Date
Author
Сергей Хачатуров; «Время Новостей
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
Lack of money
Regular acquaintance with young art convinces us that the first, simplest, but no less significant step to success is a sufficient budget. At the beginning of the year, in the capital, thanks to the M'ARS gallery, an unprecedented precedent occurred: a huge, almost museum-like space of the gallery on two floors (ten rooms on each) was given “to the mercy” of two practically unknown artists from Krasnodar in Moscow - Andrei Blokhin and Georgy Kuznetsov . They simultaneously exhibited twenty (!) projects united by the theme of Recycle. The emblem of the exhibition was a sign present on many products with arrows moving along the corners of an equilateral triangle. The sign of secondary processing symbolizes a new version of the memento mori theme: the recycling of traditional values and concepts, their relativity and frailty. Despite the melancholy message of the exhibition, it turned out to be lively, attractive, driving, energetic and mega-spectacular. The aesthetic impact is somewhat similar to the baroque still life of the 17th century, in which the theme of the frailty of existence with skulls and playing cards became an occasion to indulge in the joys of visual hedonism, to show off the skill of painting various precious textures and surfaces. Students of the Krasnodar Academy of Arts and Industry staged a real parade of new technologies, inventively and wittily combining various genres and methods of contemporary art. Blokhin's conceptual exercises on the theme of a new simulated semiosis, imprinted on a universal means of communication - a credit card, are designed in the form of huge luminous stands, intriguing like strange, intricate, well-designed puzzles. Kuznetsov's plastic objects live hyperactively. In one room, in the lilac darkness, a “river” flows from moving water hoses. Nearby stands a “tree” blinking with its branches - knees of sewer pipes with built-in lanterns: a macabre landscape of the post-industrial era. Another project by Egor: the most beautiful graphic images of moving people, in the spirit of mannerist paintings, are imprinted into opaque layers and also turn out to be captives of recycled materials - polyethylene and stainless steel.
Plastic bags of garbage in another room form a breathing “rock garden” that shimmers in the dark. Thanks to air blowers, each of the bags, living its own life, slowly inflates, then “exhales” the air. The spectacle is no less fascinating than the contemplation of the philosophical rock gardens of Japan. The main characteristic of almost all projects presented by young Krasnodar residents is perfectionism in execution. From the entire exhibition you get an impression equivalent to what a walk through a good international biennale leaves. As they said in the times of constructivism, the “madeness” of works becomes the key to successful emotional contact with new art. Almost more than Andrey and Egor, respect must be expressed to the M'ARS gallery itself. Curator Natalia Kosolapova gave an exhibition to the winning artists in the gallery competition “M'ARSOVO Pole” with a budget of more than 50 thousand.
After such an unexpected surprise, it was interesting to visit the exhibition of a much more famous contemporary of Krasnodar residents, Ilya Trushevsky. It is open in the Stella gallery on Mytnaya Street. It's called "Maps". Trushevsky also loves technological art, kinetic installations, interactive images. In the new installation, he uses projection devices and mechanisms to bring geographic maps to life. One of them, Russia and neighboring states, is oozing blood and covered with scars. Another spits a black, oil-like liquid. The third, the vegetation of the USSR, is overgrown before our eyes with multi-colored mold, specially bred in Petri flasks. And its noble ocher fluffy landscape is reminiscent of the coloring of the paintings of the small Dutch. In general, in the sense of an intellectual adventure, Ilya’s project is equivalent to the exhibition of the Krasnodar residents. It contains a commentary on the topic of the “physicality” of big politics and geography, and an intelligent dialogue with the poetics of the same Baroque, which loved alchemy, the Kunstkamera, which took the universe in the likeness of a large atlas catalogue. But in terms of presentation with “Maps,” in my opinion, there are some problems. Low budget, as they say, is an eyesore. The space is devoid of internal unity. Each object is perceived discretely. To fully experience geography, the effect of presence, the illusion of traveling, of being inside is not enough. Perhaps the scale is too laboratory, intimate. In my opinion, this is a project proposal, dreams of something more. The sketchiness is quite understandable, given that the budget of this exhibition is exactly twenty-five times (!) less than the cost of the exhibition in M'ARS, amounting to two thousand USD. And this, to be honest, in general, is not even a budget, but a reason to find out the degree of resourcefulness and cunning of the artist and his universal qualifications, from a film director to a carpenter. In general, I passed the Trushevsky test. But if the projects of the youth biennale are financed this way, we will feel nothing but disappointment about it.
Unfortunately, we must admit, the blessed times have passed when creative thought was in full swing and charged life with powerful energy. Yes, apartment exhibitions were done for free. Yes, the conceptualists needed a minimum amount of money. But at that time, no monetary expenditure could compare with the main thing that art generated: the production of new meanings that revealed the phenomenology of life in its various aspects, bringing us closer to the Truth about man and existence. Today art, like many spheres of culture, is in a systemic crisis. The best of the best suffer from not knowing what strategy to choose, what reality to react to. To work with complex cultural texts that are fundamental to the science of human studies, there is not enough time (you have to live!), education, or energy. And around is an era of timelessness: hypocrisy, hypocrisy, rhetoric of lies. So there is little choice left. In the worst case, feign radicalism, excitedly talking about the honesty and cleansing power of the new trend of “gop art”, which appeared in the wake of the reflection of “romantics” from good families on the supposedly life-giving, healthy, natural energy of bastards who do not fit into society. That is, it’s like you have to go and cut your hands on broken windows, and then write on them with blood. Such an awkwardly caricatured resuscitation of 1968 speaks of nothing but the weakness of the adherents and the deep inferiority of the ideologists. At best, you can be honest with yourself and break through to the lost eidos of culture. Let it be for now as a commentator, convincing not with the complex construction of a thought, but with the complex process of serving and arranging it. And for everyone to share the joy of the process, every exhibition today must be competitive with other art genres. And you have to pay for competitiveness.