Hello, I am your new Chekist!

Alexey Knedlyakovsky, a Moscow artist, who has been living in Krasnodar for 3 years, spent in this city, not famous for the wealth of artistic life, the “New Chekist” campaign. On the day of employees of state security services, he attached a cross on the pedestal of the monument to Dzerzhinsky. The monument was not at all injured, but the action infuriated the leadership of the special services. Knedlyakovsky and his comrade Viktor Chirikov were detained, accused of hooliganism and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. Both Chirikov and Kndlyakovsky declared poor conditions of detention in the special meter No. 1 of Krasnodar, both held a hunger strike.

Promotion "New Chekist"

Alexey Knedlyakovsky told Radio Liberty about the action and its consequences.

- “New Chekist” is just a protest against the new state ideology - the symbiosis of special services and Orthodoxy?

It turned out a new religion. I was "I am your new commercial director", now "I am your new Chekist"

- This is rather an artistic, not a political statement. A work of art with a socio-political component, but not purely political. There are references to the “War” group “War” “Ment in the Popovskaya Row” and the promotion of Alexander Brener “ What David did not do, or hello, I am your new commercial director” . It was a promotion held on Lubyanskaya Square, where Iron Felix stood. The Brener stood there in a leather coat and shouted the cars passing by: "Hello, I am your new commercial director." This is 1995, the Brener proclaimed the arrival of the new era of global commercialization. Instead of iron Felix, a commercial director appeared, whom everyone is afraid.

- And now Felix is back.

- I tried to bring the line, summarize, which ultimately happened. It turned out a new religion. There was "I am your new commercial director", now "I am your new Chekist." He has no commercial component, but there is only ideological and religious, as the high priest of the new religion.

- Here I will argue with you, because the "new Chekism" is involved in multi -billion dollar commerce.

This case led the FSB initially

- This is not excluded. You can add, supplement. But I consider this precisely as a religion. Communism was a religion with its altars, with its elders, with its saints. Dzerzhinsky was first the high priest, the founder of this religion, then became one of the saints. I tried to combine previous works of different artists and work with this context. I don’t know how I did it, let the art historians appreciate.

- So far, you were appreciated by "art historians in civilian clothes", as it was customary to say. Although you were tried for petty hooliganism, the FSB, of course, watched this case ...

- This business led the FSB initially. There, in the case file, there are two reports of employees of the Center for Combating Extremism, operas, who stated that I have been in their development since 2013. That is, from the moment I moved to Krasnodar, they are watching me. According to police officers, the team was given by the head of the FSB department in the Krasnodar Territory.

- At the highest level!

- There was a whole special operation. The protocol on an administrative offense, on the basis of which the protocol was written, wrote the deputy chief of the criminal investigation of Krasnodar - no less. Such a small bully, the work of which is engaged in the deputy chief of the criminal investigation department. I directly asked him a question: often do you have to draw up such protocols? He laughs, looks away. It can be seen that this is not his.

- Have you been interrogated?

- On December 22, I was detained by two criminal investigators, took me to Goroddel, I was interviewed by the deputy chief of Sakhno. I said: I do not consider it possible to answer your questions, you and I, apparently, will not work. He tried to go from different sides: why, who did what, and what what. I did not receive an answer. For ten minutes he clicked, in the end he spat on this case, took me to some office, wrote a protocol about petty hooliganism. They took to court on the same day. I filed a motion to familiarize yourself with the case file, to transfer the case so that the lawyer could come. It was 6 hours, and the court was postponed at 10 in the morning. It was impossible to find a lawyer for such a time. The most interesting thing is that the judge was without a mantle was just in a jacket - this is a gross violation. Here, procedural norms are violated all the time, no one even tried to observe. The judge quickly asked whether I plead guilty or I do not admit. Naturally, I do not admit. He jumped up as Saigak fled to the deliberation room and later ran out with a ready decision. Everything was already ready in advance.

“But you probably anticipated that the action against Orthodox Chekists would not get away with you?”

So strongly hooked someone that they decided to punish

- Oddly enough, no. Legally, in the actions that I am charged, there was no composition of the offense at all. Information was held on all Krasnodar media, published all the local publications a photograph. Journalists called the city’s Internal Affairs Directorate, they were told that the district police officer was sent to the place, who would look and decide. I thought that people still have any common sense and they would not inflate this scandal, all this will remain in the artistic plane. It turned out, not entirely like this: apparently, it caught someone so much that they decided to punish.

- You said that all local media reported. But then this news disappeared?

- Yes. Most likely, they called from the FSB, because of all publications the information was completely deleted. I still read it during the day, in the evening I sent a link to someone, they write to me-nothing opens. Evgeny Titov, who used to live here, but now in exile, was the first to find it, went on all sites, everywhere the news has disappeared.

Residents of Krasnodar look at the photograph of Oleg Kulik from the Russian cycle, which Alexei Knedlyakovsky hung on the fence as part of the project "Pass by"

- Alexey, you moved to Krasnodar from Moscow in 2013. What are the impressions?

Cossacks, FSB, police came, combed the building in search of the hall, where the discussion will take place

- There are a lot of impressions. Here, of course, the wildest province even compared to the cities of Central Russia. If we talk about how law enforcement agencies work, then such lawlessness is probably nowhere to be so vulgarly related to elementary procedural norms. In Moscow, even Judge Borovkova, who distinguished itself with its processes over the disagreement, did not allow itself to. When you declare a petition, she takes it, goes into the deliberation room and comes out of there with a definition, as it should be according to the law. Here these elementary norms are ignored. If we talk about artistic life, then there is no one in the city, but people have an active interest in modern art. I made exhibitions on the fence here, I had the project "Pass by" I was, in particular, the project of Oleg Kulik "Russian" , photographs, photographs. The people who passed by, watched him with great interest, read the description of the work, it was clear that they were interested.

- Didn't they break it?

And then they were flooded with this fence with banners with tulips

- They did not tear it out, photographed. They never saw this: I want to know what it is. When Marat Gelman came here, the ICONS exhibition was ripped off by the Cossacks with some priest who spat on him. Moreover, the exhibition is very calm, no blasphemy. In 2016, in the spring it was planned to hold the Media -Jewish festival in Krasnodar - this is a festival of activist art. We had a section, we talked about actionism. And on this day, when all this was supposed to begin, the Cossacks, the FSB, the police came, combed the building in search of the hall, where there will be a discussion about modern actionism. They called the owners of the premises, the owners called all the tenants, God forbid, something will happen. They completely blocked any possibility of conducting this discussion. As a result, we moved to the shopping center and held this event there, on a food court.

I exhibited Vasya elephant, an Olympic project. His Cossacks were torn at the end. We did not engage in some discussions with them, we just observed it from the side and left, so that, God forbid, not to excite anyone once again. And then they flooded this fence with banners with tulips, it became pointless to do everything, and I could not find another place yet. Very difficult.

- How do you evaluate what is happening in Russian actual art? You mentioned the “War” group - you know about the ideological metamorphosis of Oleg Vorotnikov, who, one might say, has become a Putinist ... and in general, a lot over the years that you spent outside Moscow has changed, and probably not for the better. What are your impressions?

- As for Vorotnikov’s position, there is nothing surprising for me. I do not see any metamorphosis here, some kind of radical change.

Oleg Vorotnikov in the role of "Ment in the Popovskaya Row"

- The person who was a cop in the Popovskaya Row is now talking about the greatness of Russia ... "Crimean" and so on. Can you imagine that three years after the “New Chekist” campaign, make such a speech?

- I exclude this completely. You just need to know Vorotnikov, carefully watch what he said before. Then all of what he said must be perceived as a certain trolling. We do not know at all whether he seriously says it or not seriously. Maybe he thus teases the audience, tries to attract attention. As for actual art in Russia, in recent years I see its complete decline. After a bright take-off of the Pussy Riot, the group came to naught because of its deanonymization.

Cossacks who torn the recording of the Pussy Riot clip "Putin will teach you how to love your homeland," they are wringing their hands to Alexei Knedlyakovsky in Sochi on February 9, 2014

- You participated in the Pussy Riot action in Sochi, even the Cossacks beat you with nagikes .

- Not by nagikes, but by the guitar they broke an eyebrow, in general everything was very tough. My wife was thrown on the asphalt, they also tried to beat. This was the last bright event on the Russian art scene. After that, everything began to go to naught. I have not seen deep serious work.

- But what about Peter Pavlensky?

- In my opinion, this is a step back, and very strongly back. These are work in the forehead, simple, without deep meanings. Yes, of course, he is brave and decisive, he must pay his due. In the courts, he behaved very worthy, tried to make a show out of this. But I did not see serious artistic significance in his works. I also have a claim to the prison language that he is trying to use. These camp masters, which for a certain part of the population have sacred meaning, are read differently than he tries to present them.

- This is the language that millions in Russia speak, why not use it in art?

- He means completely different, not what Pavlensky wants to invest in him. Nutrition of the scrotum to anything, more often these are wooden bunks, has a purely practical goals - to jump off the stage, avoid confrontation with a witness, not go to work, go to the hospital. I devoted some time to the study of camp life, reading literature on this topic, and I have read it in the first place.

- Why did you decide to study the camp life and how did the last arrest affect its perception?

The penitentiary system is aimed only at one thing - humiliation of human dignity and torture of a person who falls into its paws

- I did not particularly affect. If you know what will happen there, then you perceive it like rain: you just have to wait for it to end. But I was not ready for the fact that the conditions of detention would be so disgusting. And it was prompted to study this matter that it was a very interesting cultural layer. All living in Russia must study it. Now I was once again convinced that our penitentiary system is not designed to prevent offenses, but aimed only at one thing - humiliation of human dignity and torture of a person who falls into her paws. There is nothing more there. Since the time of the Stalinist Gulag, tradition has been going on. When dinner, breakfast or dinner, old iron pots they put on the floor near the wall, open the camera door, you have to bend down behind this pot, take it and bring it inside. You take from the floor. That is, this is done in order to humiliate a person. Or daily checks: every day at 8 in the morning they get out of the camera: name the name. Two people with lanterns go into the cell, they are looking for something with you, they look, suddenly you did something forbidden. In addition, the lack of normal lighting when you cannot read or write. There is no light from the window at all, there are no walks at all. Plus, there are still problems of ventilation: they made a crazy artificial hood, which was noisy in the chamber so that yesterday in my ears it rang, a constant rumble in my head from this hood. Such a mockery is slowly systematically. This is the wildest specialist, you can’t keep people there. Now there are 30 days of arrest for some violations, a person sits in these conditions, in the dark, does not see the sun, sees nothing, cannot go out, breathe fresh air. Torture, you can’t say otherwise. Naturally, we will go to the ECHR on this occasion. It’s just that you can’t leave it.

Alexey Knedlyakovsky on the day of liberation, January 7

- Alexey, how did you attach the cross?

- I took advantage of bilateral tape.

- That is, the pedestal was not injured?

- This adhesive tape is removed without leaving any traces at all, and it is not necessary to make any efforts for this, that is, after a while it can fall off. Not like any harm, there are not even traces on the pedestal. Many people are surprised: how to give something for this: there is nothing, no composition. What is hooliganism?

- Apparently, the very fact that the secret union of Chekism and Orthodoxy was revealed, they were so shocked that they decided that they needed to punish it severely.

- Visually, apparently, the picture turned out so strong for them that everything boiled in their heads: how is it so, what is it?!