Yuri Albert in the Circle of the Bolsheviks

It happens, COLTA . RU is called the "Liberal-Bolshevik portal about culture." We decided to match and push our two halves. The left discuss the liberal - the artist Yuri Albert, whose exhibition opens today at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Gogolevsky Boulevard and whose discussion activity on Facebook has already become legendary.

Ilya Budraitskis

publicist, employee of the GCS (State Center for Contemporary Art)

Our last dispute with Yuri Albert, as usual, began with his classical statement that fascism and communism are twins-brothers. In particular, in that discussion, he compared the Soviet deprived of the 1920s with the victims of the Nuremberg racial laws under the Nazis in the late 1930s. The equal sign was based on the fact that if the Nazis divide people by racial, then the Communists do the same in class. Similar to enroll the interlocutor to co -authors of the Holocaust, obviously, can quickly put an end to any dialogue. And I got out of this dispute and abandoned any subsequent ones after Yuri reproduced the same rhetorical figure three times. However, very soon Albert found new interlocutors - but nothing new in his strategy appeared. Why does he need all this?

It seems to me that there are several reasons.

Firstly, like some other artists of his generation, Albert is not indifferent and passionate about left. It seems to me that he sees in them the center of power and production of meanings, which arose outside the experience of its generational oikumen. For him, every public manifestation of this unfamiliar, but at the same time, is traumatic.

Secondly, the discussion on Facebook for Yuri Albert is a new practice at the junction of art and life, which he at some point has discovered for himself and is constantly improving in it. This is due to his attitude to the language as a pole of conflict - he explores the conflict as an artist. At the same time, according to the beliefs, he is a liberal, and in a very strict, Soviet-Postan Soviet canon. That is, he is sincerely confident that the socialist idea and any of the next method of judgment are associated with the inevitably future violence. But since violence does not appear in Facebook posts on Facebook , it begins to bother him. After all, it should be as revealed as possible. And all his manner is to discuss, in principle, is built on the identification of this hidden violence.

At the same time, his Facebook is very different from the fact that Yuri Albert is actually -he is a good artist who subtly perceives reality and poses complex issues. But on Facebook, it is reduced to a largely caricature figure that is capable of reproducing the set of identical flat arguments with inexhaustible passion. All this makes us suspect that he deliberately creates some character. We can say that he is a troll - but specific. An ordinary troll is prone to greater performance and self -expression in the virtual space, which gives it more opportunities than the real one.

Albert, on the contrary, deliberately narrows himself to the character of the liberal troll. On the one hand, this is due to a specific continuation of his artistic practices, on the other hand, there is a sincere moment in understanding of the duty. He is a very responsible troll, and unlike standard trolls, which are contradictory and incorrect, Albert is as consistent as possible - and this makes him so dangerous. When you see that you are starting to comment on not some kind of anonymous or a clear freak, but a famous artist, a feeling (false, actually) of the public significance of this discussion appears. But you should not succumb to this trick: every discussion with Albert is subordinated exclusively by its inner logic, and the longer you continue it, the more you invest in the character created by Yuri Albert. I did not understand this right away, but quite quickly.

Maxim Krekotnev

Employee of the Scientific Department of the TSK "Garage"

Albert influenced everyone. Before Facebook Albert, no one knew from this side. Everyone thought that he was just a thin, ironic artist. Even inaccessible in some kind of lightness and wit. But if you figure it out, Albert has always been like that. Back in 2008-or so-he was seen in endless disputes with Mount Chahal under articles on the OpenSpace portal . ru . It was nice to observe how he calmly and reasonably throws a reasonable, kind, eternal in the furnace of religious fundamentalism. All progressively thinking people were with him, of course, in solidarity, although they almost did not take part in disputes. But then Albert's article suddenly happened on the same OpenSpace . ru , where he made a sharp criticism of left ideas and defended the position of liberalism. And it turned out that I and many of my acquaintances themselves took the place of Mount Chahal. Mount Albert did not forget, but at the same time opened the second front on the left.

Disputes with Albert flared up gradually, somewhere since 2011. Facebook posts became a formal occasion, which touched the news of the emerging protest movement.

In general, I am grateful to Yuri Albert. Observing the epic disputes with his participation, I forged a more intelligible argument, clarified my own political and worldview positions, better began to understand strangers, as a result of which I can calmly admit that some of my ideas became more moderate. Although someone probably, on the contrary, only strengthened in radical left beliefs.

On Facebook, it is reduced to a largely caricature figure, which is capable of reproducing the set of identical flat arguments with inexhaustible passion.

During one of the first disputes with Yuri Albert, under the post of Arseny Zhilyaev, I had a successful manifesto. It was a question in the post of Arseny “Radio October” (a project for which Zhilyaev worked for a month in the team of installers). Then Albert voiced one of his formulas, which, as it became clear in subsequent years, is fundamental for its rhetorical arsenal. There is no capitalism in Russia, but there is still a scoop-it is necessary to fight with it. And therefore, any left criticism is irrelevant. Suddenly for me, at 4 in the morning, a text was born by myself, in which, using different metaphors, I drew the border between the “civilized” social democracy and the wild market. I was able to show that, on the contrary, there is too much capitalism in Russia, because even the remnants of the social system of the USSR, due to the maximum corruption, act as agents of the free market, where everything is arranged on the principle of “you die today, and tomorrow I”.

After this dispute, it all started. Albert did not miss a single post written by someone from the circle of leftist artists, critics, philosophers-especially the organizers of the Union of Creative Workers, the May Congress and members of the RSD. At first, everyone was very interesting - everyone had a nourishment of each other to convince. I recall the dispute for 200 comments from Kirill Medvedev about the historical predetermination of the actions of the Bolsheviks after the socialist revolution. Sometimes Yuri was harsh, even allowed himself obscene expressions. Sometimes he shone with elegant aphorisms and paradoxes. Among his most important ideas, one can distinguish, firstly, the concept that there is no capitalism in Russia, secondly, in its own way the interpreted concept of Marx's alienation, whose usefulness Albert managed to justify, and thirdly, the thesis that the slightest restriction of economic freedom is the first step towards a new political gulag.

But about six months later, it became clear that everyone in a circle exchanges the same arguments. Skiing occurred less and less. Yuri used more and more provocative formulas for which few people had already been bought. Only occasionally did he manage to touch some kind of gaping leftist. I made it a rule to react only to frank actual mistakes in his constructions.

Gleb Napapenko

art critic, activist of the RSD

Disputes with the artist Yuri Albert about politics resemble a simulator, as if on any of your replica, a program sewn into a facebook issues a combination of logical moves and phrases. You can finish such a dialogue only by leaving it, as from a computer application. To be a pragmatist, such a dispute can be treated as sports - undoubtedly, it has benefits. Only you cannot increase the level of complexity in this training program.

How is the Yuri Albert program arranged? What is the human position behind her and does it make sense to argue when you already know what the enemy will say?

Albert’s sanity, like almost any liberal or social democratic sanity, rests on historically defined consensus, special ideology. Roughly speaking, by faith in European parliamentarism and Welfare State German type. But Albert, unlike others, is ready to articulate this consensus. Not as his great thinker, but as an ordinary, but conscious representative. Albert's passion for this consensus is reinforced by the fact that he fell to him, breaking out of the USSR hated by him.

Here are the two main axioms of this consensus.

1) Democracy is European (German) parliamentarism. Democracy, understood just like that, is the highest political value. The word "parliamentarism" is not used.

2) a market economy, moderately regulated by the state, is the only humane economic system. The word "capitalism" is not used.

These axioms determine not only the political logic of Albert, but also his political language - reduced and due to this stable. The theorems follow from the axiom, for example:

- The February Revolution in Russia was a blessing, as it led Russia to European parliamentarism. The October Revolution was an anti -democratic coup.

However, there are many cracks in consensus. For some reason, not everyone believes in his self-evidence, and Wellefare State tends to decline (which, however, Yuri denies) ... On Facebook, he rushes at every embrasure, defending the achievements of European civilization.

The two main strategies are as follows: firstly, as far as possible, strictly judge everything with the help of the logical schemes and irrefutable axioms; Secondly, not to judge what it is impossible to judge without them, reasonably self-stabbing and liberally providing everyone with freedom of choice. These two Albert strategies are fundamental for liberal and socio-democratic consensus not only at the dispute level on Facebook , but at the level of “serious” policy. It is they who give rise to division into professional and unprofessional, public and private, collective and individual.

I love Yuri Albert. I am fascinated by his boring, in which I learn something from myself.

One of the important techniques of Albert in the dispute is the ability to maintain a distance in relation to any situation, to keep sanity and ethical purity. This is probably the legacy of the late Soviet underground - the liberal intelligent position of non -involvement, removal. This position may become the basis of Albert’s strong ethical steps - for example, refusing to cooperate with censorship, institutions like Shanghai Biennale . But it is also the reason for the inability to doubt their own positions with readiness to expose any involvement and engagement as leading to violence - for example, a gulag.

But what is shocking in Albert is that he is actually not a program, but a living person with his passion, and how much strength he spends on a consensus flies. As if, if he leaves his efforts, decay and disaster will occur. And the fact that Facebook can annoy as an obsession, as a personal symptom and symptom of ideology, on the behalf of which he speaks, becomes a special aesthetic quality in Albert's art. In the works of Yuri, the torment of attempts to reconcile, the impossibility of final consent becomes the main topic. Such is a masochistic rewriting by the hands of the letters of the “great” artists, “signs” showing the gap between the indefinite “here” and the correct “there” of art. These works expose the unsatisfactory, violence, the tragedy of the consensus that Yuri defends on Facebook .

Perhaps the attacks of Albert on the “crazy” statements of the left (as well as his attempts to summon others, for example, ultra -subject opponents) - evidence of interest in what Albert is protected from, that is, what is on the other side of the combination of “parliamentarism + market economy”.

I love Yuri Albert. I am fascinated by his boring, in which I learn something from myself. And, it seems, my feeling is mutual. But the only form that this love can have on different sides of the barricades is either a mechanistic sports dispute that has already ceased to be at least a little unexpected, or mutual silence, violated only by rare mutual huskies.

Kirill Medvedev

poet, translator, activist of the RSD

For a couple of years, disputes with Albert happened quite often, like many left. He enters the dispute - you react. He himself frenzied me, as, I believe, other leftists. For what? He just has one of the main insoluble issues in life - why are sound and talented people become communists. And he cannot answer this question for himself, but due to his own sincerity and a kind of principledness, he cannot ignore the problem and starts to start from this all the time, violently enters into disputes, or still counting on the insight of the interlocutor, or already saving the world from us - from the germ of the red plague or at least the plague. In it, in some concentrated form, I would say, I would say, the world-historical limitation of his generation and its environment. Well, it does not give these people their cultural, intellectual, historical, biographical experience to understand how a thinking person can be a communist. This is a wall, and you need some very strong event, insight, so that you will be transferred through it. And where others graze, step aside, he continues to beat his forehead. He still has it all, it seems to me, on a huge faith by virtue of art, such a modernist (and underground) belief in its origin, surprisingly mixed with conceptualist, postmodern antitotalitarian pathos. Hence, again, bewilderment - if contemporary artists, very talented, very critical people, have already exposed communism as a totalitarian ideology, and did it so aesthetically convincing, then why are others, too, are not fools, grabbing it again?! This is a meaningful intrigue for him. This is normal that there is no overbearing, it happens often. His perseverance is abnormally, the possible explanations of which, as I said, have two: a) hopes that this is still a misunderstanding; b) considers the struggle against the neocommunism of his mission.