Unfinished rebranding

This summer, the inhabitants of Russia are not up to art. Although, for example, the “manifesto” was opened, which was judged, of course, mainly by extra -focused categories. On the other hand, in addition to the European Biennale in St. Petersburg with all its additions in the form of public and parallel programs, something happened in Moscow.

The current Moscow International Biennale of Young Art , a long -standing initiative of the State Center for Contemporary Art and the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, was created for the most part for the intra -Russian audience, unlike the "Manifesto", for which international ambitions are everything. This can be seen even at the level of the place where the main project of the Youth Biennale was placed - the Moscow Museum - and from the list of participants, where artists from Russia make up a significant part. The vague topic “Dreaming”, of course, if it correlates with the modern moment, then only in some very sad way, something like this: to dream is all that we stay.

It is also amazing that the youth Biennale is surrounded by such an extensive host of accompanying projects - about six dozen. Alas, many institutions to participate in this festival of art, which in scale is comparable to the “adult” Moscow Biennale , although not so famous, is necessary for reporting. For the sake of this summer review of the “young art”, the GTSIS moved and put it off for a year of the Ural Biennale - a demonstrative step for colonializing Moscow thinking: even at the Biennale in Yekaterinburg and demonstrated twice successful projects, the unstoped status of the event makes it less valuable than the summer Moscow festival, which was hastily surviving the biennal rebranding.

Although, as the events of recent months have shown, the “capital” is not a panacea. The Moscow Biennale of young art that opened simultaneously with the “manifesto” was in a difficult situation. Not that two or four years ago the situation was very better, but this time too much coincided. All attention was focused on the northern capital, almost all journalists and critics went there. The professional community was chuckled with such a coincidence, someone shook his head sadly. In addition, difficulties arose at the basic level - then the understanding of the tasks of the Biennale from which it began was in question. The definitions of “young artist” or “young artist” over the past few years began to be perceived as indecent and discriminatory. They did not refuse them at all, but they began to use much less-only where for some reason this cannot be avoided.

Another question is the curator. This year, the main project of the Youth Biennale was headed by David Ellitt, a large connoisseur of contemporary art from Asia countries, curator of the XVII Sydney and I Kyiv Biennale (Arsenal). As for Kyiv, in some disorganization that reigned in the “Mystetsky Arsenal”, among the critics and participants of that Biennale, with sympathy related to Elliott, it is customary to blame the organizers, “the curator did everything that he was able.” However, the problem was exactly how the curator decided the exposition and what work he chose, and, I must say, in Moscow, Ellitt repeated the Kiev script.

The essence of his approach is quite pragmatic, if not cynical, the selection of art. It is common that the modern large regular exhibition, in order to be considered serious, should include the following important elements in certain shares: postcolonial and ethnic stories, feminist and quirrels, documentary installations and videos on social topics, oriental Europe, some formal experiments, naiv and psychedelics, etc. In such a situation, the curator acts as a culinary culinary, which puts a pinch of the one, a spoonful of this, but in general we know the approximate recipe. Naturally, there is a share of truth in this, and therefore the “wrong” curator, opposing this ossified “tasty and healthy” exhibition policy, looks like a real hero (it is important to remember that this is not the only trap in which the curator may be of its own will). Elliot, on the contrary, does not even hide this machinery. He knocks down the works in heaps: in this corner - on one topic, in that - on the other; Or a different feature: for the video - a separate corridor, for painting - a separate hall, etc. That is, returning to the culinary metaphor, he lays all the ingredients on the table before preparing and as it were, as it were: we need this, this is still - though he is not going to cook anything in the end. The Elliott strategy in this sense differs little from the fact that Casper König demonstrated at the Main Staff and the Hermitage (surprisingly, some critics tried to contrast these two Biennale - in favor of Moscow; probably these are still emotions).

So what do we see? As a specialist in Asian art, Elliot included many artists from this huge region - from the far to the Middle East. This is the only large line passing through the entire exhibition; True, this can probably be said about each of those Biennale that Ellitt oversized, and is unlikely to be at least some interesting story on a wide Asian, as well as the European one. Of those really interesting works that are shown in Moscow, it is worth mentioning, for example, two videos of the Chinese artist Lee Jean “From a truck driver to a political cavalry political officer” and “another contemporary artist”: both are portraits of characters of several cardboard and fantastic, different embodiments of the artist. Or the animated film of another Chinese Song Sunya "Some actions that were not yet described by the revolution."

Another line is works dedicated to feminism and LGBT. The artist from St. Petersburg Anastasia Vepreva presented the video “Must”, mounted from fragments of television shows like the Elena Malysheva show, in which, mainly leading female women against the backdrop of male guests that are approving their heads, the idea of ​​the social hierarchy, where women are assigned a secondary, subordinate role. Or the story proposed by the Estonian artist Anna-West Trumund, who, reincarnating into a man, shows the absurdity of patriarchal stereotypes. There is a True photo series SELF Natalia Maksimova about transgender people: in the pictures - people whose identity after the transition does not recognize, and even those who talk about them with understanding often do not distinguish between them in the general field of LGBT. Here we have not only portraits, but also short stories or statements of Russian transgender people, for example: “Life is not only the past, new friends will appear, they will see you in a completely new way.” It is clear that these topics are important in Russia now more than ever, because the turn to conservatism is only intensifying, and it is very good that they are shown, despite all kinds of laws and moods , but again to dump more or less into one corner-as a curatorial approach, it is equivalent to quotas in life: here you are, we allocated you a place, tell you thank you.

In Moscow, Ellitt partly repeated what he did at the Arsenal: in Kyiv there was a lot of painting, which was quite consistent with the role and spread of this media in the practice of Ukrainian artists. In Moscow, this is far from the case, although the attitude is changing to painting now in Russia, which would be interesting to learn more about, but the curator is not trying to talk about it. On the Youth Biennale, painting, not only Russian, takes up enough space (Kirill Garshin from Voronezh, Muscovites Pavel Seplinov, Dmitry Dokryov and Maria Sharova, German Francis Clots), and, of course, such works are not shifted with something else, but are grouped with other picturesque work.

After watching the Elliott project, you understand: the already mentioned incomplete rebranding of the Moscow Biennale of young art should finally be completed or completely refuse to conduct this event.