New York takes place as part of the Vienna Festival. Artists include Ashley Bickerton, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Louise Lawler, Ilya Piganov, Richard Prince, Andrei Roiter, Maria Serebriakova, Cindy Sherman, Alexei Shulgin, Anatoly Shuravlev, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

November

February 15

February 22 — April 23

September 16

Mosca: Terza Roma takes place at Sala 1 Centro Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea in Rome (see chapter 5).

The exhibition Art Instead of Art: Seven Artists from Moscow, Mucsarnok Gallery, Budapest, 1989 © Vadim Zakharov

July 7 — August 4

Works from Lenz Schönberg’s collection are shown at the Central House of Artists. Zero group, the French New Realists, Yves Klein, and Piero Manzoni are exhibited alongside contemporary Moscow artists such as Francisco Infante and Eduard Steinberg.

August

23 Images of French Art is shown at the Central House of the Artists. Participants include Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Philippe Parreno, Présence Panchounette, Sarkis, and Niele Toroni.

Furmanny zaulek takes place at Dawne Zaklady Norblina in Warsaw. Curated by collector Piotr Nowicki, the exhibition shows works by artists from the Furmanny Lane studios, including Farid Bogdalov, Olga Chernysheva, Ignat Daniltsev, Dmitry Demsky, Vadim Fishkin, Arina Grantseva, Sergei Kalinin, Viktor Kasyanov, Nikolai Kozlov, Dmitry Likin, Anton Olschwang, Peppers group, Sergei Shutov, Alexei Taranin, Leonid Tishkov, Oleg Tistol, Leonid Voitsekhov, Sergei Volkov, and Vadim Zakharov.

December 9

The Green Show, curated by Margarita Tupitsyn, opens at Exit Art in New York. It explores the significance of the color green as a paradigm of glasnost. Artists include Sergei Anufriev, Ivan Chuikov, Collective Actions, Ilya Kabakov, Igor Makarevich, Peppers group, Viktor Pivovarov, Andrei Roiter, and Sergei Volkov.

December 15

From the Revolution to Perestroika, Soviet Art from the Ludwig Collection opens at the Musée d’art moderne in Saint-Etienne.

331

1990 January 15

Transit: Russian Immigrant Artists opens at the Russian Museum in Leningrad. Artists include Mikhail Chemiakin, Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovin, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Yuri Kuper, Leonid Lamm, Oleg Prokofiev, Oskar Rabin, Mikhail Roginsky, Leonid Sokov, and Oleg Tselkov. In the spring, the exhibition travels to the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.

February 10 — March 14

Russian Contemporary Artists takes place at the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato. It includes works by Erik Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov, Peppers group, Sergei Volkov, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

February 28 — March 31

Made in Formani: Current Soviet Avant-Garde Art at City Gallery in Melbourne features works by the main inhabitants of the Furmanny Lane studios. A further two exhibitions of work by Furmanny artists take place in 1990: Furmanyj in Factory: Sowjetische avantgarde Kunst, Kulturfabrik Salzmann, Kassel (June 9–29); and Moscou, les ateliers de la rue Furmann, Au manoir de Martigny August 17– September 17).

March 12–15

The Third Congress of People’s Deputies meets. Mikhail Gorbachev is elected to the new post of President of the USSR.

Anatoly Sobchak, a lawyer and member of the Inter-Regional Deputy Group, becomes chairman of the Leningrad Soviet.

May 31—July 16

April 18 — May 13

May 31—August 12

To the Object takes place at Sadovniki Gallery in Moscow (see chapter 6).

April 27 — June 1

An exhibition of works by Gilbert & George takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4).

May 12 — June 30

The Work of Art in the Age of Perestroika, curated by Margarita Tupitsyn, takes place at Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York. Artists include Yuri Albert, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Maria Konstantinova, Irina Nakhova, Timur Novikov, Maria Serebriakova, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

May 16 — June 12

The 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic is held. Despite resistance from the communist deputies and the Union leadership, Boris Yeltsin is elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. On the last day, the congress deputies, in a majority vote, adopt a Declaration on the Independence of Russia.

March 30 — May 3

Adaptation and Negation of Socialist Realism: Contemporary Soviet Art takes place at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut and includes works by Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Semyon Faibisovich, Francisco Infante, Ilya Kabakov, Boris Orlov, and Oleg Vassiliev.

Queuing for sausages on Pyatnitskaya Street, Moscow, 1990 Photo: Boris Elshin © RIA Novosti

April 16

May 27—September 30

The Soviet Pavilion at the 44th Venice Biennale features the exhibition Rauschenberg to Us, We to Rauschenberg (see chapter 7).

In the USSR and Abroad: Seventy-Seven R ­ ussian Artists 1970–1990 at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, is a retrospective of Soviet unofficial and contemporary art. It includes the works shown in To the Object (April 18 – May 13).

October 18–28

The Art Myth art fair opens at the Central House of Artists. It is the first attempt to create a free art market in Russia.

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism takes place at Tacoma Art Museum, Washington (see chapter 9).

July 2—13

The 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the last in the history of the party, is held in Moscow. There is open conflict between the party faithful and members who support democratic reforms. Mikhail Gorbachev is reelected as General Secretary of the party's Central Committee. Boris Yeltsin announces that he is leaving the Communist Party and departs the meeting hall in protest.

To the Object takes place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (see chapter 6).

ИСKONSTВО takes place at Kulturhuset in Stockholm (see chapter 3).

September 22 — November 4

June 15 — September 9

September 1—November 4

An exhibition of works by Jean Tinguely takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4).

332

June 9 — October 7

The President signs a decree on the return of Soviet citizenship to émigré dissidents, writers, and artists, including Vasily Aksenov, Valery Chalidze, Lev Kopelev, Oskar Rabin, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

April 3 — May 3

Moscow and Leningrad are headed by radically minded democrat-reformers: Gavriil Popov is elected chairman of the Moscow Soviet, and on May 23,

Jewels in the Mud takes place at Tampere Art Museum and includes work by Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Mikhail Molochnikov, Marlen Shpindler, Evgeny Svyatsky, and Natalia Turnova.

August 15

Moskau. Mosca. Moskva at Sala Umberto Bocconi in Milan, features Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Nikolai Kozlov, Maria Serebriakova, Alexei Shulgin, and Anatoly Shuravlev.

April 9—June 18

Territory of Art takes place at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (see chapter 8).

September 12

Worker, an exhibition of women artists, opens at the exhibition hall at 26 Oktyabrskaya Street in Moscow. Participants include Anna Alchuk, Elena Elagina, Maria Konstantinova, Vera Miturich-Khlebnikova, and Irina Nakhova.

The Art Myth art fair, Central House of Artists, Moscow, 1990

November 1—January 6, 1991

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism takes place at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (see chapter 9).

November 23–25

In Grozny, the Chechen National Congress is held, declaring itself the supreme forum for national power of the Chechen republic. Dzhokhar Dudaev, who heads the separatist movement, is elected chairman.

December 1

For the first time since the Second World War, ration cards for foodstuffs are introduced.

December 28 — April 16, 1991

Other Art: Moscow 1956–1976, the first major retrospective of Moscow unofficial art, takes place at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. An eponymous book, compiled by Leonid Talochkin and Irina Alpatova, is published to mark the exhibition.

333

1991 January 11—13

The confrontation between Lithuania, asserting its independence, and the leadership of the Soviet Union continues. On January 11, Soviet paratroopers seize various public buildings. Following an appeal from the Lithuanian government, thousands of Vilnius' citizens come out to protect the buildings of the Supreme Soviet, the radio center, and the television tower. Soldiers and military equipment enter the city. In the storming of the television tower, fourteen civilians are killed and hundreds injured.

January 13 — February 22

Perspectives of Conceptualism, an exhibition by the Avant-Garde Club organized by Joseph Backstein, takes place at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery in Honolulu. During 1991 and 1992, the exhibition tours to the Clocktower Gallery in New York and North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

January 15

ETA group performs the action Index Finger outside the American Embassy in Moscow in protest at the war in the Persian Gulf.

February 16 — March 21

Entre Terre et Ciel takes place at L’Hôpital éphémère squat in Paris and includes work by Ross Bleckner, Fischli & Weiss, Francisco Infante, Alain Jacquet, Nikola Ovchinnikov, and Thomas Ruff.

February 16—March 31

Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism takes place at Des Moines Art Center in Des Moines (see chapter 9).

March 9—29

Back to Square One takes place at Berman-E. N. Gallery in New York. Artists including Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Francisco Infante, Leonid Lamm, Lydia Masterkova, Boris Orlov, Leonid Sokov, Eduard Steinberg, and Alexander Yulikov.

March 25 — April 25

MANI Museum: 40 Moskauer KÜnstler, an exhibition of artists from the Moscow conceptual school, takes place at the Karmelitenkloster in Frankfurt-am-Main. Artists include Yuri Albert, Nikita Alexeev, Ivan Chuikov, Collective Actions, Elena Elagina, Andrei Filippov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, George Kiesewalter, Igor Makarevich, Andrei Monastyrsky, Irina Nakhova, Dmitri Prigov, Vladimir Sorokin, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

April 12—2 June

ETA group performing the action Index Finger, Moscow, January 15, 1991

January 20

In Riga, a special forces detachment seizes the ­Internal Affairs Ministry, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.

February 5 — March 5

An exhibition of works by James Rosenquist takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4).

334

Binationale: Soviet Art Around 1990, curated by Jürgen Harten, takes place at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf. Participants include Siim-Tanel Annus, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika), Igor Chatskin, Georgy Guryanov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Andrei Monastyrsky, Timur Novikov, Dmitri Prigov, Valentin Raevsky, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Sergei Volkov, Dmitry Vrubel, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. From August to November, the exhibition is shown at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. On March 13, 1992, it opens at the Central House of Artists.

May 18 — June 23

Soviet Contemporary Art — From Thaw to Perestroika takes place at Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo. Organized by the Contemporary Art Department of the Tsaritsyno Museum in Moscow, the exhibition includes works by all generations of Moscow’s unofficial art world — from the Lianozovo group to Inspection Medical Hermeneutics.

June 2 — August 31

An exhibition of the collection of Pacquita MiroEscoffé, Moscou–Leningrad–Tbilissi, takes place at the Nouveau Theatre d’Angers. It includes works by the classics of Moscow Conceptualism, artists of the Moscow and Leningrad New Waves, and Georgian painters.

August 23

Mikhail Gorbachev dissolves the government of the Soviet Union and announces his departure from the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He transfers command of the strategic nuclear forces to Yeltsin.

June 12

Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the RSFSR. Alexander Rutskoi, leader of the Communists for Democracy parliamentary faction, becomes vice president.

June 28—July 26

An exhibition of works by Jannis Kounellis takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 4).

August 13

APT-ART International starts in Moscow (see chapter 10).

August 19

The State Committee on the State of Emergency (SCSE) is formed, comprising vice president Gennady Yanaev, Head of the Cabinet of Ministers Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, and others. The SCSE is also supported by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Anatoly Lukyanov. It takes over leadership of the country while Mikhail Gorbachev is blockaded at a government dacha in Crimea and isolated from power. The military is deployed in Moscow. A ban on demonstrations and strikes is introduced. Public response comes in the form of mass anti-communist meetings across the country. In Moscow, thousands of people came out to protect the White House, where the Supreme Soviet of Russia is in session. Boris Yeltsin declares the actions of the SCSE a coup and arrives at the White House. On the night of August 20, a confrontation between the army and the defenders of the White House results in three deaths. On August 22, Gorbachev returns to Moscow, the SCSE is dissolved, and its members arrested.

Military hardware outside the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR during the August putsch, Moscow, 1991 Photo: Aleksei Fedoseev © RIA Novosti

September 2

In Moscow, the extraordinary 5th (and final) Congress of the Soviet of People’s Deputies of the USSR elects a State Council of the USSR which, on September 5, recognizes the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

September 10

Aesthetic Experiments, curated by Viktor Misiano, opens in the park and pavilions of the State Museum of Ceramics on the Kuskovo estate in Moscow. Participants include the AES group, Olga Chernysheva, Andrei Filippov, Dmitry Gutov, Valery Koshlyakov, and Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova.

November 6

Boris Yeltsin takes on the responsibilities of the chairman of the government of Russia.

December 25

The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopts a new name for the country — the Russian Federation. Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union. Over the Kremlin, the Soviet flag is lowered and the Russian flag is raised.

335

1992 January

Humanitarian aid from Western Europe begins to arrive in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Foodstuffs with a total value of 200 million ECUs (European Currency Unit, the precursor to the euro) are imported into the country.

January 2

A series of radical market reforms based on a “shock therapy” plan developed by Yegor Gaidar’s team gets underway in Russia, with the government opting to “ease prices” for consumer goods, thereby eliminating state control over pricing. The price of consumer goods skyrockets, while salaries remain at existing levels. Inflation, which by August has reached 92.9 % , eats up the lion’s share of personal earnings and around 80 % of Russians suddenly find themselves below the poverty line.

April 6

The 6th Congress of People's Deputies of Russia in Moscow exposes the growing conflict between the government and parliament. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov makes a speech criticizing the economic policies of Yegor Gaidar’s government. In turn, Russian President Boris Yeltsin praises the early results of the reforms in his report, even as deputies recognize the actions of the government as unsatisfactory.

April 20

New Name, organized by TV Gallery and c­ urators Andrei Erofeev and Evgenia Kikodze, opens at the Moscow Palace of Youth. It brings together works by thirteen artists from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, winners of a television competition. Georgy Guryanov is selected as the overall winner.

Kharitonov, George Kiesewalter, Valery Koshlyakov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Ivan Kuskov, Pavel Lila, Dmitry Lion, Vladimir Naumetz, Vladimir Nemukhin, Anton Olschwang, Dmitri Plavinsky, Svyatoslav Ponomarev, Sergei Shablavin, Aleksei Tegin, and Anatoly Zverev. The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet AvantGarde 1915—1932 takes place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (see chapter 11).

June 13 — September 20

September 23 — October 23

June 5—August 23

Ilya Kabakov’s installation The Toilet (1992) is shown as part of Documenta 9 in Kassel.

February 23

An exhibition organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Avant-Garde Club opens at Butyrskaya Prison in Moscow. Curated by Joseph Backstein and Elena Elagina with the help of presidential adviser Galina Starovoitova, the corridors of the prison are hung with works by Moscow Conceptualists Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Andrei Filippov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina, Irina Nakhova, and Vadim Zakharov. Ilya Kabakov’s album Sitting-in-the-Closet Primakov is shown in the wing for dangerous prisoners. At the private view, prisoners mix freely with Moscow’s art world.

The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet AvantGarde 1915–1932 takes place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (see chapter 11).

March 1—May 10

The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet AvantGarde 1915—1932 takes place at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (see chapter 11).

336

October 17 — November 30

Viktor Misiano curates the Russian participation in the 3rd Istanbul Biennale. Artists include Andrei Filippov, Dmitry Gutov, and Andrei Osmolovsky.

May 28

June — September

The Classical Museum and Modernity (New Acquisitions) takes place at the Pushkin Museum. It features works by artists from Moscow’s unofficial art scene — Ilya Kabakov, Ernst Neizvestny, Ülo Sooster, Oleg Tselkov, and Anatoly Zverev — which have been acquired by the museum.

June 3 — July 5

Moscow Romanticism takes place at the Central House of Artists. Curated by Natalya Briling and Sergei Kuskov, the exhibition features works by nonconformists of different generations from the collection of Karat. Participants include Gor Chahal, Dmitry Demsky, Dmitry Gutov, Francisco Infante, Alexander

Dangerous Liaisons, an exhibition in three parts, takes place at the Contemporary Art Center in Moscow. The first part is curated by Viktor Misiano. Participants include Erik Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov, Andrei Monastyrsky, Mikhail Roginsky, Boris Turetsky, and Vadim Zakharov.

September 25—December 15

Diaspora, an exhibition of contemporary Jewish artists from Russia, takes place at the Central House of Artists. Participants include Grisha Bruskin, Erik Bulatov, and Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid. Sots-Art, an exhibition from the collection of the Tsaritsyno Museum, opens at the Lenin Museum in Moscow. Participants include Erik Bulatov, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Nikolai Kozlov, Alexander Kosolapov, Rostislav Lebedev, Sergei Mironenko, Nest group, Timur Novikov, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Boris Orlov, Dmitri Prigov, Leonid Sokov, and Toadstool group.

September 18

Waste Products, curated by Andrei Erofeev, opens in the temporary space of the National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) at the Plastov Museum in Moscow. As a result of complaints by representatives of the Union of Artists about the theme of the exhibition, NCCA loses the right to use the space.

May 20 — June 7

A privatization voucher of the type given to Russian citizens in 1992 Photo: Igor Mikhalev © RIA Novosti

Portland Community College, Portland (February — March 24, 1993).

Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Andrei Kovalev, Joseph Backstein, and Ilya Kabakov next to Kabakov’s installation at Documenta 9, Kassel, 1992

August 14

President Boris Yeltsin signs the decree “On the Introduction of a System of Privatization Vouchers in the Russian Federation.” The assets of the country’s companies are assessed at 1.4 trillion rubles, and vouchers are issued in 10,000‑ruble denominations against this sum.

December 9

The project Humanitarian Aid: Parcels for Germany is launched at the Central House of Artists. Works by artists including Georgy Aganyan, Andei Bilzho, Andrei Filippov, Maria Konstantinova, Igor Makarevich, Anton Olschwang, Boris Orlov, Dmitri Prigov, and Sergei Vorontsov are packed in boxes and sent to Germany in trucks belonging to the company Technischen Hilfswerk, which usually delivers humanitarian aid from Germany to Russia. The consignment is shown from January 7 to 13, 1993 at Traenenpalast in Berlin.

August 24 — September 18

14 from Vladivostok: An Exhibition takes place at Washington State University, Pullman. Artists include: Sergei Drobnokhod, Victor Fyodorov, Andrey Kamalov, Valery Karpenko, Alexander Kiryakhno, Alexander Kutsenko, Evgeny Makeev, Alexander Pyrkov, Victor Serov, Sergei Simakov, Valery Shapranov, Margarita Snytko, Ryurik Tushkin, and Ilyas Zinatalin. The exhibition tours to Seattle, Washington (November 2 — December 6), Port Angeles, Washington (December 11 — February 15, 1993), and Northview Gallery,

337

1993 January 3

Russian President Boris Yeltsin and US President George Bush sign an agreement in Moscow on the further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive warheads, referred to as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-II). The meeting between Yeltsin and Bush is hailed as a triumph of reconciliation between the two superpowers at the outset of the twenty-first century, though while the agreement is ratified by both sides, it never actually goes into effect.

March 20

In a television address to the Russian people, President Boris Yeltsin announces the adoption of the decree according to which all power is transferred to the president and the government pending a constitutional referendum set for April 25.

March 26

An unscheduled 9th Congress of People's Deputies of Russia is held, at which the actions of Boris Yeltsin are judged “an attempted coup d'état.” Parliamentary debates take place amid mass demonstrations by supporters and opponents of Yeltsin.

March 30 — May 1

The War Continues (A Model for Aesthetic Revolution in Contemporary Socio-Cultural Conditions) takes place at the Contemporary Art Center, curated by Anatoly Osmolovsky. Participants include Alexander Brener, Nikolai Khalezin, Vladimir Markov, Anton Nikolaev, Dmitry Pimenov, Alexander Revizorov, and Vasily Shugalei.

April 22 — May 15

The RINAKO collection of contemporary art, created by businessman Konstantin Borovoi and curator Olga Sviblova, is exhibited at the Central House of Artists. Artists include Pavel Aksenov, Yuri Albert, Nikita Alexeev, Andrey Bezukladnikov, Gor Chahal, Igor Chatskin, Ivan Chuikov, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Konstantin Reunov, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochetova, Aidan Salakhova, Maria Serebriakova, Igor Shelkovsky, Oleg Tistol, Sergei Volkov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

April 28 — August 2

The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet AvantGarde 1915–1932 takes place at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (see chapter 11).

May 1

Dissatisfied with the policies of the government and the results of the referendum, opposition h ­ ardliners organize a protest march under the banner of the National Salvation Front and the left-wing party Working Russia (Trudovaya Rossiya), attended by thousands of people. Demonstrators engage in open confrontation with the forces of law and order, leaving one police officer dead, while around 600 protesters sustain injuries.

May 25 — August 21

Provisional Address for Russian Contemporary Art takes place at the Musée de la Poste in Paris, curated by Nikita Alexeev and Yulia Tocaier. Artists include Ivan Chuikov, Elena Elagina and Igor Makarevich, Andrei Filippov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Irina Nakhova, Peppers group, Sergei Volkov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

June 14 — October 10 A flyer for the exhibition The War Continues, Contemporary Art Center, Moscow, 1993

338

Ilya Kabakov represents Russia at the 45th Venice Biennale with his installation Red Pavilion. Anatoly Osmolovsky also participates in the Aperto exhibition of young artists that takes place within the framework

of the biennale, presenting his photographic works Chaos Is My Home! and A Third is Superfluous.

July 24

As a result of financial reforms, the old Soviet banknotes are withdrawn from circulation. A period of just two weeks is given for people to exchange their old rubles, which causes panic. In order to avert popular unrest, the authorities make concessions on the time period and on the sums allowed to be exchanged.

September 11—12

A Russian-Dutch festival of performances and installations, Exchange, takes place on the streets of Moscow. Russian participants include Olga Chernysheva, Vladimir Dubossarsky, FenSo group, Vadim Fishkin, Ilya Kitup, Valery Koshlyakov, Yuri Leiderman, Sergei Leontiev, Georgy Litichevsky, Anton Olschwang, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Alexei Shulgin, Alexander Sigutin, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, and Dmitry Vrubel.

September 21

President Boris Yeltsin issues a decree abolishing the Congress of People’s Deputies and dissolving the Supreme Council of Russia, simultaneously announcing elections for a two-chamber parliament. By issuing such a decree, Yeltsin violates the Russian constitution and provokes a political crisis, a fact which is announced at a meeting of the Supreme Council, which ignores the decree and rules that the president should be removed from power. On September 23, the 10th Congress of People’s Deputies — mostly comprised of communists, socialists, and nationalists — begins at the barricaded White House. Clashes between OMON security forces loyal to the president and supporters of the abolished parliament begin to break out on the streets of Moscow. People of all political hues converge on the White House, united by their opposition to Yeltsin’s reforms. Many are armed. On September 28, the building is cordoned off by soldiers, who surround it with barbed wire and cut off the electricity, telephone lines, and water supply.

October 2 — November 7

Context Art: The Art of the 90s takes place at Künstlerhaus Graz, curated by Peter Weibel. Artists include Olga Chernysheva, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, and Anton Olschwang.

A column of tanks crosses New Arbat Bridge in Moscow on October 5, 1993. Photo: Strelnikov © RIA Novosti

October 4

Violence breaks out between the armed supporters of parliament and police units, and the first shots are fired. On the morning of October 4, the White House is shelled by tanks that have taken up position on the nearest bridge over the river, and the building is attacked by troops in armored personnel carriers. The insurgency is eventually put down and its leaders arrested, but skirmishes continue for several more days. Almost 150 people die during the unrest.

November 21 — February 27, 1994

Stalin's Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism 1932–1956 takes place at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (see chapter 12).

December 9–12

The 1st Art Hamburg international fair of contemporary East European art takes place, organized by Rudolph Zwirner. In parallel, Ilya Kabakov’s exhibition Noma opens at Hamburg’s Kunsthalle and the K ­ unstverein shows an exhibition by Inspection Medical Hermeneutics.

December 12

Elections are held for a new parliament, which now consists of two chambers — the State Duma and the Federation Council. The results of the elections come as a shock to the government and pro-Yeltsin supporters. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, wins the most votes, while the democrats of Yegor Gaidar’s Choice of Russia (Vybor Rossii) party suffer a defeat.

339

1994 January 12 — February 4

The Art of Modern Photography: Russia, Ukraine, Belarussia, curated by Evgeny Berezner, takes place at Central House of Artists. Participants include Yuri Babich, Nikolai Bakharev, Andrey Bezukladnikov, Sergei Borisov, Sergei Bratkov, Vita Buivid, Sergei Chilikov, Vladislav Efimov, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Sergei Leontiev, Tatyana Liberman, Boris Mikhailov, Igor Mukhin, Ilya Piganov, Yuri Rybchinsky, Maria Serebriakova, and Alexei Shulgin.

January 13

On US President Bill Clinton’s official visit to Russia, he and Boris Yeltsin sign the so-called “Moscow Declaration,” which guarantees that the two countries will no longer aim their nuclear weapons at one another.

January 21

Hamburg project, an experimental exhibition, curated by Viktor Misiano and a team of artists including Vadim Fishkin, Dmitry Gutov, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Yuri Leiderman, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Guia Rigvava, and Alexei Shulgin, opens at the Contemporary Art Center. It is the conclusion of the “Hamburg Project,” which began in autumn 1993 with Art Hamburg.

May 27

After twenty years in exile, writer and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia. He arrives at the far eastern port of Magadan by plane from the US and crosses Russia by train, from Vladivostok to Moscow. On October 28, Solzhenitsyn speaks in front of the State Duma, sharply criticizing the current course being taken by the government.

June 10—19

Renaissance and Resistance, an exhibition of photography in art curated by Ekaterina Andreeva and Timur Novikov, takes place at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum. It includes classical photography and work by contemporary artists such as Denis Egelsky, Konstantin Goncharov, Georgy Guryanov, Irena Kuksenaite, David LaChapelle, Robert Mapplethorpe, Oleg Maslov and Viktor Kuznetsov, Timur Novikov, Pierre et Gilles, Aidan Salakhova, Anatoly Shuravlev, Sergei Shutov, Olga Tobreluts, and Inna and Dmitry Topolsky.

July 28

Four Chechen terrorists hijack a passenger bus near Pyatigorsk in Stavropol Krai. Three women and a 14‑year-old girl are killed during the attempt to free the hostages. Pressure builds not only in the rebellious Chechen Republic where a civil war is unfolding, but in nearby territories as well.

September

The cult magazine of the 1990s generation, Ptyuch, is launched. In autumn, a club of the same name opens in Moscow, becoming a key site for the arts scene and the capital’s “in-crowd.”

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe on the cover of the second issue of Ptyuch magazine, 1994

The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet AvantGarde 1915–1932 takes place at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (see chapter 11).

340

The Artist Instead of the Artwork (A Leap into the Void) takes place at the Central House of Artists in Moscow (see chapter 6).

October 11

On this day, later known as Black Tuesday, the national currency crashes. The ruble falls by more than 27 % against the US dollar. Chairman of the ­Central Bank Viktor Gerashenko and acting Finance Minster Sergei Dubinin are dismissed from their positions.

December 11

March 24—July 21

May 18 — June 19

Miners in the Kuznetsk Basin go on strike and block the Trans-Siberian Railroad in protest at the almost six-month delay in the payment of wages.

Self-Identification: Tendencies in the Art of Petersburg from 1970 to the Present Day, curated by Ekaterina Andreeva, Kathrin Becker, Vladimir Perts, and Barbara Straka, opens at the Stadtgalerie Sophienhof in Kiel. Artists range from the central figures of the 1970s to the New Academicians. The exhibition tours to IFA Galerie, Berlin (from January 26, 1995); Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (from February 3, 1995); Oslo National Museum (from April 8, 1995); Sopot Gallery of the Arts, Sopot (from June 17, 1995); and the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (from January 11, 1996).

Fluchtpunkt Moskau, curated by Boris Groys, takes place at the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen (see chapter 13).

Boris Yeltsin makes an official visit to Germany. Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Russian president agree to a procedure for the removal of all Russian troops from German territory, which is completed on August 31. The public takes note of the visit thanks due to Yeltsin’s eccentric behavior: at a reception, Yeltsin grabs the conductor’s baton and starts to conduct a military orchestra.

October 5

November 19

February 24 — June 12

May 11—13

Art Museum, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette (January 21– March 30, 1996).

Timur Novikov and Ekaterina Andreeva at the opening of Renaissance and Resistance, St. Petersburg, 1994 Petersburg Video Archive Courtesy Ekaterina Andreeva

July 8—25

Russian Artists of the 90s (Towards the Moscow International Biennial of Contemporary Art), organized by the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Moscow Biennial Cultural Association, and curated by Enrico Komi, takes place at the Central House of Artists. Participants include Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Yuri Leiderman, Maria Serebriakova, Anatoly Shuravlev, Vadim Zakharov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

September 15

An exhibition to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Bulldozer Exhibition takes place at the Dom 100 exhibition hall by Belyaevo metro station in Moscow. The participants — Vitaly Komar and Alexander ­Melamid, Lydia Masterkova, Vladimir Nemukhin, Oskar Rabin, Evgeny Rukhin, and Yuri Zharkikh — had all been part of the original exhibition.

Under an order from the Russian President, “On efforts to re-establish constitutional law and order on the territory of the Chechen Republic,” a subdivision of the Unified Group of Armed Forces, which includes troops from both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ domestic forces, enters Chechnya. Heavy fighting commences almost immediately, with Russian forces sometimes losing to the Chechens. On December 31, the command decides to storm Grozny, and thus begins the First Chechen War.

September 25 — November 6

New Russian Art: Paintings from the Christian Keesee Collection takes place at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman. It later tours to the Chicago Cultural Center, Illinois (July 15–September 24, 1995) and the University

341

1995 February 16

President Boris Yeltsin addresses the Federal Assembly from the Kremlin. He states that the main tasks of the government include re-establishing peace in Chechnya, deepening consensus, continuing economic reforms, and preparing for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

March 4 — April 23

Kunst im Verborgenen: Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995 takes place at the Wilhelm-Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen am Rhein (see chapter 14).

March 10

Museum Ludwig in the Russian Museum opens at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. The exhibition comprises works by Russian and Western postwar artists that have been gifted to the Russian Museum by German collector Peter Ludwig. Russian artists include Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Ilya Kabakov, Viktor Pivovarov, Eduard Steinberg, and Vladimir Yankilevsky.

March 30

May 7—June 8

Kunst im Verborgenen: Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995 takes place at Documenta-Halle in Kassel (see chapter 14).

May 9

Russia celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War. Celebrations in Moscow bring together world leaders, from US President Bill Clinton to Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, Jiang Zemin.

Summer

The Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Consciousness is a Thing that the World Must Acquire, Whether it Wants it or Not, is curated by Viktor Misiano with architect Evgeny Asse and features the artists Vadim Fishkin and Dmitry Gutov.

June 1 — August 30

Kräftemessen: Eine Ausstellung ost-östlicher Positionen innerhalb der westlichen Welt takes place at Kunstlerwerkstatt in Munich, initiated by Haralampi Oroschakoff, a German artist with Russian roots. The exhibition comprises three sections: Damaged Utopia, curated by Margariya Tupitsyn; Privatization, curated by Boris Groys; and Conjugation: The Moscow Scene Today, curated by Viktor Misiano. The exhibition No Man’s Land: Art From the Near Abroad, Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, 1995 © Vadim Zakharov

March 25 — June 11

No Man’s Land: Art from the Near Abroad takes place at Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen. Participants include Alexander Brener, Igor Chatskin, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Oleg Kulik and Lyudmila Bredikhina, Yuri Leiderman, Andrei Monastyrsky, Anatoly Osmolovsky, and Vadim Zakharov.

342

Moskau. I. Zeitgenössische Russische Fotokunst; Werkstatt Moskau. II. Einblicke; and Werkstatt Moskau. III. Itogi / Ergebnisse Abschlussausstellung der Stipendiaten. The organizer of the project is the Berlin Arts Academy. Participants include AES group, Yuri Albert, Vladimir Arkhipov, Aristarkh Chernyshev, Vladislav Efimov, FenSo group, Andrei Filippov, Vadim Fishkin, Dmitry Gutov, Alexander Konstantinov, Sergei Leontiev, Tatyana Liberman, Boris Mikhailov, Igor Mukhin, Larisa Rezun-Zvezdochotova, Alexander Sigutin, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Sergei Vorontsov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

Signs and Wonder: Niko Pirosmani and Contemporary Art, curated by Bice Curiger, opens at Kunsthaus Zurich. Ilya Kabakov is the only Russian artist included among Western artists such as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Cindy Sherman. Oleg Kulik, who was not invited to take part, performs Reservoir Dog at the opening, throwing himself at people and barking.

The city of Grozny, destroyed during the Chechen conflict Photo: Igor Mikhalev © RIA Novosti

They take around 2,000 hostages at a hospital. After two unsuccessful attempts to storm the building, federal authorities begin negotiations, resulting in the insurgents returning to Chechnya. Russian losses stand at 143 people, with more than 400 wounded. The terrorist act in Budyonnovsk generates a wave of protest. The heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service (FSB) are dismissed.

July 2—September 3

Kunst im Verborgenen: Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995 takes place at the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg (see chapter 14).

August 24

Drawings from the Moscow Scene takes place at Galerie Hohenthal & Littler in Munich. Participants include Nikita Alexeev, Vladimir Arkhipov, Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt, Olga Chernysheva, Andrei Filippov, Daniil Filippov, Vadim Fishkin, Maria Konstantinova, Georgy Litichevsky, Nikola Ovchinnikov, Alexander Petrelli, Dmitri Prigov, Sergei Vorontsov, and ­Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

Another financial crisis strikes the country, this time due to the collapse of the interbank credit system. On so-called Black Thursday, many banks find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy, and hundreds close. The volume of banking operations drastically decreases, while securities trading volume is up significantly — in an effort to cover their lack of credit funds, banks are unloading short-term government bonds. To salvage the situation, Russia’s Central Bank decides to buy up the bonds on very favorable terms. The banks, seeing the high profitability of the shortterm bonds, begin to invest in government securities. Gradually the short-term government bond market transforms into a financial pyramid, which in turn leads to the crisis and government default in 1998.

June 14

September 29 — January 17, 1996

June 2 — July 29

A group of militants, headed by Shamil Basaev, storms into the city of Budyonnovsk in Stavropol Krai.

Three exhibitions of works by Moscow artists take place at Galerie am Marstall in Berlin: Werkstatt

October 18

Multiplication, an exhibition of works from the Tsaritsyno Museum’s collection of contemporary art, opens at Sadovniki Gallery in Moscow. Participants include AES group, Nikita Alexeev, Mikhail Chernyshov, Ivan Chuikov, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Dmitry Gutov, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, Ilya Kabakov, Alexander Kosolapov, Oleg Kulik, Yuri Leiderman, Dmitri Prigov, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Alexander Yulikov, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov.

November

Loans for shares, a form of privatization of state property, are used for the first time. To make up for the absence of money in the country’s treasury, the ­Russian government places blocks of shares of large state enterprises up for auction. The most successful banks offer loans in exchange for the shares. If the loan is not returned the shares become the property of the banks and the commercial structures connected with them. This is how the most successful Russian oligarchs acquire their capital.

November

Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union: 1956–1986, a permanent exhibition of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection, opens at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Jersey.

November 15 — January 7, 1996

Flight — Departure — Disappearance: Moscow Conceptual Art takes place at Galerie hlavniho mesta Prahy in Prague. Participants include Yuri Albert, Erik Bulatov, lya Kabakov, Yuri Leiderman, Andrei Monastyrsky, Viktor Pivovarov, Anatoly Shuravlev, and Oleg Vassiliev. During 1996, the exhibition tours to Haus am Waldsee, Berlin and the Stadtgalerie im Sophienhof, Kiel.

343

1995 February 2—March 17

INTEЯPOL takes place at Färgfabriken in Stockholm (see chapter 15).

February 23

Fluxus: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. History without Borders opens at the Central House of Artists. It includes concerts and performances by representatives of the Fluxus movement, as well as works by Moscow Conceptualists from the collection of the Moscow Archive of New Art.

March 22 — April 21

Idyll and Catastrophe: Neo-Academism and Necrorealism from St. Petersburg takes place at the Arts Center in Erfurt. Artists include Andrej Barov, Viktoria Buivid, Denis Egelsky, Konstantin Goncharov, Vladimir Kustov, Viktor Kuznetsov, Timur Novikov, Aleksei Sokolov, Olga Tobreluts, Viktoria Ukhalova, Evgeny Yufit.

April 12 — May 12

The 1st Moscow International Month of Photography, organized by the Moscow House of Photography under the direction of Olga Sviblova, takes place at venues across the city.

Novikov, Aidan Salakhova, Anatoly Shuravlev, and Olga Tobreluts.

May 17 — June 2

The festival Berlin in Moscow: World without Borders, a cultural program accompanying Berlin — Moscow: 1900–1950, presents works by young German artists across sixteen venues in Moscow.

May 31 — June 6

The 1st Art Moscow art fair is held at the Central House of Artists. Unlike many other fairs held in Russia in the 1990s, Art Moscow will continue to take place for many years, until its final edition in 2013.

June 3 — July 10

Nonconformists: The Second Russian Avant-Garde 1955–1988. The Jacob and Kenda Bar-Gera Collection takes place at the Russian Museum. During 1996 and 1997, the exhibition tours to the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, Moscow; Kulturabteilung Bayer, Leverkuzen; and the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop.

June 16

Presidential elections are held. In February, Boris Yeltsin’s popularity rating is just 6 % , and his chances of winning the election appear minimal. In order to provide Yeltsin with victory, huge financial and administrative resources are put into action. The richest people in the country give him their support. The entire arsenal of political propaganda, including the most influential mass media resources, are committed to boosting Yeltsin's rating as a candidate and discrediting his opponents, particularly the leader of the communists, Gennady Zyuganov. As a result, Boris Yeltsin receives 35 % of the votes, and Zyuganov comes in second with 32 % . Third in the election is the candidate put forward by the nationalist party, the Congress of Russian Communities, the professional soldier Alexander Lebed, with 15 % of the vote. On June 18, Lebed is appointed Secretary of the Russian Defense Council and aide to the President on national security. On July 3, Boris Yeltsin is ­victorious in the second round of voting.

June 9 — August 19

The 1st Manifesta European Biennial of Contemporary Art takes place in Rotterdam, curated by Rosa Martinez, Viktor Misiano, Katalyn Neray, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Andrew Renton. Participants include Olafur Eliasson, Vadim Fishkin, Dmitry Gutov, IRWIN, Alexei Isaev, Oleg Kulik and Lyudmila Bredikhina, Yuri Leiderman, Arsen Savadov and Georgii Senchenko, Nedko Solakov, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Jaan Toomik.

The main exhibition of the 1st Moscow International Month of Photography, House of the Artist, Kuznetsky Most, Moscow, 1996

April 14 — June 9

June 14 — August 20

Metaphors of Renunciation takes place at the Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. It brings together works by New Academy artists from St. Petersburg and Moscow, including Andrey Bezuklandikov, Denis Egelsky, Georgy Guryanov, Oleg Maslov and Viktor Kuznetsov, Bella Matveeva, Ivan Movsesyan, Timur

344

Along the Frontiers, an exhibition of American video art, takes place at the Russian Museum. It includes works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Anne Hamilton, Bruce Nauman, and Bill Viola.

The 1st Moscow Forum of Arts Initiatives, organized by the Soros Center for Contemporary Art, takes place at Maly Manege in Moscow. It comprises a series of exhibitions, including Back to Photography; shows by Slovenian and Latvian artists; and Aesthetic Relations Between Art and Reality, curated by Elena Romanova, Aidan Salakhova, and Elena Selina.

August 31

In the Dagestani village of Khasavyurt, Alexander Lebed and head of the general staff of the Chechen forces Aslan Maskhadov sign an agreement bringing to an end what is subsequently dubbed the First Chechen War.

November 18 — December 3

New Russian Classicism takes place at Utempus Gallery in Vilnius. Participants include Andrei Bez­ ukladnikov, Vita Buivid, Denis Egelsky, FenSo group, Georgy Guryanov, Irena Kuksenaite, Oleg Maslov and Viktor Kuznetsov, Bella Matveeva, Timur Novikov, Egor Ostrov, Mikhail Rozanov, Aidan Salakhova, Anatoly Shuravlev, Sergei Shutov, and Olga Tobreluts.

December

Personal Time: The Art of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia 1945–1996 takes place at the Manege in St. Petersburg. Organized by Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, and the regional Soros contemporary art centers (Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, and St. Petersburg), the exhibition features around 400 works by forty-five artists.

June 10

During negotiations in the Ingush town of Nazran, representatives of the federal authorities and the Chechen separatists reach an agreement on the cessation of military actions, the removal of the Russian forces from the territory of Chechnya, the disarmament of the guerrilla detachments, and the holding of free, democratic elections for the post of president of the Republic.

August 1—15

December 9

The 1st Art Manege art fair opens at the Manege.

December 20 — January 19, 1997 President Boris Yeltsin performs at a concert organized to support him, Ekaterinburg, 1996 Photo: Vladimir Rodionov © RIA Novosti

July 9

Alexander Lebed announces the resumption of military action on the territory of Chechnya. Russian aviation carries out strikes on Chechen separatist bases in the mountains. In response, on August 6, the guerrillas begin to storm Grozny. Following prolonged battles, Russian forces retreat.

Tallinn — Moscow: 1956–1985, an exhibition exploring the interrelationships between the unofficial artists of the two cities, takes place at the Kunstihoone in Tallinn. Participants include Erik Bulatov, Francisco Infante, Ilya Kabakov, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Leonhard Lapin, Malle Leis, Raul Meel, Ülo Sooster, Oleg Vassiliev, and Tõnis Vint.

345

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Ruth Addison (b. 1965) is Chief Editor at

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.

Mikhail Bode (b. 1956) is a journalist and art

historian. From 1985 to 2006, he was International Art Editor and then Deputy Director at Iskusstvo magazine. He has worked as a columnist for Kommersant and Culture newspapers and for the gazeta.ru portal, as well as an editor at Artchronika magazine and The Art Newspaper Russia. He has translated a number of books and catalogues from French to Russian.

Simon de Pury (b. 1951) is the Founder of de Pury de Pury. From 2000 to 2012, he was Chairman and Chief Auctioneer of Phillips de Pury & Company. Earlier in his career, he was Chairman Europe and Chief Auctioneer Worldwide at Sotheby’s. He was also curator of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. In 2010, he was the subject of the BBC documentary The Man with the Golden Gavel. In 2010 and 2011, he was a mentor on Bravo’s reality TV show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. Andrei Erofeev (b. 1956) is an art historian

and curator. From 1989 to 2002, he worked at the Tsaritsyno Museum, where he founded the Contemporary Art Department. In 2002, he moved with the collection he created at Tsaritsyno to the State Tretyakov Gallery, where he was Head of the Contemporary Art Department until 2008. Since 2008, Erofeev has been an independent curator. Exhibitions organized include: Post-Pop: East Meets West (with Marco Livingstone and Chang Tsong-Zung), Saatchi Gallery, London (2014); Breaking the Ice: Moscow Art 1960–1980s, Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); Sots Art: 346

Political Art in Russia from 1972 to the Present Day, Maison Rouge, Paris (2007); Kunst im Verborgenen, Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Documenta-Halle, Kassel, Lindenau Museum, Altenburg, and Manege, Moscow (1995–1996); The Artist Instead of the Artwork, Central House of Artists, Moscow (1994); In Rooms, Dom Kultury, Bratislava (1991); and To the Object, Sadovniki Exhibition Hall, Moscow and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1990).

Kate Fowle (b. 1971) is Chief Curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Boris Groys (b. 1947) is a philosopher and

curator. He is currently Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, New York. Exhibitions organized include: Specters of Communism: Contemporary Russian Art, James Gallery and e-flux Exhibition Space, New York (2015); Total Enlightenment. Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960–1990, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt and Fondacion March, Madrid (2008–2009); Dream Factory Communism (with Zelfira Tregulova), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2003); and Fluchtpunkt Moskau, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen (1994). Publications include: Going Public (Berlin / New York: Sternberg Press, 2010); and Art Power (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).

Alanna Heiss (b. 1943) is a curator and arts organizer. She was the Founder and Director of PS1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1) from 1976 to 2008. Her exhibitions at PS1 include: Gino de Dominicis (2008), Arctic Hysteria (2008), Tunga (2007); John Lurie, Works on Paper (2006); Jon Kessler, The Palace at 4 a.m. (2005); Greater New York (2000

and 2005); Alex Katz: Under the Stars, American Landscapes 1951–1995 (1998); Stalin’s Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932–1956 (1993); David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble, 1969–1990 (1991); Casinò Fantasma (1990); Robert Ryman (1977); New York, New Wave (1981); and Rooms (1976). She is currently Director of Clocktower Productions, originally founded as the Clocktower Gallery in 1972. As the Director of Clocktower, she has curated solo and group exhibitions with artists including James Franco, Shoplifter, Michael Stipe, Jene Highstein, Japanther, and Dale Henry.

Jean-Hubert Martin (b. 1944) is an art historian

and curator. He is currently President of the SAM award for contemporary art selection committee (since 2010), President of the Palais de Tokyo steering c­ ommittee, and President of the artistic, scientific, and cultural committee at the Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres (since 2015). Previous posts include Director of the Kunsthalle Bern, the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée national des arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie in Paris, and the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. Exhibitions organized include: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s The Strange City, Grand Palais, Paris (2014); Africa Remix, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005) and Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf (2004); Kunst im Verborgenen, WilhelmHack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Documenta-Halle, Kassel, Lindenau Museum, Altenburg, and Manege, Moscow (1995–1996); Magiciens de la Terre, Centre Pompidou, Paris (1989); Ilya Kabakov, Kunsthalle Bern (1985); Paris — Moscow 1900–1930, Pushkin Museum, Moscow (1981) and Centre Pompidou, Paris (1979); and Kazimir Malevich, Centre Pompidou, Paris (1978).

Andrey Misiano (b. 1987) is Assistant Curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Viktor Misiano (b. 1957) is a curator, editor,

and critic. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Moscow Art Magazine. Exhibitions organized include: Ornamentalism: Latvian Contemporary Art, Collateral Event of the 56th Venice

Biennale, Venice (2015); Impossible Community, State Museum of Contemporary Art of the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow (2011); Progressive Nostalgia: Art from the Former USSR, Centro per l’arte contemporanea, Prato, the Benaki Museum, Athens, Kumu, Tallinn, and Kiasma, Helsinki (2007); INTEЯPOL, Färgfabriken, Stockholm (1996); APT-ART International, various apartments, Moscow (1992); and Mosca: Terza Roma, Sala 1, Rome (1989).

Sasha Obukhova (b. 1967) is Curator of Garage

Archive Collection at Garage Museum of­ ­Contemporary Art.

David A. Ross (b. 1949) is an independent curator, teacher, writer, and musician. He is currently the Chairman of the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Art in New York City. He is a Co-Founder of the Artist Pension Trust, and serves as Director of the non-profit Artist Pension Trust Institute. Formerly, the Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1981–1990); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1991–1999); and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1999–2001), Mr. Ross began his museum career in 1971 as the world’s first curator of video art at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. Among the dozens of exhibitions he organized was Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism (1989). Tair Salakhov (b. 1928) is an artist and Vice

President of the Russian Academy of Arts. From 1984 to 1992, he was Head of the Department of Painting and Composition at the Surikov Institute, Moscow, and from 1973 to 1992 he was First Secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Solo exhibitions include: National Museum, Beijing (1995); Trenton City Museum, New Jersey (1988); Brandywine Museum, Pennsylvania (1988); Prague and Bratislava Museums (1980); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Madrid (1979). Salakhov’s work was included in the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow (1957) and the Venice Biennale (1963). 347

Aidan Salakhova (b. 1964) is an artist and

academician of the Russian Academy of Arts. Exhibitions include: Azerbaijan Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2011); Learning From Moscow, Dresden City Art Gallery, Dresden (2007); Ghost Busters, National Gallery Veletržní palác, Prague (2005); Neue Ansätze. Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Moskau, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (2003); After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Hamburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, and Ludwig Museum, Budapest (1999–2000); New Russian Classicism, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1997); and Rauschenberg to Us — We to Rauschenberg, Soviet Pavilion, Venice Biennale (1990).

Mary Angela Schroth (b. 1949) is Founding

Director of Sala 1, Italy’s oldest non-profit organization for experimental contemporary art. She is currently responsible for Development and Special Restoration Projects for the Patrons Office of the Arts in the Vatican Museums and President of the Salvatore Meo Foundation. Exhibitions organized include: Bangladesh and Iraq Pavilions, Venice Biennale (2011); Africa Comics, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2007); Orlan Retrospective, Sala 1, Rome (1996); South Africa Pavilion, Venice Biennale and Sala 1 (1992–1993); Mosca: Terza Roma, Sala 1, Rome (1989); and Gino De Dominicis, Rayburn Foundation, New York (1989).

Lisa Schmitz (b. 1952) is an artist. Her practice

primarily comprises spatial installations, environments, interventions in urban areas, inter-passive / inter-contemplative communication projects and photo series. Exhibitions include: Without Firm Ground — Vilém Flusser and the Arts, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2015); Bookhouse. La Forma delle Libro, MARCA Museo delle Arti, Catanzaro (2013); Le corps et l’espace, Les Anciens Abattoirs, Casablanca (2013); Moscow Time, Rudomino State Library for International Literature / NCCA / Art Biennale, Moscow (2009); InVerse Library, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2006);  / tmp / mapping_02 / fz_juelich, National Research Center, Jülich (2003); Art as Science — Science as Art, 348

Gemäldegalerie / Kulturforum, Berlin (2001); Mille Plateaux, Volksbühne, Berlin (1999); family nation tribe community Shift, HKW / NGBK, Berlin (1996); / tmp / in_pressis_verbis / villa_ aurora, Villa Aurora, Pacific Palisades (1995); Ars Electronica, Brucknerhaus, Linz (1995); Schattensprung, Center for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw (1994); WAPO, ADK, Berlin (1993); Biennale Balticum, Rauma (1992); ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/БерлинМосква, Construction Pavilion, VDNKh, Moscow (1989); ИСKUNSTВО: Moskau-Berlin/ Берлин-Москва, Künstlerbahnhof Westend, Berlin (1988).

Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism (co-curated), ICA, Boston, (1990); The Green Show, Exit Art, New York (1990); Sots Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1986); and Russian New Wave, Contemporary Russian Art Center of America, New York (1981). Tupitsyn has authored books and contributed to many exhibition catalogues and anthologies, including the forthcoming Moscow Vanguard Art, 1922–1992 (Yale University Press); The Soviet Photograph (Yale University Press, 1996); and Margins of Soviet Art: Socialist Realism to the Present (Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1989).

Sergei Serp (b. 1967) is an artist and writer.

Zelfira Tregulova (b. 1955) is Director of

Exhibitions include: Necrorealism, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2011); Letter from the Island, Galerie Orel Art UK, London (2009); In the USSR and Beyond, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1990); and Territory of Art, State Russian Museum, Leningrad (1990). Publications include: “Sergei Serp Talks to Nadja Romain,” TANK Magazine, no. 3 (2012); “Nekrorealism v MMOMA,” AroundArt.ru (2011); “To be Surprised — To Understand — To Contextualise — To Differentiate Necrorealism Today” in Letter from the Island (London: Galerie Orel Art UK, 2009); and “Serp ou l’artiste en castor,” Art Actuel (2008).

Margarita Tupitsyn (b. 1955) is an independent curator, scholar, and critic. Exhibitions organized include: Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism, Tate Modern, London (2009); Against Kandinsky, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2006); Verbal Photography: Ilya Kabakov, Boris Mikhailov, and the Moscow Archive of New Art (cocurated), Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves, Porto (2004); Malevich and Film, Fundação Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (2002); El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet, Sprengel Museum, Hanover (1999); Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s — 1980s (co-curated), Queens Museum, New York (1999); The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932 (co-curated), Guggenheim Museum, New York (1992); Between Spring and Summer:

architectural space, and paranormal electronic interference. Exhibitions include: Audioscopic Research Archive / Radar Works, Portikus, Frankfurt (2004); Venice Biennale (2001, 2003, and 2005); Sound Art — Sound as Media, ICC, Tokyo (2000); documenta X (1997); Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Manifesta (1996); and INTEЯPOL, Färgfabriken, Stockholm (1996).

The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Prior to her appointment in 2015, she was Director of the ROSIZO State Museum and Exhibition Center (from 2013) and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and International Relations of the Moscow Kremlin Museums (from 2002). In the 1990s, Tregulova worked as coordinator and curator of a number of major international shows of Russian art. Exhibitions organized include: Socialist Realisms (with Matthew Bown), Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2011); Russia!, Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2005–2006); The Russian Painters of the Knave of Diamonds Group: Between Cézanne and the Avant-Garde, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco (2004); Dream Factory Communism (with Boris Groys), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2003); Moscow-Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (1995); The Great Utopia: Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde 1915–1932, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1992); Amazons of the Avant-Garde, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Royal Academy, London (1999–2000).

Carl Michael von Hauswolff (b. 1956) is a

composer, visual artist, and curator. His main tools are recording devices (camera, tape deck, radar, sonar) which he uses in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, 349

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357

NAME INDEX This name index includes only those contemporary artists, curators, art historians, and administrators who were involved in the exhibitions featured in this book. For names of avant-garde and Socialist Realist artists shown in the exhibitions The Great Utopia and Stalin’s Choice please see chapters 11 and 12 respectively.

ABALAKOVA Natalia I 167, 220 ABALOVA Tatyana I 133 ABRAMOVIĆ Marina I 112 ABSALON I 112

BACKSTEIN Joseph I 8, 15, 26, 27, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 68, 70, 71, 72, 157, 160, 167, 199, 201, 204, 334, 336, 337, 350, 358 BACON Francis I 75, 77, 87, 88, 90, 329, 353, 358

ABRAMISHVILI Giya I 112, 133, 220, 316

BAKHCHANYAN Vagrich I 112, 220

ACCONCI Vito I 112

BALAKHOVSKAYA Faina I 185

ADAM Judy I 75, 353

BARRAN Julian I 51

AFRIKA (Sergei BUGAEV) I 145, 153, 157, 158, 200, 220, 319, 325, 328, 332, 334

BATKIN Peter I 51, 54

AGNETTI Vincenzo I 112 AKSENOV Pavel I 220, 333, 338

BAUERMEISTER Christiane I 185 BAUERMEISTER Tina I 63 BAUMEISTER Désirée I 59, 62, 64

ALBERS Johannes I 231

BAZHANOV Leonid I 26, 228, 327

ALBERT Yuri I 9, 21, 22, 33, 111, 112, 118, 119, 209, 220, 224, 225, 324, 329, 330, 331, 332, 334, 338, 343, 350

BECHTOLD Erwin I 112 BECKER Kathrin I 199, 341, 355

ALEXEEV Nikita I 10, 28, 59, 60, 62, 63, 68, 96, 111, 112, 167, 168, 220, 324, 325, 334, 338, 342, 343

BELYUTIN Ely I 180, 354

BELYAEV-GINTOVT Alexey I 342 BENSON Michael I 167

ÅMAN Jan I 231, 232, 236, 244, 245, 247

BERGER Matjaz I 167

ANDRE Carl I 145

BEZRUKOV Igor I 145

ANDREENKOV Vladimir I 111

BIGERT & BERGSTRÖM I 231

ANSELMO Giovanni I 145, 153

BEUYS Joseph I 86, 112, 145, 153, 310

BORUCH (STEINBERG) Boris I 219, 221 BOTIN Paloma I 51 BOURSAT Sophie I 145 BREDIKHINA Lyudmila I 247, 342, 344, 351

CHERNYSHEVA Olga I 111, 112, 209, 211, 112, 213, 214–217, 220, 318, 331, 335, 339, 342 CHILIKOV Sergei I 340

BRENER Alexander I 131, 169, 231–233, 236, 239, 244–247, 338, 342

CHUIKOV Ivan I 22, 51, 111, 112, 209, 216, 220, 222, 224, 225, 327, 328, 331, 333, 334, 336, 338, 342, 343

BREZNIK Maja I 167

CHUIKOVA Maria I 212, 214

BRIET Tieri I 145 BRODSKY Alexander I 157, 158

COLLECTIVE ACTIONS I 112, 157, 158, 220, 331, 334

BROODTHAERS Marcel I 112, 145

DANIELSSON Kirsten I 59

BRUNI Lev I 220

DAVID Nathalie I 145, 150, 152

BRUS Gunter I 112

DE MARIA Walter I 145

BRUSKIN Grisha I 51, 209 BUBLEX Alain I 112 BUGAEV Sergei (Afrika) I see AFRIKA BUGAYAN Armen I 220 BURDEN Chris I 112 BUREN Daniel I 57, 145, 147, 148, 153, 331 BURYI Igor I 220

DE PURY Simon I 31, 51, 53, 346, 366 DE SAINT PHALLE Niki I 154, 153 DE SIERRE Berclaz I 145 DEBENJAK Bozidat I 145, 153, 154 DEBIL (KONDRATIEV) Evgeny I 145 DEGOT Ekaterina I 21, 22, 25, 28, 34, 35, 167, 214, 215, 249, 314–320, 351 DELLBRUGGE & DE MOLL I 112

BIJELIĆ Milivoj I 167

BULATOV Erik I 8, 11, 33, 37–40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 53, 100, 200, 205, 209, 214, 216, 220, 222, 228, 326, 329, 330, 332–334, 336, 337, 342, 343, 345

ANTSEVA Darya I 113, 331

BILLGREN Ernst I 231, 245

CALLE Sophie I 112

DEUTSCHBAUER Julius I 112

ANUFRIEV Sergei I 33, 59, 62, 72, 157, 158, 162, 209, 212, 214, 217, 220, 331

BILTING Ulf I 231, 236

CATTELAN Maurizio I 231, 236, 247

DEVAUTOUR COLLECTION I 112

BIRCH James I 75, 90, 353

CAZAL Philippe I 112

DIDENKO Tatiana I 167

BIRSEL Selim I 145, 152

CLOSKY Claude I 112

DIE DAMEN I 112

BLOCK René I 63

COLLIN-THIÉBAUT Gérard I 112

DIMITRIJEVIC Braco

BOETTI Alighiero I 112

COUDRAY Michelle I 75

DJIKIA Alexander I 220

BOLTANSKI Christian I 112, 168, 331

ČUFER Eda I 167

DJORDEVIĆ Goran I 167

BOMBA COLORI I 62

CHATSKIN Igor I 220, 334, 338, 342

DOUGLAS Charlotte I 185, 190

BORDACHEV Sergei I 111, 112, 220, 328

CHERNIKHOV Iakov I 186

DOWLING John I 51

APPELT Dieter I 112 ARIUPIN Dmitri I 167 ASSE Eugene I 76, 86 AVANT-GARDE CLUB I 26, 35, 60, 62, 328, 329, 334, 336 AVVAKUMOV Yuri I 111, 113, 128, 157, 167, 220 358

DEMSKY Dmitry I 220, 331, 337 DESCENDRE Nadine I 112, 131

359

DRAGOMOSHCHENKO Ostap I 145

FINOGENOV Konstantin I 209

GUBENKO Nikolai I 185

JOUMIAC Michel I 112

DREHER Sabine I 112

FISCHLI Peter & David WEISS I 112, 334

DUBOSSARSKY Vladimir I 220, 339, 343

FISHKIN Vadim I 231, 236, 319, 331, 339, 340, 342, 343, 344

GUNDLAKH Sven I 9, 26, 57, 59, 62, 67, 72, 111, 220, 330, 331

KABAKOV Ilya I 16–18, 22, 24, 27, 32–34, 51, 53, 100, 111, 112, 118, 119, 135, 157, 158, 160, 200, 209, 211, 214–216, 220, 222, 227, 229, 317, 318, 324, 326, 327, 329, 330–334, 336–339, 342, 343, 345, 347, 348, 352, 353

DYBSKY Evgeni I 51, 327 DYSHLENKO Yuri I 51 DZHAFAROVA Svetlana I 185 EFIMOV Vladislav I 26, 340, 343 EGELSKY Denis I 145, 340, 344, 345 EICHWEDE Wolfgang I 61 ELAGINA Elena I 26, 35, 111, 157, 158, 219, 221, 227, 333, 334, 336, 338 ENDICOTT BARNETT Vivian I 185

FLEISCHER Alain I 112 FLORENSKY Alexander I 145, 153 FLORENSKY Olga I 145, 153 FRANCIS Sam I 145 FRITZ Darko I 167, 174, 175, 180, 351, 355 GABALOV Zdenka I 199 GAISSMAYER Michel I 75

GURYANOV Georgy I 220, 328, 334, 336, 340, 344, 345 GUSEV Vladimir I 185, 356 GUTOV Dmitry I 220, 231, 236, 238, 247, 320, 335, 337, 340, 342–344 HAACKE Hans I 40, 145, 153 HAENSGEN Sabine I 61, 220 HAINS Raymond I 112 HART Claudia I 112

GANAHL Rainer I 112

HARTEN Jürgen I 18, 20, 21, 34, 167, 334, 353

GASSNER Hubertus I 185, 190

HATOUM Mona I 112

GENERAL IDEA I 112 GERLOVIN Valeriy I 111, 112, 219, 221, 332

HEISS Alanna I 31, 199, 201, 204, 206, 346, 352

GERLOVINA Rimma I 111, 112, 219, 221, 332

HOLZER Jenny I 29, 40, 167

GERZ Jochen I 112

HORN Rebecca I 145

ET N’EST-CE* &/ET I 112

GILBERT & GEORGE I 75, 84–85, 90, 91, 112, 332, 350, 353

HULTÉN Pontus I 145–148, 150, 155, 355

EXPORT Valie I 112

GLOGGENGIESSER Christine I 112

FAHLSTROM Oyvind I 145

GOROKHOVSKY Eduard I 111, 209, 220, 336

FAIBISOVICH Semyon I 216, 329, 333

GORYAINOV Vladimir I 133-138, 316, 317, 353,

FAUCHEREAU Serge I 145, 147, 151, 155, 352

GOVAN Michael I 185, 190, 356,

FEDOROV Vladimir I 219, 221

ENZEL Enzo I 59, 62 EPIKHIN Sergei I 113, 224 ERICSSON Lars O. I 59 EROFEEV Andrei I 26–28, 35, 111–114, 116, 118, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 150, 219, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226, 229, 336, 337, 346, 351

FELDMANN Hans-Peter I 112 FENSO group I 112, 339, 343, 345 FILATOV Nikolai I 51, 220, 327 FILIOU Robert I 145 FILIPPOV Andrei I 26, 35, 95, 96, 97, 100, 103, 105, 111, 157, 209, 217, 219, 221, 324, 329, 330, 331, 334–338, 342, 343 360

INFANTE Francisco I 111, 220, 222, 327, 328, 331, 333, 334, 337, 345

KAGANOVA Tanya I 167, 220 KALININ Viacheslav I 220 KARLSSON Ulrika I 231 KAWARA On I 145, 153 KAZIMIR PASSION GROUP I 37, 40, 44 KERBER Bernhard I 59 KESIĆ Vesna I 167 KHLOBYSTIN Andrei I 167, 220, 328 KHOLMOGOROVA Olga I 167 KHOROSHILOV Pavel I 14, 15, 33, 52, 53, 57, 63, 185, 190 KIESEWALTER George I 7, 10, 13, 17, 59, 111, 220, 324, 329, 334, 337 KIKODZE Evgenia I 112–114, 336, 353 KITUP Ilya I 217, 220, 339, 353

INGOLD AIRLINES I 112

KLAUKE Jürgen I 112 KLOKOV Sergei I 75, 90, 353

GROSITSKY Andrei I 111, 220

INSPECTION MEDICAL HERMENEUTICS I 33, 112, 157, 160, 209, 211, 213, 215, 217, 220, 311, 332, 334, 338-340, 343

GRŽINIĆ Marina I 167, 181, 352

IOVLEVA Lidiya I 185

GROYS Boris I 11, 16, 17, 20, 24, 33, 34, 35, 59, 62, 68, 69, 73, 119, 158, 209–212, 214, 215, 249, 287–294, 340, 342, 346, 349, 352, 353

IRWIN I 29, 167, 171, 177, 181–183, 231–233, 236, 240, 244–247, 344, 351, 352, 354

KOMAR Vitaly I 8, 9, 33, 37–42, 44–46, 111, 112, 157, 158, 160, 162, 186, 199–201, 205, 209, 214–216, 220, 222, 319, 332, 336, 341, 342, 352

ISOU Isidore I 112

KONNIKOV Peter I 145

GU Wenda I 231–234, 236, 245–247, 356

JOFFRE Hugues I 51

KOPYSTIANSKY Igor I 33, 51, 54, 220, 331

GUBANOVA Elena I 145, 163

JOHNS Jasper I 145

KOPYSTIANSKY Svetlana I 33, 51, 54, 220, 331

KOLEICHUK Viacheslav I 111, 220, 326, 328, 345 KOLUPAEVA Anna I 185

361

KOROLEV Yuri I 185

LATYSHEV Konstantin I 220,

McKENZIE Andrew I 231, 236

NANNUCCI Maurizio I 112

KOSHLYAKOV Valery I 220, 224, 225, 335, 337, 339, 356

LEBEDEV Rostislav I 111, 112, 126, 220, 326, 330, 331, 336

MEGLITSKY Igor I 220

NAUMAN Bruce I 145, 344

KOSOLAPOV Alexander I 8, 37, 39, 44, 47, 48, 111, 112, 126, 220, 227, 329, 336, 343

LE GAC Jean I 112

MELAMID Alexander I 8, 9, 33, 37–47, 111, 112, 157, 158, 160, 162, 199–201, 205, 209, 214–216, 220, 222, 319, 332, 336, 341, 342, 352

NAZARENKO Tatyana I 51, 209, 216, 324

MERTVY (KURMAYARTSEV) Andrey I 145, 153, 325

NEIZVESTNY Ernst I 33, 327, 336

MERZ Mario I 145

NEMUKHIN Vladimir I 8, 33, 51, 53, 111, 112, 220, 228, 326, 328, 329, 337, 341

KOUNELLIS Jannis I 75, 86, 93, 145, 148, 153, 335, 352 KOVALEV Andrei I 20, 21, 34, 90, 131, 167, 337, 353 KOVALEV Pavel I 145, 153 KOVTUN Evgeny I 185, 190 KOZLOV Nikolai I 111, 112, 220, 331, 332, 336 KRALJ Breda I 167 KRANJC Svebor I 167, 170 KRASNOPEVTSEV Dmitry I 33, 51, 53, 112, 216, 220, 337 KRENS Thomas I 185, 190, 195, 197, 353, 356

LEBEDEVA Irina I 185, 190, 191 LEBEDEVA Vera I 185 LEBEL Jean-Jacques I 112 LEIDERMAN Yuri I 22, 33, 112, 157, 167, 209, 213, 217, 220, 231, 236, 247, 330, 339, 340, 342–344 LEIS Malle I 51, 345 LEMAÎTRE Maurice I 112 LEONA group I 167, 170 LEVASHOV Vladimir I 111, 113, 114, 128, 351, 353 LEVIKOVA Bella I 51 LEVINE Leslie I 112

MESSAGER Annette I 112 MIRONENKO Sergei I 111, 112, 125, 157, 209, 215, 220, 324, 330, 336

NECROREALISTS I 145, 147, 148, 153, 155, 325 NEGRO Marylène & Klaus SCHERÜBEL I 112

NEST group I 111, 112, 220, 336 NESTEROVA Natalya I 51, 209, 216, 327

MIRONENKO Vladimir I 33, 111, 112, 220, 329, 330

NEUE SLOWENISCHE KUNST (NSK) I 167, 181, 350, 352

MISIANO Viktor I 26, 28–31, 35, 52, 57, 77, 93, 95–101, 108, 128, 135, 150, 167, 168, 169, 172–176, 178, 180, 231–236, 239, 240, 243–247, 249, 295–298, 319, 320, 335, 337, 340, 342, 344, 347, 351, 354

NEW COLLECTIVISM I 167 NEWMAN Barnett I 145 NEY Alexander I 111, 220 NICKEL Volker I 59

MITCHELL-INNES Lucy I 51

NIKITIN Natalia I 61, 62, 68, 69, 72, 73, 118, 119, 139, 212–217, 354

KRIESCHE Richard I 112

LITICHEVSKY Georgy I 26, 95, 100, 104, 109, 167, 220, 249, 306–313, 331, 339, 342

MITLYANSKY Maksim I 220

KROPIVNITSKY Evgeny I 220, 228

LONG Richard I 145

KRŠIĆ Dehan I 167

LUDWIG Peter I 61, 210, 211, 216, 342, 351

MITTA Evgeny I 13, 86, 133, 135, 136, 138, 316, 330

NITSCH Hermann I 112, 131

KUCHERENKO Mikhail I 167

LUTHI Urs I 112

KULIK Oleg I 167, 231–233, 235–237, 244, 245, 247, 342–344

MAITZ Petra I 231

KURIEROVA Galina I 167 KURLYANDTSEVA Elena I 29, 59, 167, 168, 180 KUSTOV Vladimir I 145, 149, 153, 344 KUZKIN Alexander I 220

MAKAREVICH Igor I 22, 26, 35, 111, 112, 127, 157, 160, 161, 164, 165, 209, 220, 331, 334, 336–338, 354 MAMYSHEV-MONROE Vladislav I 112, 148, 152, 220, 341

MOČNIK Rastko I 167 MOLINIER Pierre I 112 MONASTYRSKY Andrei I 22, 26, 59, 62, 72, 111, 112, 157, 160, 209, 217, 220, 329, 334, 337, 342, 343 MOROZOV Valery I 145, 153, 220 MOVSESYAN Ivan I 220, 344

MAREEV Alexander I 220

MUEHL Otto I 112 MUHR Birgitta I 231

LAIBACH I 167, 181

MARTIN Jean-Hubert I 17, 31, 34, 150, 219, 221, 224, 225, 229, 347, 351

LAMM Leonid I 37, 40, 220, 332, 334

MASTERKOVA Lydia I 8, 33, 220, 334, 341

LAPIN Leonhard I 220, 345, 354

MATROSOV Boris I 26, 35, 112, 220

NAKHOVA Irina I 15, 26, 51, 56, 59, 62, 64, 69, 72, 112, 220, 326, 332–334, 336, 338, 354

LABUS Nenad I 167

362

LE MAIRE Eric I 145

MUKHIN Igor I 220, 340, 343

NOORDUNG I 167, 181 NOVIKOV Timur I 112, 122, 145, 148, 153, 157, 220, 325, 327, 328, 332, 334, 336, 340, 344, 345 OBERHUBER Oswald I 112 ODENBACH Marcel I 112 OLDENGBURG Claes I 145, 153 OLSCHWANG Anton I 111, 112, 180, 217, 220, 331, 337, 339 OPAŁKA Roman I 112 ORLOV Boris I 95, 100, 102, 103, 109, 111, 209, 216, 220, 227, 326, 330, 333, 334, 336, 337 OROSCHAKOFF Haralampi I 167, 168, 177, 342 363

OROZCO Gabriel I 112

PODOROGA Valery I 167

RIVKIND Valentin I 185

SHABLAVIN Sergei I 220, 337

OSBORNE Vals I 51

PODYOMSHCHIKOV Sergei I 111

ROGINSKY Mikhail I 111, 112, 220, 227, 332, 337

SHANNON Thomas I 145

OSMOLOVSKY Anatoly I 112, 167, 209, 211, 213, 216, 217, 220, 231, 236, 338–340, 342, 354

POPOV Genrikh I 185

ROITER Andrei I 33, 95, 101, 105, 108, 119, 157, 220, 330, 331

SHARP Jane A. I 32, 185, 355

ROLOFF-MOMIN Ulrich I 62, 63, 69

SHERMAN Cindy I 112, 331, 342

OSTRETSOV Gosha I 26, 220 OTRZAN Durda I 167 OVCHINNIKOV Nikola I 59, 62, 72, 111, 139, 220, 324, 326, 328, 329, 334, 336, 338, 342, 354 OVCHINNIKOV Vadim I 220, 327 PAIK Nam June I 145, 153 PANE Gina I 112 PANITKOV Nikolai I 111, 220, 324 PAOLINI Giulio I 112

POVELIKHINA Alla I 185, 190 PRINCE Richard I 112, 331 PURYGIN Leonid I 33, 51, 330 PRÉSENCE PANCHOUNETTE I 112, 331 PRIGOV Dmitri I 9, 22, 26, 59, 62, 72, 73, 95, 100, 107, 111, 112, 118, 123, 127, 157, 163, 167, 209, 211, 216, 217, 220, 224, 225, 326, 329, 330, 334, 336, 337, 342, 343, 354 PRINCE Richard I 112, 331 PURYGIN Leonid I 33, 51, 330 QUAYTMAN Rebecca I 154

PENONE Guiseppe I 112

RABIN Oskar I 8, 33, 209, 216, 220, 327, 332, 333, 341

PEPPERS group I 33, 111, 157, 220, 331, 332, 338

RADINA Mario I 59, 62

PERDRIX Jean-Marie I 145

RAFFRAY André I 154, 151

PERROUX Agnes I 145

RAINER Arnulf I 112

PEPPERSTEIN Pavel I 22, 33, 59, 62, 157, 209, 212, 214, 217, 220

RAKITIN Vasilii I 185, 190

PETITGAND Dominique I 112 PETLYURA Alexander I 112 PETRENKO Oleg I 33, 157 PETROV Arkady I 51, 56, 331 PETROVA Evgenia I 145, 185, 356 PHILIPPOV Michael I 154 PIGANOV Ilya I 220, 331, 340 PISTOLETTO Michelangelo I 112, 172 PIVOVAROV Viktor I 22, 112, 209, 216, 220, 331, 342, 343 PLAVINSKY Dmitri I 33, 51, 111, 112, 123, 220, 227, 329, 337 364

RAKITINA Elena I 185, 190 RAMISHVILI Koka I 112

ROLLKA Bodo I 75 ROMANOVA Elena I 324, 345, 355 ROMASHKOVA Lidiya I 185 ROSENQUIST James I 75, 92, 334

SHELKOVSKY Igor I 62, 111, 112, 220, 327, 338 SHKURKO Alexander I 185 SHMAKOV Sergei I 59 SHNUROV Alexander I 220

ROSHAL Mikhail I 111, 112, 120, 121, 220, 324, 325

SHULGIN Alexei I 167, 220, 331, 332, 339, 340

ROSS David A. I 27, 31, 33, 157–160, 162, 347, 351, 355, 356

SHURAVLEV Anatoly I 33, 111, 112, 220, 325, 331, 332, 340, 343–345

RUSCHA Ed I 145

SHUTOV Sergei I 33, 51, 220, 318, 328, 330, 331, 340, 345

SAFF Donald I 75, 77, 88 SAL Jack I 167, 168, 173 SALAKHOV Tair I 13–15, 25, 33, 76, 77, 87–89, 136, 211, 324, 347, 348, 354 SALAKHOVA Aidan I 13, 25, 133–139, 316, 325, 328, 330, 338, 340, 344, 345, 348 SAMOILOVA Vika I 214, 220 SARKIS I 112, 145, 147, 150, 153, 331

SIDOROV Evgeny I 185 SIGUTIN Alexander I 220, 339, 343 SITNIKOV Alexander I 51 SKERSIS Viktor I 112, 220 SKRIPKINA Ludmila I 33, 157 SLEPYSHEV Anatoly I 51 SMOLYANSKAYA Natalia I 326 SOKHRANSKAYA Simona I 220

RANDELOVIĆ Jole I 167

SAYTOUR Patrick I 112

RAUSCHENBERG Robert I 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 88, 89, 90, 133–137, 139, 140–143, 145, 148, 153, 316, 317, 330, 332, 348, 356

SCHMITZ Lisa I 14, 15, 34, 59–61, 68, 69, 72, 111, 220, 348, 355

READYMADES BELONG TO EVERYONE I 112

SCHWARZKOGLER Rudolf I 112

SOLOMON Andrew I 13, 33, 52, 57, 59, 60, 72, 98, 355

REKAR Alexandra I 167

SÉCHAS Alain I 112

SONNEVILLE Alain I 145, 152

RETS Gabi Schilling I 59, 62

SEIDEL Igor I 220

SOOSTER Ülo I 220, 336, 345

REUTER Edzard I 63

SEREBRIAKOVA Maria I 111, 157, 220, 325, 331, 332, 338, 340

SORIN Pierrick I 112

REZUN-ZVEZDOCHOTOVA Larisa I 59, 112, 157, 167, 209, 212, 215, 220, 334, 335, 343

SCHLICK Bente I 112

SERP Sergei I 145, 147, 149–155, 348, 355

SOKHRANSKY Leonid I 111 SOKOV Leonid I 8, 37, 39, 44, 49, 111, 112, 220, 227, 318, 322, 334, 336, 356

SOROKIN Vladimir I 59, 62, 70–72, 111, 112, 220, 324, 334 365

SOTNIKOV Ivan I 325, 327, 328

TROITSKY Artemy I 167

WALL Jeff I 145

ZALETOVA Lidiya I 185

STEINBERG Eduard I 51, 56, 209, 214, 216, 220, 222, 228, 326, 328, 331, 334, 342

TRUPYR (KONSTANTINOV) Leonid I 145

WARHOL Andy I 39, 40, 100, 145, 148, 153

ZEIN Werner I 59, 62

STILINOVIĆ Mladen I 167

TRYOKHPRUDNY LANE STUDIOS I 209

WEIBEL Peter I 112, 339

ZHARKIKH Yuri I 341

TSIRKUL Yuri I 145, 148, 155

WEISBERG Vladimir I 33, 112, 209, 216

ZHEN Chen I 145, 152

TUCKER Paul I 145, 152

WEISS Andrea I 145

ZHIGALOV Anatoly I 112, 220

TUPITSYN Margarita I 10–12, 15, 16, 18, 33, 34, 37–39, 41, 42, 44–49, 72, 157, 160, 164, 185, 249, 252–274, 331, 332, 342, 348, 349, 356

WESOLOWSKI Chantal I 145, 152

ZHILINSKY Dmitry I 209, 211, 216, 326

WEST Franz I 112

ZLOTNIKOV Yury I 220, 328

WITTE Georg I 61

ZOBERNIG Heimo I 167, 170

WOLF Nathalie I 145

ZVEREV Anatoly I 33, 112, 221, 336, 337

STUART John I 51

TUPITSYN Victor I 13, 19, 37, 40–44, 46–49, 160, 164, 356

STURTEVANT Elaine I 112

WOLGERS Dan I 231, 247

TURETSKY Boris I 111, 112, 220, 337

SUNDER-PLASSMAN Andrea I 59

WOLLEN Peter I 199

UECKER Günther I 75, 77, 86, 87, 89, 329

SUSSMAN Elizabeth I 19, 34, 157, 162

ULAY I 112

WORLD CHAMPIONS group I 111, 220, 325, 328, 329

ZVEZDOCHOTOV Konstantin I 9, 11, 29, 33, 59, 62, 67, 95, 101, 106, 111, 112, 122, 139, 157, 167, 168, 180, 217, 220, 324, 325, 330–332, 334, 337, 338, 340, 342, 343

SVIREPY (MORTYUKOV) Anatoly I 145

URSIN Alexander I 185

WURM Erwin I 112

SZ group I 220

UTKIN Ilya I 26, 157, 158

YAKHNIN Andrei I 133, 135, 143, 220, 316

TABENKIN Ilya I 51

YAKIMOVICH Alexander I 167

TABENKIN Lev I 51, 326

VASSILIEV Oleg I 53, 220, 222, 329, 333, 343, 345

TAMRUCHI Natalia I 111–114, 351

VECHTOMOV Nikolai I 33, 220

TARASOV Vladimir I 59, 62, 72, 317

VEILHAN Xavier I 145, 154

YAKOVLEV Vladimir I 33, 219, 221

TECNOTEST I 112

VERCRUYSSE Jan I 112

TER-OGANYAN Avdei I 112, 180, 220, 339, 343, 353, 356

VIEL Cesare I 112

THEOCHAROPOULOU Ioanna I 231

VOLKOV Andrey I 209

STIRLING Liz I 145 STOJANOVIĆ Lazar I 167 STOLPOVSKAYA Nadezhda I 220 STRAKA Barbara I 59, 68 STRIGALEV Anatoly I 185

TIDEMAN Ella I 231 TIMOFEEV Sergei I 220 TINGUELY Jean I 5, 75, 82–83, 90, 145, 153, 332, 353

366

VINOGRADOV German I 90, 112, 220 VOLKOV Sergei I 33, 51, 56, 59, 62, 66, 67, 72, 73 112, 133, 139, 157, 209, 220, 316, 330–332, 334, 338, 354

YAKOVLEV Oleg I 33, 220 YAKUT Alexander I 13, 133, 135, 142, 316, 330, 350 YANKILEVSKY Vladimir I 51, 53, 209, 214, 216, 220, 222, 228, 326, 342 YUFIT Evgeny I 145, 153, 155, 325, 344 YULIKOV Alexander I 111, 112, 131, 220, 328, 330, 334, 343 YURLOV Valery I 220

VOLLE Annick I 112

ZADORA Stanislas I 145, 155

TOADSTOOL group I 62

VON HAUSSWOLFF Carl Michael I 231, 236

TOTART group I 112 TOTTIE Sophie I 145

VORONTSOV Sergei I 59, 62, 72, 111, 112, 220, 337, 342, 343

TREGULOVA Zelfira I 185, 190, 191, 195, 201, 205, 206, 346, 349

WAGNER Matthias I 231

ZAKHAROV Vadim I 9, 11, 12, 22, 24–26, 33–35, 51, 53, 56, 59, 61, 62, 72, 88, 95, 100, 101, 108, 111, 112, 119, 157, 209, 212–214, 217, 219, 220, 223–229, 324, 325, 329–332, 334, 336, 337, 340, 342, 350, 355

VRUBEL Dmitry I 220, 334, 339

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Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986–1996 is the first in a series of books by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art which provide access to the research and materials in Garage Archive Collection.

EDITORS: Ruth Addison, Kate Fowle RESEARCHERS: Vika Dushkina, Andrey Misiano, Sasha Obukhova CONTRIBUTORS: Ruth Addison, Anton Belov, Mikhail Bode, Simon de Pury, Andrei Erofeev, Boris Groys, Kate Fowle, Alanna Heiss, Jean-Hubert Martin, Andrey Misiano, Viktor Misiano, Sasha Obukhova, David A. Ross, Tair Salakhov, Aidan Salakhova, Sergei Serp, Lisa Schmitz, Mary Angela Schroth, Zelfira Tregulova, Margarita Tupitsyn, Carl Michael von Hausswolff FROM THE ARCHIVE: Jan Åman, Eugene Asse, Joseph Backstein, Elena Bespalova, Veronika Bode, Lyudmila Bredikhina, Alexander Brener, Jörg-Heiko Bruns, Shaun Caley, Elena Chernevich, Enrico Crispolti, Eda Čufer, Ekaterina Degot, Daniel Farson, Sandra Frimmel, Jamey Gambrell, Gediminas Gasparavičius, Grace Glueck, Vitaly Goryainov, Boris Groys, Marina Gržinić, Wenda Gu, James Hoberman, Sylvia Hochfield, William H. Honan, Birgit Kilp, Michael Kimmelman, Andrei Kovalev, Oleg Kulik, Mary Lynn Kotz, Hilton Kramer, Kay Larson, Vladimir Levashov, Georgy Litichevsky, David Lurie, Viktor Misiano, Evgeny Mitta, Suzanne Muchnic, Natalia Nikitin, Anna Pantueva, Peter Plagens, Hans-Peter Riese, Peter Schjedahl, Andrew Solomon, Elisabeth Sussman, Brandon Taylor, Margarita Tupitsyn, Amei Wallach, David Walsh COPY EDITOR: Leigh Markopoulos PROJECT MANAGERS: Anastasia Makarenko Ekaterina Suverina TRANSLATORS: Ruth Addison, Tobin Auber, Thomas Campbell, Nam Nguyen PROOFREADERS: Sarah Crowther, Brittany Stewart DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRE-PRESS: Fedor Khorikov, Hell Kit, Anna Yurionas-Yurgans Printed in Germany ISBN 978-5-905110-52-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or otherwise transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Texts © 2016, the authors All images without courtesy lines are Courtesy Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

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PUBLISHER: Artguide s.r.o., Prague, Czech Republic editions.artguide.com for Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Ulitsa Krymsky Val, 9/45 Moscow, Russia

www.garagemca.org ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following individuals participated in research interviews for this publication: Joseph Backstein, Mikhail Bode, Grisha Bruskin, Boris Groys, Simon de Pury, Ekaterina Degot, Alanna Heiss, Pavel Khoroshilov, Vitaly Komar, Jean-Hubert Martin, Viktor Misiano, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, Natalia Nikitin, David A. Ross, Aidan Salakhova, Tair Salakhov, Lisa Schmitz, Zelfira Tregulova, Margarita Tupitsyn, Carl Michael von Hausswolff Thanks to the following institutions for their assistance with this publication: Art in America, New York; Central House of Artists, Moscow; “DI” Dialog Iskusstv, Moscow; Flash Art, Milan; Färgfabriken, Stockholm; Forward, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; La Biennale di Venezia, Historical Archives of Contemporary Art, Venice; Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles; MIA Russia, Moscow; MoMA PS1, New York; New York Magazine, New York; New York Observer, New York; New York Public Library, New York; PARS International Corp., New York; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York; Sala 1, Rome; Scala Group, Florence; Stella Art Foundation, Moscow; Tacoma Art Museum, Washington; The New Museum, New York; The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The Village Voice, New York; The World Socialist Web Site Thanks to the following for their support: Yuri Avvakumov, Zdenka Badovinac, Ekaterina Barinova, Nina Bereznitskaya, Nikolai Erofeev, Anthony Gardner, Alexandra Guseinova, Dmitry Gutov, IRWIN (Dusan Mandic, Miran Mohar, Andrei Savski, Borut Vogelnik, Roman Uranjek), Zoya Katashinskaya, Alexandra Kharitonova, Sergei Khripun, Maksim Krekotnev, Jill Medvedow, Elizaveta Milukhina, Darcey Moore, Nikita Nechaev, Haralampi G. Oroschakoff, Nelly Podgorskaya, Lindsay Pollock, Alexandra Polyanovskaya, Jack Sal, Irina Saldina, Elena Selina, Zinaida Starodubtseva, Anastasia Tarassowa, Daria Volkova, Mia Wendel-DiLallo, Vadim Zakharov

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.