Bathing with Marat

MY WORK, name and reputation will always be directed toward the arts. And my involvement in politics only came about with the understanding that it was a service.

Everything in my life was accidental. That goes for starting the gallery as much as it does entering political consultancy. In 1994, my brother finished college in Los Angeles, came home and decided he wanted to be a politician. I was already an established gallery owner, so I was in a position to help him with my connections.

My brother moved on to other things, but I found that the role — that of a political operative — suited me. I started a foundation called Effective Politics with Gleb Povlosovky. At first I just worked on graphics, but then I started to get more seriously involved in shaping the image of politicians.

I did this work in part to earn money. It was 1994, a time when most people needed food, not art, so I ended up being the Guelman Gallery’s main client.

In 1995, I played a big role in Boris Yeltsin’s re-election campaign. Not many people wanted to touch Yeltsin then. His popularity was at 2 percent, while Gennady Zyuganov was polling at 27 percent. So at that time there was a real threat that the country would return to communism. I sent my family away from Russia: That’s how close the Social Democrats were to winning.

I consider that election one of the most important chapters in my life. Some people blame me, other people congratulate me.

Yeltsin may not have been ideal for Russia, but he was the only option at the time.

I left politics in 2004. Now I’m in a difficult position. I am still close friends with many of those in power, but I criticize the Kremlin very openly. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t. I can’t say who and when, but I have influenced those I know and try to take make the most of my unique position.

I think of myself as a dissident rather than an opponent. There is no opposition now, anyway — it’s just Putin.

I would never have a political party of my own, but I disagree openly with what is going on in Russia right now. It’s clearly not a democracy, but that doesn’t worry me so much, because at the moment I don’t think Russia needs a democracy; it is the ripe nationalist mood of the people that makes me anxious.

Last year I was assaulted in my gallery. It was done silently and professionally. I thought I was going to die. I was terrified. My face looked like mincemeat.

But fear is finite. Perhaps it’s a remnant of communism that in Russia, a human life does not cost much. We started to believe after a while that our own lives weren’t worth a great deal, either. I worry about my four-year-old daughter, though. She has a bodyguard now.

For the nationalists, contemporary art is the enemy. The nationalists want everything to be controlled, but contemporary art is about freedom. They want everything to be Russian, but contemporary art is international. We look at a future, they look at the past. They want to see a return to the monarchism, or to Stalinism.

The Guelman gallery is synonymous with the Russian contemporary art scene, so for them I am a natural enemy.

The Orthodox Church hates us because, like the nationalists, they want a return to tradition. They want to ignore the taboos, like AIDS and Chechnya, while contemporary art is about exploring taboos.

The church wants to control everything from the clothes you wear to whether you have a piercing in your ear to what you watch on television. It would be very dangerous for Russia to become single-minded right now, but that’s what exactly the church wants.

What worries me is that the Orthodox Church is a major financial institution — they were the biggest importers of tobacco into Russia during the Yeltsin era. This is OK, but if it gives them the power to close exhibitions or ban certain films, that’s when the situation becomes dire.

As an institution, they have never tried to close my exhibitions, but they have groups such as the Union of Orthodox Citizens, who once tried to sue us over an exhibit. It was very complicated, but there is an artist, Gor Chanal. who made some beautiful works in a three-part series I exhibited called “The Sun of Truth, Good and Beauty.” When people from the group saw it — it was a group of yellow-stained nudes with their arms outstretched — they saw some kind of anti-religious message. They thought Chanal was somehow mocking Christianity. The funny thing is, Gor is a lovely man and a good Christian.

I don’t know what’s going to irritate them next or why, but they feel that choosing what gets displayed is within their right.

The government likes to get involved as well: The Duma wanted to close my most recent exhibit in New York, Russia 2. I think they react so much to art because it’s the only way they can exercise their power. The parliament has no voice because there is only one decision maker: Putin. So criticizing art keeps the Duma busy.

Russia 2 puts forward my vision for the country. The idea is that Putin lives in Russia 1, where there is only religion and patriotism. But I believe in Russia 2, a society that values friendship and work above all else. In my Russia there would be a greater fine for betraying your friend then betraying your country. This future is obviously implausible.

Sometimes I am jealous of my colleagues in New York and my friends who run galleries in Europe. It feels like they have it easy, and would never be attacked for what they choose to display, but there are two sides to this coin. Russia is one of the few places left where art can stir people and still make a difference. The fact that it does irritate those in power just confirms that it is important.