With wide -closed doors

Why did the Moscow Benennale be canceled four days before the opening

The ninth Moscow Biennale cannot be seen now: the Ministry of Culture closed it the day before, not having time to open it. The video for 206 seconds laid out on the project website is all that remains from the project at a price of 66 million rubles.

You will not immediately understand which news is more amazing-the fact that the 9th Moscow Biennale of Modern Art was closed on the eve of the vernissage, or that it was going to open.

Since the leadership of Biennale has passed from the team of international level professionals - Joseph Bakstein and his colleagues were such - to the young generation, things went more fun and more fun. Julia Music (Zazulina), the stepdaughter of the former prefect of the Central Administrative District under Luzhkov, is a man with an interesting reputation, her life experience is rich - like many current bosses in culture, he is associated with the figure of Vladimir Medinsky. Here's how Artguide.com describes its professional path:

“Until 2008, she worked in the apparatus of the Government of the Russian Federation. Throughout 2009, she was an employee of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. From 2009 to 2012, she held the post of head of the Winzavod Modern Support Fund. In 2012, Zazulina became an adviser to Vladimir Medinsky and this post was held until August 2013. From August to October 2013, she worked in Rosizo as deputy director for development. In November-December 2013, a little more than two weeks was the head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (left a post of her own free will). On May 31, 2016, she became the president of the freshly postponed fund of the Biennale of Modern Art.

After Bakshtein Biennale, after the departure of Bakstein, were more and more ... how to say that? Strange. Even if media persons from other areas of art were involved in their work-for some reason, the world star of the opera directing Dmitry Chernyakov made one of the exhibitions. After the 8th Biennale, someone even thought that the main task of the organizers was to imperceptibly bury it in the most convenient way for everyone, and this, despite the presence in the main exhibition of works of authors such as Pavel Sepa. Nevertheless, in January of this year, the organizers - now they are called the “Biennale of Actual Art” - won the grant of the presidential fund of cultural initiatives to hold a new one. The size of the grant amounted to 10 029 690 rubles, another 56 587 500 rubles. It was declared in the form of co -financing. When and someone is unknown, the press release was not released for the Biennale, they promised to distribute it after the vernissage. But it did not happen - so now not to recognize the name of the curator (maybe he was not), nor the exact description of the exhibited. It is only known that the work of 27 authors participated in the final weight. However, on the website of MISIS, the former Moscow Institute of Steel and Always, now Moscow University of Technology, students were offered to look at the works of 29 authors, and they were going to let everyone go for free. Perhaps two authors were lost during a weight.

The organizers were insured as they could: in March, the composition of the participants made it as safe as possible - only citizens of the Russian Federation, in the expert council personally, the director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky, he took part in the selection of exhibits, the exhibition participants in an open letter after the closure, where they swore that they were not in foreign agents: they wrote about this.

“Contemporary art is considered to be marginals, we are suspected of hooliganism and nihilism in advance, in advance, they always see a“ figure in your pocket ”. And we did not have it. "

It did not help. Madly has its own logic. The Ministry of Culture on November 3 published a notice on the closure of the undifferent for the following reasons:

“The Tretyakov Gallery is the treasury of Russian art. The desire to conduct a project here, and not on a private or corporate site, should be accompanied by responsibility for the artistic and ethical context of the exhibition. This requires respect for both the unique museum assembly of the Tretyakov Gallery and its many connoisseurs, citizens of our country. ”

As a justification, the Ministry of Culture refers to the letter of the Tretyakov Gallery - an exhibition was being prepared in its western wing. The letter allegedly was about the fact that the installation terms were violated and the necessary technical documents were not provided, "which, in turn, entails a violation of fire safety equipment." In fact, there is not a single one, probably, the Biennale in the world that would not be frantically finished until the last second before the opening.

Power is changing. Under Brezhnev, the exhibitions cleaned the expositions before the opening, under Stalin they were worked out publicly - and it was clear to everyone what was possible and what could not. For especially incomprehensible, the newspaper "Pravda" acted as the enlightener.

Why exhibitions are closed today is known to one Ministry of Culture. Those who wish to coincide with the line of the party do not even have a hint of which red lines crossed this time.

Either one of the influential gallerists wanted to guess the process himself, and he eliminates the competitors so, or in the Ministry of Culture recalled that they accepted in July a new charter affecting museums and meeting the requirements of the updated “state security strategy”.

Those who want to match, but how is unknown, an internal dissonance arises.

But it is unlikely that anyone is surprised if Biennale suddenly risen, you never have any miracles. If not, the audience will get a video at 206 seconds at a price of 66 million rubles. This will be the most expensive video in the world.