Sunday confession: about crucifixions and more

All this time, starting with the attack on “Beware of Religion” (I was not even at this exhibition as a spectator), I have been saying: the artistic space is through the looking glass. The artist’s statement is a gesture, not an act, just as playing an actor in a film as a bandit is not a crime, so the painting “Ivan the Terrible kills his son” is not a call for murder. The artist has the right to the most radical gestures while remaining in it.

But they didn't hear me. And sometimes on both sides. They came to destroy exhibitions. People who never go to any museums came to see “forbidden art”, where uncensored works were hidden in boxes, there were holes in the boxes, warning signs above the holes - they came, looked, were offended, and destroyed the exhibition. The court acquitted them, but the counterclaim against the organizers, on the contrary, found the curator guilty.

In Krasnodar they didn’t even go to the exhibition. They copied pictures from the Internet that had nothing to do with me or the Icons exhibition (everything they found, right up to Bakhchinyan of the Soviet era, all the actions of the Voina group, Ter-Oganyan in Manege, and so on), got excited and went wild: Zhirinovites, communists, nationalists, Orthodox nationalists, pagan nationalists, and mummered Cossacks.

Now, after the Pussy Paradise rally, the same people say: don’t go into the temple. Do whatever you want in your museums and galleries. It turns out that “Mother of God, drive Putin away” is a kind of retaliatory attack. You don’t recognize our space, our sovereignty, then we are coming to you.

Clearly, this is not the point of the action, but it is one of the aspects, and the consequences are depressing. The radicals made a breach between the space of gesture and the space of action. Between life and art. When a character from the movie screen suddenly comes out into the auditorium and starts shooting movie fans with live guns.

At the round table immediately after the girls were imprisoned, one of our respected critics (I won’t name them, otherwise in the current context it will sound like surrender) told me, but I don’t agree with your call to stay in the artistic space. In some ways he is right.

It's like in our politics. First, the government demonstrates through falsifications that nothing can be achieved legally. Vote however you want, but the result will be different. And go to court as much as you want (by the way, where are the criminal cases on election fraud? WHERE?) And then he blames the opposition for going out into the streets and breaking the law.

I return to our sorrowful affairs. Perhaps the critic is right, and artists need, becoming the head of the opposition, to leave the museum and erase the boundary between life and art. But then you have to be prepared that everyone will rush into this gap in both directions. And the intelligence services too. I’ve already been asked a sarcastic question on Twitter: “Are those who made the cross in Chelyabinsk also artists?” My answer is obvious - the artist always speaks openly, and since, most likely, they won’t find anyone, then it’s most likely comrades from the Lubyanka. BUT to some these definitions may seem insignificant. Now I do not condemn either this critic or Pussy Paradise, but I note that now troubles will begin. And we must be prepared for the fact that the secret services (I hope no one doubts: the matter has gripped the country so much that not only the Minister of Foreign Affairs has gotten involved) will widen this gap between life and art, set up gates and rush in - no matter how little it seems. Someone was beaten - “so this is a performance”, the church was blown up - “so this is an action against Gundyaev’s watch.”

Yesterday at a club, a Perm journalist (music, far from politics) asked: “M.A., why, no matter what happens, everyone blames it on you. Okay in Perm, we don’t have anyone else here.” And really, why? Any person from within the artistic environment will say that my curatorial practice is far from radicalism. Well, Chaplin and the obscurantists, let’s say, don’t know anyone else. They are not supposed to know that “War,” for example, fought primarily with the “artistic establishment” personified by me. What about the rest? Yes, because it is beneficial for them to show that the world of art is not a community of free unique individuals, where each artist is his own strategist, actor, director, editor, but something like a special service, where there are customers, performers, agents, behind the scenes. Well, whose special services - read this from Prokhanov. At best, the Washington Central Committee, or even Satan himself.

In art, everyone is responsible for themselves. Contemporary Art is not a corporation, but a situation. The artistic community shows solidarity only by defending itself and defending the very right to free expression.

The fact that everyone came to the defense of Pussy Raet does not mean that all artists are radicals who are ready to break into churches. For example, Yura Albert is a subtle, intelligent man who works on difficult-to-catch intonations, and at the same time one of the most consistent defenders of both Pussy and, before that, Ter-Oganyan. I also protect. He defended Ter-Oganyan from the obscurantists who came with a hatchet, although he had nothing to do with his action and considered it very unfortunate and inappropriate. I defended the exhibition “Forbidden Art”, although I never saw it. I defend Pussy Paradise because I think the punishment for the crime is fantastically inadequate. But this does not mean at all that I or someone else is behind these shares.

Art, firstly, is an individual practice, and, secondly, public. Now, if something happens somewhere anonymously and the culprits are not found, then you can be almost sure that they are standing there and ruling.

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