Before the verdict

At Chistye Prudy, Moscow artists defended "Forbidden Art"

The trial of Andrei Erofeev and Yuri Samodurov, the organizers of the Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, is due to end today. And last Friday, the last rally in support of them before the verdict was held on Chistoprudny Boulevard. Basic...

The trial of Andrei Erofeev and Yuri Samodurov, the organizers of the Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, is due to end today. And last Friday, the last rally in support of them before the verdict was held on Chistoprudny Boulevard. The main slogan of the action is "Judge art, but do not judge art."

Speakers said that the Orthodox Church is trying to make the state theocratic and limit the freedom of art.

Defendant Yuri Samodurov was holding reproductions of the two most “criminal” works of the “Forbidden Art” at the action: the so-called “Caviar Icon” and the face of Christ against the background of the McDonald’s logo with a quote from the Gospel in English: This is my body (“This is my body”). my flesh). “Obviously, these paintings are directed against the consumer society, where material values ​​are placed above spiritual values,” says artist Andrei Bilzho. - The picture does not carry any idea against religion at all! And people who do not understand allegories and generalizations are like disabled people - they lack abstract thinking.

Another defendant, Andrei Erofeev, emphasized separately that they did not seek to challenge the church with this action. But the nationalist organization "People's Cathedral", whose members first kept the exhibition under siege, and then appeared in court as "insulted" witnesses, got it from the participants of the action. Solidarity activists held posters of the People's Cathedral with slogans like: "Nationalism is freedom!", "Nationalism is modern!", but on each poster a sticker "Get out!"

And the artists accompanied the speeches from the truck with installations. One unfurled a homemade poster of a toothy flower - "such an image can hurt the feelings of gardeners." Another portrayed witnesses for the prosecution at the trial: “Before, everyone calmly cut salads with knives! And now the fashion for mixers has gone! Everything is mixed up in people's heads! Mixers are destroying patriarchal culture!”

Artist German Vinogradov brought a bucket of water with the Constitution glued to it. And, blowing into the old pipe from the shower, he poured water on everyone around: “Recharge with water infused with the Constitution!” Then he read aloud the 28th and 29th articles - on freedom of religion and on freedom of thought and speech.