Expositions (2009-2012)

Over the past ten years, we have accumulated quite a lot of texts written for the purpose of using for / inside / after, etc. certain exhibitions. They are all quite different from each other. However, there is one serious divide. The change dividing them in half occurred at the turn of 2013-2015, when our often curatorial texts about exhibitions began to be conceptualized and give way to artistic texts imitating the curatorial descriptive style. In essence, this was expressed in the fact that what was created after 2013 began to sound more monotonous, boring, bureaucratic - like a set of poorly connected linguistic cliches of the art world. The crystallization of this trend occurred within the framework of the “ Return ” project (2017-2018), where texts for again and again created (re)exhibitions were written by a neural network trained by decades of announcements from e-flux magazine. On the contrary, what we composed for exhibitions up until 2013 were rather autonomous, playful and dysfunctional materials from the point of view of the assigned communicative obligations. These texts often do not contain any references to exhibitions that need to be clarified, there are no names of artists, titles of works, institutions, etc. They themselves are often built in the logic of a collage or exhibition / exposition - with individual exhibits sometimes in the form of ready-mades of live speech or relevant quotes. Fortunately or not, in many cases, apart from the “documentation” that lives in the exhibition texts, almost nothing remains from the exhibitions of this period. We publish them below with minimal copyright editing.

"The Magnificent Hole or What Makes a Thing a Thing"

“Do you remember what happened before commodity fetishism?” — chipboard asks the reproduction. “I don’t know, maybe I should ask oil or work?” “Work makes capital, it seems busy, oil is out of sorts.” The world of goods has fallen into a dreamy reverie. Cooling down from the need for eternal radiance, the images timidly begin to move. They get confused, stumble, but still build into incredibly touching stories.

The atmosphere of the late 80s - early 90s. The feeling of an impending apocalypse and the intuition of the possibility of opening up freedom, a new collectivity. A delicate balance between already and yet. Stop, the gears moving the flows of capital have stopped, their old teeth have been erased, and their milk teeth are still waiting in the wings. There is time, there is time, there is time, there is no money. A creative experiment that does not know the limitations of pragmatics, and has not yet been tempted by the gods of the market. There is time between - and that means time for dreams in the ruins of a suddenly calmed storm. In a moment, this world will disappear into the foam of days, and the conveyor will resume its course.

“A thing turns into a commodity in the act of consumption,” the code says. We know nothing about what came before or after. A waste of time. But it is precisely this empty space that forms the space of miracle, which takes its form along the contours of the given. The Golden Age, always lagging behind the here and now, suddenly stumbles and pats work on the shoulder. And this closure is enough for life to happen. I wonder if a closure could be a readymade? What about the atmosphere of freedom?

Another story. What does it take to be free? You need space, but it is desirable that it be both public and only yours. This was something the Internet was like at the dawn of its existence in the dreams of its first post-war users. And before? Communication, communication, communication, commune. At the end of the 80s, employees of public libraries and other places where the intelligentsia gathered were faced with the problem of widespread damage to property in latrines. The walls of the booths were actively exploited as a medium for the anonymous transfer of genetic information. Alienation creates opportunities for intimacy. Looking back, “Glory holes” appear to be a transitional type of human, a messenger of a break, after which physical presence becomes redundant.

(2009)

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"Machine and Natasha"

At a Moscow factory specializing in paper production, the second replacement of equipment since 1917 begins. Plans for a new production facility are being developed. The manufacturing machine is ordered abroad - in Finland. There is an atmosphere of trust in society. The Cold War is over. The Berlin Wall will soon be destroyed. The feeling of freedom is in the air. It seems that liberation is closer than ever. Perhaps the revolutionaries felt something similar 70 years ago.

A young worker, Natasha, gets a job at a factory where she will spend 25 years of her life along with a priming machine, which she will work alone. Even today, when production has stopped, she continues to look after her. 25 years, which included an era from euphoria and hope to disappointment and new cars built according to completely different principles.

“Art is not a reflection of reality, but the reality of reflection,” says Jean-Luc Godard’s character a year before the 1968 revolution. The hope-disappointment cycle again and again becomes the driving force behind the production of reality. To be saved in the abyss of the pit means to be saved in the utopia of endless construction. And if at the beginning of the last century this construction was still somehow tied to nature and the fight against it, then at the beginning of the 21st century humanity is increasingly dealing with contactless intellectual structures.

The latest spasms of industrial production coincided with hopes of saving the Soviet communist project. The second half of the 80s was a time of search and modernization.

Negri and Hardt expressed the idea that the USSR collapsed precisely because of the inability to transition to post-industrial production. The Soviet people, having made a powerful industrial breakthrough and then won the war, could hope for psychological compensation in the form of a weakening of government pressure and an increase in personal freedom. The transition from a disciplinary society to a society of control, in which the revolutionary events of the 60s played a major role, carried out such compensation in capitalist countries. In the Soviet Union, this transition, by and large, began only in the 80s and ended (if it ended) after the collapse of the communist system at the beginning of the next century.

The echo of these events is the current spasms of capitalism or what is commonly understood as it in Russia. Increasingly, contemporary art exhibitions are being held in former industrial areas. And the industrial worker is being replaced by cognitive proletarians in the form of artists and representatives of the cultural industry. But the modernist maxim of making visible what makes visible still maintains interest in the history unfolding before our eyes.

“The Machine and Natasha” is a story through the prism of personal experience. The exhibition presents works made in collaboration with Natasha. Most of the artists are the same age as the priming machine installed in the exhibition hall. Through their personal stories, they felt the historical rift that occurred in the late 80s and early 90s, so in many ways the answers they give with their works are based on a special sense of history, sounding in unison. If you take a closer look at this feeling, it will become clear that in many ways it is no longer built on the human-human relationship, but on the human-machine relationship. Machines that produce human subjectivity. This is the tribute that humanity pays for abandoning the human.

Since the idea became a machine, the dramaturgy of the artistic gesture has been built according to the patterns of production cycles.

After the opening day, work will begin on dismantling the production equipment. By the end of the exhibition, the machine will be completely disassembled, and in the freed space a round table will be held on the problems of immaterial labor and new types of conceptual practices.

(2009)

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"Work book"

There are a huge variety of definitions of “precarious work”. Each organization, depending on the context and local or industry characteristics, gives its own name and description to this phenomenon. In the European tradition, it is customary to talk about “non-standard employment”, and this phrase does not necessarily have a negative meaning; it is understood that many workers are seeking various forms of flexible employment; Pan-European directives identify countless types and subtypes of such relationships.

The instability and vulnerability of workers that arise in them is usually denoted by the word “precarity,” which has no direct analogue in the Russian language.

In South Africa, the most common form of precarious employment is split labor relationships, often mediated by small, shady firms known as “labor brokers.” In Korea, employment agencies disguise themselves as contracting organizations, so it is customary to talk about “subcontractors”, meaning intermediaries in labor relations.

In Russia, such terms as “outsourcing” and “agency labor” are widely used. In many countries and trade unions that have recently encountered similar phenomena, designations for them are just being formed. I don't like that you don't discuss aesthetic issues. It is quite obvious that there is a demand specifically for a political organization.

It is great that politicization will occur through the practice of struggle, and not through words. The trade union is the best school for a young communist. It is much more realistic to create an alternative exhibition institution in Moscow and get hooked on international money and contracts than to create a trade union - a nice but meaningless gesture. Here is a useful link, colleagues have already made a manual. Among the many challenges facing trade unions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia today, the increasing prevalence of precarious forms of employment is of particular concern.

By undermining workers' confidence in the future and preventing them from effectively exercising their rights of association and collective action, precarious work reinforces all other negative trends in labor relations. But organizing an association to protect against labor conflicts is a liberal practice; I am not interested in it. The tasks of the trade union do not include discussing aesthetic problems; for this it is necessary to create an artistic group.

You act like petty bourgeois who want to sell themselves and immediately write down the price for it in their work, but in the case of art this does not work! And you are like a desperate romantic who, with childish naivety, says “I’m in the house”, only to be surprised again and again that his great work of art functions in the mode of a commodity. Isn’t it more honest to immediately admit that this path is a dead end? Immediately abandon the production of the work of art.

The practices of precarious employment that have become increasingly widespread in recent years (outsourcing, agency work, registration of labor relations with civil contracts, informal employment, etc.) are a source of discrimination and violations of human rights, undermine fundamental labor standards, increase inequality and poverty, have extremely adverse consequences in the field of social protection of workers and the protection of their life and health at work, create the ground for violations of labor and migration legislation and are widely used by employers as anti-union strategy.

Yes, but you understand that this is a blind spot! Using startups, working without a contract, volunteers, etc. I think a report for the 00s could be made in the next issue. Who wrote to you and how over the past ten years.

It would be interesting to read. But this is discussed right away - no one is deceiving anyone! It is immediately said that this is rather a type of activist activity.

But why not raise this issue? This is the most important thing. Along with employment in the informal sector of the economy, the most barbaric form of precarious employment is agency work - the practice of employment assistance organizations concluding employment contracts with job seekers for the use of their personal labor by other organizations or individual entrepreneurs. This practice contradicts Russian labor legislation, which defines labor relations as the relationship of two equal subjects, the employee and the employer, without the participation of any intermediaries, as well as the civil law of the Russian Federation, which prohibits making a person an object civil contract. Trade union organizations are most concerned about forms of employment associated with the employer’s refusal to acknowledge its responsibility to the employee - various forms of informal relationships not formalized by a contract, the replacement of an employment contract with a civil law one, an attempt to “split” the employer within the framework of various forms of split labor relations, and sometimes with the help of “traditional” outsourcing. How can you start doing something externally without dealing with your own and internal problems?!

The only real goal is to create a fundraising organization, but it is not a union. We don't even have enough money for a lawyer. Tell me people who are willing to pay dues? Nobody can do this. In these cases, workers lose the opportunity to effectively defend their rights, including through a trade union, since the “second party” of labor relations, the employer as a subject of responsibility, disappears.

The employee (or trade union) finds himself with no one to negotiate working conditions with. Young people have nothing to pay for at all. They need to be taught, paying for education is stupid! I don't mean you. By the way, he pays me! If these are crumpled speeches, it looks pretty vulgar! I know. ChD will never pay either! They only have money for printing and translators... Everyone writes like activists! This is fine. Is this a question? There are countless forms of such “split” or “tripartite” employment relationships. Employers use schemes that are most convenient and suitable for them in each specific situation. Therefore, it is quite difficult to give clear definitions here.

(2011)

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“Trud Market”

I got to the university by minibus. From the “Prospekt Truda” stop to the “Trud Market” stop, which is in the very center of the city. The word “market” in the name of the stop was an innovation; before it was simply “Trud Stadium”. But, like most stadiums in the 90s, Trud turned into a giant trading platform. As a child, my mother bought me clothes there. And I must admit, I really didn’t like it all! I loved football and second-hand shops more than markets and Turkish brands. Be that as it may, several times a year I had to thoroughly study the T-shirts, jeans, suits, coats, gloves, sweaters, hats, boots, sneakers presented in the shopping aisles, and actually those who offered all this. I remember that the sellers seemed to me to be successful people. It was as if they belonged to a special caste. They had foreign cars. They traveled abroad from time to time. They probably had VCRs, players and other attributes of success that so excited children's minds in the 90s.

Later, when I was studying at VSU, one of our philosophy professors told a story about how he once had to betray his calling and stand behind the counter at this very Trud stadium. The ideal image of the shuttle began to show cracks. Of course, not everything was so simple and it was not the betrayal of philosophy that was worth being upset about. It was physically difficult work. Most of the sellers actually had higher education. Workers in culture, medicine, engineers, intellectual and creative workers - in general, all those workers in the social sphere who turned out to be unnecessary in the conditions of wild Russian capitalism - they did not join the shuttle trade because of a good life. Then, more and more often, reports began to appear in the media about how bandits were attacking shuttles. The pioneers of Russian capitalism were killed and robbed by the busloads... And yet, this activity had its positive sides and its own romance. At the very beginning, foreign goods still had a sacred status, which extended to everyone who was related to them. The ability to move freely also played an important role. Soviet odes to distance, glorification of brave engineers who set off to build the BAM or simply work in distant Siberian scientific cities, gave way to delight in the possibility of freely crossing borders. Now sometimes the same engineers were sent to China or Poland several times a year! We also must not forget that this was an experience of individual entrepreneurship, and for a Soviet person it was both a challenge and a great experiment.

By the end of the 2000s, when I no longer had the need to travel between two work stops every day, the number of markets began to gradually decrease. It became unprofitable to transport goods yourself. In his native Voronezh, the entire range of brands presented in the fashion sections of Moscow magazines has already appeared. In the capital, the ending of this story was the closure of Cherkizon, not far from which I also had the good fortune to live for some time. The shuttle generation was becoming a thing of the past. The luckiest ones became prominent businessmen. Someone went to jail. Кого-то уже нет в живых. А некоторые даже вернулись в старые профессии. Но меня не отпускал «Труд». Я постоянно возвращался к этому месту, когда приезжал в Воронеж. Особенно вечером, в конце рабочего дня, когда яркую бюреновскую красно-белую ткань палаток прятали в подсобки и рынок превращался в гигантский пустырь, заставленный покосившимися железными остовами. Позже мой интерес привел меня к близкому знакомству с Александром Долговым, советским инженером, а впоследствии российским челноком. Мы записали с Александром большую беседу, в которой он рассказал историю своей жизни — путь от станка до палатки и, как ни странно, обратно. Сегодня Долгов вновь работает по профессии. Оказалось, что старые советские прессы, которые он ремонтировал в 80-е, работают до сих пор. Но вот людей, способных их обслуживать, почти не осталось. Тогда и вспомнили интеллектуальных тружеников страны советов. Долгов, сам фотолюбитель, по иронии судьбы работает сегодня при помощи фотографии. Ему достаточно снятого на камеру мобильного телефона и присланного затем по электронной почте снимка поломанного узла пресса, чтобы указать, как устранить неполадку. После ремонта он фотографирует на память починенный и вновь выкрашенный пресс, выглядящий так, будто только что сошел с конвейера.

(2011)

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«Лесной царь»

И, в общем, об этом никто не знает. Только парни местные и несколько моих друзей. Все на пафосе вообще. Короче, сначала на тачиле едешь около, ну, так минут тридцать. Мимо Орловки с психами, мимо карьера с говном. Потом еще около часа надо идти по лесу, вообще почти без дороги, просто ориентироваться по зарубкам. Вообще не знаю, как там зимой или осенью по грязи. Знаешь, как фильм такой есть… как это… Короче, там по лесу чуваки ходят и снимают все на любительскую камеру. Черт, как же его… А! «Ведьма из Блэр», короче. Вот то же самое. Я, когда ходил к нему первый раз, он мне сунул записку. Говорит, посмотри на обратном пути. Когда шел по лесу, аж в дрожь бросало. Но потом понял, что действительно затягивает. Хочешь снова вернуться. Как маньяк, знаешь, который на место преступления возвращается. Не знаю, может, места такие. Бандиты, и все дела. Может, просто много трупов после войны осталось. Я тебе сейчас прочитаю. Сейчас… Дитя, Дитя, блин… я пленился твоей красотой… Неволей иль волей, а будешь ты мой. Родимый, лесной царь нас хочет догнать. Уж вот он: мне душно, мне тяжко дышать. Ездок оробелый не скачет, летит, мла… денец тоскует, младенец кричит… ездок погоняет, ездок доскакал… В руках его мертвый младенец лежал! Вроде как считалочка детская или что-то типа того. Ну, в общем, без разницы, ты идешь, идешь, идешь и выходишь на такую небольшую полянку. На ней стоит его дом. Если это можно назвать домом, но он прочный такой. Шалаш скорее. Мне очень нравилось там бывать. А на бревне рядом со входом вырезано — «Лесной царь». Это типа его такое погоняло. Прикольное, да? Я не знаю, как его зовут на самом деле. Вася, может, Саша, Петя, Ваня, Джером ваще. Here you go. И он выходит такой каждый день и начинает рубить там все. Царь зверей нах! Короче, красит баллонами такие штуки, ну, как объяснить… Угорает нормально, короче. Я тоже пробовал, ничего так получается. Особенно, если луговая арфа начинает звенеть, тогда вообще просто оторваться не можешь. А на пне при входе у него Квентин Мейясу лежит, «После конечности», прикинь? Прошаренный парень в этих вопросах, все–таки одиночество лесное способствует особому мироощущению. Вообще там раньше машины бросали. В девяностые. Угоняли и, в общем, иногда прям с телом. Иногда просто. И туда отвозили. Там же глухие места. И вот они там стоят, ржавеют. Он их пилит и такие из них штуки делает прикольные. Мы с Джерри ходили, когда последний раз навестить, ваще, такую сделал большую херню. В общем, понимаешь, говорит, как мания, постоянно хочешь рубить топором, красить… С ржавчиной и торчит из нее пуховое одеяло… Не знаю, в общем, когда обо всем этом начинаешь думать, ощущение такое, что вообще нет ничего и не было. Зерзанчика, конечно, почитывает тоже, но без энтузиазма. Я ему приношу иногда. На самом деле, может, у него и есть нормальный дом, обычный, или был. Может, просто мы там встречаемся случайно. Но телефона нет, прикинь? Сейчас подожди… что-то мне мешает в ботинке… сейчас, подожди… А-а-а, вот. Ну вот, прикинь, даже телефона у него нет. Короче, такой реально странный тип. Я даже не знаю, смог бы я так жить или нет. Да, музыка у него еще странная. Знаешь, особенно если ночью идешь. Небо в звездах все. Все расплывается в лесу. Такое живое становится. И под эту картинку включает такой бит жесткий ломанный японский. Hallucinogenic. Илюха сказал, что это уже лет пять как прошло, брейк кор, что ли, называется. Ваще, нормальный. Вот так сядешь на пень. Сидишь, слушаешь. Ты дорогу запоминаешь? Сможешь назад дойти? По темноте вообще нелегко. Ну вот… В общем, он все это дело собирает. Не знаю, вроде и странный, и не очень. Так он вроде не на пафосе, нормально, голова работает. Но вот эти вещи, они вообще как духи леса. Я не удивлюсь, если к нему ночью вообще какой-нить Перун приходит дубовый чайку попить. Или младенцы деревянные с железными протезами в окна стучатся.

(2012)

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Писать о работах Александра Повзнера довольно непростая задача. Он слишком точен в своих действиях. Ни больше, но и не меньше. Разве можно словом за действием угнаться? Пожалуй, что только погрузившись в толщу языка можно прикоснуться в тексте к сути его вещей. Искусство здесь похоже на пятнашки. Элегантный минимальный жест — всего лишь игра с пустотой. Едва заметная неловкость. Что-то прибывает в статичную ситуацию нашей повседневности — и вуаля — единица превращается в двойку. Добрый и злой полицейские разыгрывают свой излюбленный трюк. Зритель в замешательстве, но и легкой эйфории. Can we do it again? OK.

«Брутто» — это то, что делает вещь вещью? Темная, томная, манящая. Прибавляет он. Обратимся к Декарту. Пусть я буду сотовый телефон. А ты будешь, ты будешь — ринг-тон такой — “бумажный тигр раненный в кровь” два раза. Повзнер продолжает упорствовать в странном занятии. Это может показаться со стороны чудачеством. You could say this. Работа машины отрицания против остановки. Он прибавляет и смотрит за результатом. Питается в хорошем смысле негативом нового. Мы видим историю Пятницы, который живет на военно-морской базе и строит простоту вещей из подручных материалов. Да так точно и складно, что все только руками разводят. Ну и нууу! Это такие шестидесятые, которых не было? Такие, которых вообще нигде не было. По-иному, наверное, называется. Одна из причин, по которой так сложно давать названия. Эпоха великих географических закрытий? Одни вопросы здесь. О том, о чем нельзя говорить надо молчать, разве ты не знаешь?

Есть несколько серий. Одна родилась как домашний космос, после большого взрыва. Кружки, квадраты, чашки. Все обрело свою финальную траекторию. And time stopped. Время ушло вслед за человеком. Весь этот новый реализм завис и дрожит словно стоп-кадр на старом VHS видео-магнитофоне. Другая пришла полноводно так будто никогда и не уходила. Цельная в своей монументальной хрупкости серия больших вещей. Молчаливый колокол и деревянный якорь отвечают здесь за сбой. Модернистскую ошибку par exelent. Неизбежная как вещь, падающая на Хиросиму. Систематическая, слишком систематическая. Еще одна — целая армия вещей с острова Пасхи. Они смотрят на тебя, они хотят тебя в жертву. Они нацепили свои шкуры нуль дизайна и уже точат ножи. Вечная весна.

Мы же, мальчишки, мастерили из дубовой коры кораблики и, снабдив гребными банками и рулем, пускали их в ручье, или в бассейне у школы. Эти дальние плавания еще без труда приводили к цели, а вскоре оканчивались на своем берегу. Грезы странствий еще скрывались в том едва ли замечавшемся сиянии, какое покрывало тогда все окружающее. Глаза и руки матери были всему границей и пределом. Словно хранила и ограждала все бытие и пребывание ее безмолвная забота. И путешествиям-забавам еще ничего не было ведомо о тех странствиях и блужданиях, когда человек оставляет в недосягаемой дали позади себя любые берега. Меж тем твердость и запах дуба начинали внятнее твердить о медлительности и постепенности, с которой растет дерево. Сам же дуб говорил о том, что единственно на таком росте зиждется все долговечное и плодотворное, о том, что расти означает раскрываться навстречу широте небес, а вместе корениться в непроглядной темени земли; он говорил о том, что самородно-подлинное родится лишь тогда, когда человек одинаково и по-настоящему готов исполнять веления превышних небес, и хоронится под защитой несущей его на себе земли. Лесные тропы — вот, что в последнее время его успокаивало.

(2012)