The results of the year. Fatalism

In principle, writing some results of the year in the field of art now, in the middle of winter, is somewhat incorrect, because for the artistic process the season of work and rest, as well as the moment of counting income and losses, financial or symbolic, do not coincide with today's generally accepted understanding of the year. If the archaic, agricultural view for a while to turn inside out, then it will turn out the year of the artist, curator, gallerist, museum worker - they talk about the results under the summer. But since the editors of Colta.ru unanimously decided to summarize these results, then there is nowhere to go.

The Kandinsky Prize, the main Russian award in the field of contemporary art, which also works, at first glance, in ordinary calendar temporality, this year demonstrated an interesting choice of the jury . In the main nomination “Project of the Year”, Andrei Filippov, an artist who actively worked in the 1980-2000s, won and summed up his activities at the Orlov Department exhibition, held in the Ekaterina Foundation this spring. Actually, the project, for which Filippov was given a prize, is an installation made specifically for this retrospective. It is called "with a wheel in the head." She has two poles: the first - a wheel hanging like a chandelier that imitates the gear contour of the Kremlin wall and reminiscent of the Orthodox and Buddhist ceremonial devices; The second is the table on which the German “Schmeiser” of the war, the Turkish Feska with the Russian military emblem, the Crimean map and other objects, as if telling us about the confusing past, present and the future, where “everything is complicated”.

The very indication of the Crimea at that moment could no longer be neutral, only engaged in a particular point of view - almost exactly one year before the opening of the exhibition, the annexation of Russia in this Ukrainian territory occurred. And Filippov quite capaciously determined his position , moderate in the present time: “My dad is a sailor. For him, everything that happened to the Crimea during the post -Soviet time was very difficult. Therefore, for me, the return of Crimea was a rehabilitation moment, both for the history of the family and for myself. This was reflected in my work. ” At the same time, it became clear from other statements by Filippov that he generally did not support what was happening in the country, but accepts as inevitable rock. In many of his works, he says that it is precisely pouring on us from the Rupe of propagandists, that he is stuck in our head, but he avoids the question of how to get rid of this. The artist did not like the nineties, but somehow survived; And if something is scary now, then you need to endure. Explaining this approach, Filippov says that he is not a fatalist, but an Orthodox.

Another winner of the Kandinsky Prize, in the nomination “Young artist. The project of the year ”, was Olga Kreutor with the performance “ Point of the support ” , which was invented and first performed this year, but repeated recently. She stood motionless for a long time on a high log, installed vertically. It was compared with pillars from early Christian history. On the other hand, the artist herself saw in this a certain commentary on the current situation in society. “Today is a step to the left, a step to the right - and that’s it,” she said during the presentation of the award.

The crop does a lot of things besides performances , but they are the most tidbous for the media and spectators. And in each of her performance, an important, if not, key, the role is played by her suffering, primarily psychological, or self -abuse, which again bring the artist’s activity with plots from religious legends, although in fact the source of all these works is completely different - all these are personal stories that are more likely to her experiences from the past. Crootor in the night shirt with its own hair Paul in the Gallery "Solyanka", frightening visitors of the exhibition; Without movement, she lay naked under the glass, hiding behind a little overhead hairstyle (twice - at the exhibition in MMSI and at the “Arch of Arch”); And in the now nonexistent gallery "Room" she sat in the closet during the vernissage of her exhibition.

Peter Pavlensky did not receive a prize, but his shares - especially the last, at the FSB building - were awarded praise and attention from the huge audience, as well as criticism and condemnation of the audience comparable in number. He will fall into the textbooks, but also risks in prison for many years. The artist’s shares had one property that raised questions among many people related to him with the sympathy of people - his pathos of sacrifice. The cascade of shares of the last ten years could configure in the opposite way: there was a group “War”, in the case of which we got used to gop-stop navigation; There were Pussy Riot , which, before the forced sacrifice, observed an extremely militant approach to artistic and activist activities. Pavlensky was originally preparing for repressions and in some ways included them in his shares as their delayed continuation. The last action in this sense is the most indicative: the artist asks himself a term for terrorism.

The choice of the jury of the Kandinsky Prize, a very cautious organization that tries to avoid even the slightest hint of a scandal since 2008, and the choice of the amorphous mass of users of social networks, subject to decision -making under the influence of emotions, that is, absolutely careless, coincides in one thing: both vote for suffering, for fatalism and the adoption of any trials that the president, tsar, god, nature, nature, natural, nature History, aliens and further on the list. You can take them stoically, like Filippov and the Crootor, or heroically, like Pavlensky, but do not get out. And - sorry for the banal ending - these are the mindset in society by the end of 2015.