THE
DEGENERATES
Yes,
Russia is once again banning
art.
Here are the five worst
offenders.
In
October of 2007, Russia's
Ministry of Culture pulled
seventeen works from an
exhibition of politically-tinged
art on its way to the Maison
Rouge in Paris, calling them “a
disgrace.” It's a safe bet to
say the West would not normally
be riveted by the works, most of
which amounted to fairly
on-the-nose topical satire, but
the ban changed everything: we
were now looking at Persecuted
Art [tm]. Everyone knows there's
no better endorsement for an
artist than a bureaucrat's wrath
(just ask Chris Ofili, whose
elephant dung-enhanced Virgin
Mary enraged Rudy Giuliani);
everyone, that is, other than
the bureaucrats, who never
learn. In this particular case,
though, the outrage, and thus
the art, are fascinating
precisely because the works
are so mild. This means a kind
of success: the artists, working
within a highly specific
context, have correctly mapped
their own society's hot buttons.
“There are four completely taboo
subjects in Russian art today,”
says RUSSIA!'s resident art
guru, gallery owner Marat
Guelman. “The government, the
Orthodox Church, Chechnya, and
Putin.” The works below hit all
of those, and throw in sex for
good measure. RUSSIA!
happily brings you five
of the most controversial
Russian pieces of the millennium
so far.
The
Blue Noses
Chechen Marilyn,
2005
C-print
Hot button: Chechnya
“Burn out SATANISM with a red
hot iron!”—one of ten slogans
suggested by demonstration
organizers in anticipation of
“Forbidden Art 2006,” an
exhibition in which this work
was shown.
Other candidates included
“Enemies of Orthodoxy have no
place on Earth!” and “Say NO to
compromises with the ENEMY!” The
exhibition, at the Andrei
Sakharov Community Center in
Moscow, was a collection of
works that other Russian museums
had refused to show. In
Chechen Marilyn, the
offering from Blue Noses
co-founder Vyacheslav Mizin, the
central figure is recognizable
as a “black widow,” a female
Chechen suicide bomber from the
early 2000s. By mixing this with
the iconic image from The
Seven-Year Itch, Mizin’s
work aims to highlight our
culture’s inability to separate
one type of celebrity from
another. For some bizarre
reason, it was the Orthodox
Russians—not Chechens or Muslims
in general—who found this
painting offensive.
Alexander Kosolapov
This Is My Blood,
2002
Screen print on paper
Hot button: Religion
In 2003, six members of a
religious group called “For the
Moral Rebirth of the Fatherland”
broke into the exhibit where
this work was on display and
spattered the face of Christ
with black paint.
Fortunately for Kosolapov, he’d
made 75 prints. Other, less
replaceable works of art at the
2003 exhibit “Caution:
Religion!” were also damaged by
the activists. In the aftermath,
however, the state chose to
press charges against the
organizers of the exhibit for
"inciting religious hatred,"
rather than the vandals. In
2005, This is My Body,
the McDonald’s-themed companion
to This Is My Blood, was
also destroyed. This time the
culprit was a bearded,
hammer-wielding fanatic who
called himself “Leonid, servant
of God.” Leonid smashed the
glass frame and then ripped the
artwork in two, refusing to let
go of the pieces throughout his
subsequent arrest. Kosolapov,
meanwhile, says he means the
church no harm; This Is My
Blood/Body are intended as a
commentary on our worship of
consumer culture. But he is
thrilled whenever one of his
pieces gets mangled. “The aim of
my work is to establish contact
with the viewer. If the picture
is destroyed, then that contact
exists,” he says on his web
site.
PG
Oil,
2007.
From the series “Glory to
Russia!”
Photo collage
Hot button: Government
“This art disgraces
Russia.”—Culture Minister
Alexander Sokolov, on the
seventeen pieces he removed from
“Sots-Art: Political Art in
Russia” before the exhibit
traveled to Paris.
The text reads “Glory to
Russia!” – and the irony is
apparent. The other photo
collages in PG’s series all bear
the same caption and depict some
sort of embarrassing national
stereotype: an old woman
stooping to pick up a beer
bottle, a policeman counting his
bribes, etc. All were banned
from appearing at the Maison
Rouge. It’s hard to imagine the
Culture Ministry believing that
by withholding these cartoonish
images, they were protecting the
country’s reputation abroad. Who
doesn’t know about Russian
prostitutes already? The name
“PG” coincidentally works out in
English, as a play on the
group's raunchy material, but in
Russian it stands for either
“Criminal Group” or “Anti-tank
Grenade.”
The Blue Noses
The
Era of Mercy,
2005
Color photograph
Hot Button: Government, gay
“It is inadmissible to bring all
this pornography, kissing
policemen and erotic pictures
[to Paris].”—Culture Minister
Alexander Sokolov
This was the one that started
all the fuss. When Sokolov
denounced “Sots-Art,” he
specifically singled out The
Era of Mercy, making it the
poster child (or rather,
literally, the poster)
for the scandalous seventeen.
The image appeared everywhere
from the Guardian to
The New York Times. The
curator of the Tretyakov
Gallery, where the work was
originally on display, got
slapped with two lawsuits by the
state. The director of the
museum then filed a
counter-suit. The legal circus,
however, was just beginning: the
controversy made The Era of
Mercy synonymous with
Sots-Art, but the genre had
existed since the 1980s. This
has incensed U.S.-based Sots-Art
pioneers Komar and Melamid, and
they threatened legal measures
to recover their stolen
spotlight. Another detail lost
in the hubbub is the fact that
The Era of Mercy is
actually based on another work.
Kissing Coppers, a wall
stencil by elusive graffiti
superstar Banksy, is exactly the
same image but with British
police (and minus the birch
grove and the butt-fondling).
Instead of a legal battle,
Banksy is reportedly itching for
an actual fight. Either way, the
Blue Noses may not escape this
one without a black eye or two.
PG
Mounting Mobile Agitation,
2007
Video installation
Hot Button: Everything on the
screen
“I would understand if Sokolov
had taken issue with relevant,
contemporary art, but Sots-Art
is part of Russian history. Our
culture minister should know it
as he would the 19th-century
realists.”—Marat Guelman
It should be pretty obvious why
this one didn’t make Sokolov’s
cut, but here are some fun
facts. The Chinese invaders, if
you look closely, are distinctly
un-Chinese, and seem to be from
the Caucasus region. The dog
being eaten in the lower right
is instantly recognizable to
Russians as Connie, Putin’s
Labrador. And some say the
blonde being raped in the lower
left corner is meant to
represent Ksenia Sobchak,
Russia’s answer to Paris Hilton.
What she’s doing in the
president’s office, however, is
unclear. “Russians have dreaded
the rise of China for a long
time,” Guelman’s wife Julia
says. “This is the
realization of that fear taken
to an absurd extreme.” If it
weren’t so blatantly ridiculous,
Mounting Mobile Agitation
would be a fairly offensive
piece even by the jaded Western
standards. Once again, though,
it's the Chinese that should
probably be the offended party,
not Russian politicians.
The Slide Show:
