Kommentar von Irina Korina
Kommentar von Irina Korina
Irina Korina about her artists' choice
Moscow is full of artists./ In general they all know each other./ But not all are friends/some of them are even ideological enemies./ Friendship usually exists on the basis of common opinions and convictions/or due to the same age./Or because you have studied together/or you are neighbours/ or you have travelled somewhere together. Some artists are more renowned and do have more success/
some are more experienced./ For this text I asked my friends who are among the most interesting and energetic Moscow artists to tell about their recent projects.
ABC (Art Business Consulting)- "We make art."
Experiment: 451 °F. Neither digital, nor analog
According to its activities, ABC can be described as a group of active and permanent users of various digital facilities which are embedded in office environments. 1. ABC fixed the so-called empirical “reverse effect of total digitalisation” several times. The inhuman process, following global digitalisation of all being paradoxically proves to be accompanied by the rehabilitation of traditional values in interpersonal relationships and the conservation of artistic tastes and perceptions. The given laboratory work of ABC aims at determining the critical temperature conditions of the transition process from digital to analog and of the closely related process of analogisation: the “conversion of objects and creatures into ashes”.
ABC was founded in 2001. MAXIM ILJUKHIN born 1977 in New York. Studied at the Moscow Institute of Electrotechnology. NATALJA STRUTSCHKOWA born in Moskau. Studied at the Moscow Architecture Institute (MARKHI). MIKHAIL KOSOLAPOWborn 1961 in Zurjupinsk (Ukraine). Studied river navigation
Elena Kovylina - Abduction of the assistant Riccarda (Berlin, Potsdam, 27 October, 2003)
What does “art and crime” signify? Does this combination of words contain a compatibility of the actual terms as a premise for making sense? The question as posited is provocative and demands of the artist that he demonstrate the ways in which things are the same or how they differ. In which way do the territories of art and crime relate to one another, and can they converge – in the realms of sense or figuration? What actually is the meaning of all this? What can the artist do? Illustrate the idea of crime or commit a kind of artistic crime, or doubt the adequacy of the question itself? After all, art is not there to illustrate or pulchrify anything – it is there simply to create – and so as a consequence of this it would appear necessary to commit an actual crime.
We resolve to commit such a crime. We settle on kidnapping a person, a female assistant working at the Hebbel Theatre. Her job there is to be helpful in the realisation of projects – so how about her assisting in committing a crime? No, all she does is to just hang photographs, make helpful suggestions and send off emails.
The artist must dispense with the idea of illustrating or showing or assessing anything other than that which he is himself concerned with. May he involve himself in a crime or commit one, i.e. generating it as an event? Symbolical murder, ritual cremation with a pinch of irony or photographs of criminals pinned to the wall – all of these things have nothing to do with crime as such. They’re statements on one thing or another, on the “topic” or “the question”. We shall abduct her, this girl – this is the thought that enters our minds spontaneously. There’s nothing better. We shall kidnap the assistant – for would it not be obnoxious if a project on crime were to look perfectly legal?
First of all, we should talk this over with the curators, right? What if they don’t like the idea? What if they get cold feet? What crime are we talking about if everything has to be organised, the devil take it, from top to bottom?
This action is completely unrepresentative. It will not reflect on anything, except on itself. Isn’t that the whole point and the deeper meaning of the expression, “to commit a crime”? We’ll be doing something superfluous, something unnecessary, something one could happily do without, something most people could forgo without any trouble at all, something that would throw up the question of “why?” and “wherefore?” Something beyond illustrativeness, beyond irony, beyond the caprice of the artist, something one couldn’t brush off as a funny prank, something one couldn’t nod appreciatively and say “not bad…” to.
Elena invites the girl into the car, under some pretext. Of course she gets in willingly, without any physical duress. She is asked to come along a short ways for there is something she should see as an assistant, about which her opinions would be welcomed. But down by the traffic lights, two people wearing shades and wigs get into the car with her. This is a kidnapping, for sure. We’ll drive off with the assistant. But where are we driving to? Isn’t this becoming too complicated? Will anyone find this amusing?
Admittedly, we didn’t follow it through. We admit it, we didn’t stab her, we didn’t ask for ransom , we didn’t drag her all the way to the exhibition opening at the theatre, for everyone to have a good laugh.
Perhaps it’s enough to drive the girl to a forest near Potsdam. We are not in splits when we ask her: “Hey, how’s it going?” We just threw her into the forest, got into the car and drove away. Nobody ever asked for more, did they? (Text: Petr Bystrov)
ELENA KOVYLINA Born in 1971 in Moscow. Lives in Berlin and Moscow.
Maksim Karakulov - New Art Theory
“If things work out, we will have the possibility to create completely new forms of art.”
Modern shopping centres as places of gathering prove to be the most appropriate locations for the emergence of a new art territory, for it is precisely there that people who are usually segregated by their work places and various social barriers come together for the same purpose, affiliated with each other by similar needs. In former times, jugglers and dancing bears performed in market places. Today, contemporary art must push into the shopping malls.
This does not mean at all that art becomes simple or trivial. On the contrary, it increases its influence on its surroundings. The artwork starts to participate in the life of the visitor to the shopping centre as a simple fact of daily physical presence, even if he does not immediately take notice of it or understand it.
We are absolutely convinced that the background aura, which is automatically generated around any art work, subtly defines a new standard of perception, gradually opens up new horizons of cognition, and becomes a common and required phenomenon of modern life.
MAXIM KARAKULOV Born in 1977 in Uvarovka (Moscow region). Studied at the Lomonosov-University. Member of the art group “Radek”. Lives in Moscow.
Vladis Sapovalov - "Buy or Steal?"
Sometimes I steal books in shops©ˆ. I resorted to stealing when book prices boomed in consequence of the drastic financial crisis (in August 1998, ed), even though booksellers argued that the number of thefts did not rise after the crisis. In the beginning I tried to observe a certain convention, to “play by the rules” – I bought one book and nicked two or three, thus “bringing down” the “larcenously inflated prices”. Later on I started to look on stealing as a sort of cultural practice and basic theft shifted to the realm of pure aesthetics. Stealing books is easy. A lot of people steal and they do it in great amounts. But precisely the stealing of books has been one of the most immoral and unconscionable acts in the traditional conscience of intellectuals. The sales clerks encourage this myth in every imaginable way and they enjoy it: it is the sensitive mentality of the Russian intellectual, who will be mortally offended by warnings that prevent them from hanging posters that say “Shoplifting will be prosecuted”. However, when that intellectual becomes aware of your “dark business”, he will likely not turn you in (it turns into a sort of tacit agreement), but instead he steals something himself – this has been proven by my broad experience several times. In order to encounter a wider and more astonishing paradox, it is not necessary to dive into studies dealing with the relationship between theory and practice: To the question put to booksellers “Don’t you think that some of the texts sold in your shop call for being stolen?” the reply is that these texts are nothing but studies in the humanities and bear no relation to reality. The (philosophical) problem “to buy or to steal” originally did not exist. If you have money, buy, if not, steal. But do not anathematize your life according to the imposed oppressive discourse on the problem of choice between “bad, false and unfair” versus “good and true”. None of these categories really exists. It is wrong to behave exclusively in the one and only way. Be free.
“Does this mean, one may kill people?” the moralists will ask. “By all means, if you need it that badly, kill.”
I love reading and cannot give up this pleasure. This is reason enough for me to steal books. If Likhachev’s©¯ balls were caught in a vice and he had a gun in his hands, I think it would be reason enough for him to get rid of his tormentor, even it were the Pope…
First published in RADEK Nr. 03 – “Trash katalog”, 1999.
VLADIS SHAPOVALOV Born 1981. Member of the art group Radek. Lives in Moscow.