Translated material
"The painter gives the viewer his agenda"
"The painter gives the viewer his agenda." In the "PMC Wagner Center"-an exhibition from the "Z-artist" and a philosopher accused of harassment
“Change” (previously “Paidey”) is an independent educational project in St. Petersburg, on Pushkinskaya, 10, where the current artists teach the art of everyone. Montlevich was the organizer of the school. Now the site of the "Shop" states that confrontation of the autumn-winter set has been postponed "due to temporary relocation of part of the teaching staff."
Maria Dmitrieva met Montlevich when she was a student of the Paidey school (“Change”). Now the artist is overseeing the cultural spaces “Studio 4413” and “This is here”, where seminars, exhibitions, performances, punk concerts and other events are held.
In January 2021, the security forces and Rospotrebnadzor expelled Studio 4413 from the premises in St. Petersburg, saying that they were reported that radical activists were gathering in the Studio.
In September 2022, Maxim Evstropov and other artists were searches in the framework of a criminal case of insulting the feelings of believers (Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Activists of the "Party of the Dead" explained on VKontakte that the cause of the criminal case was their Easter post "with an unpleasant statement of Patriarch Kirill, who supports the war and worshiping the president’s ass." In December, Evstropov was put on the wanted list.
The sledgehammer is considered the instrument of reprisals with the "traitors" in the PMC "Wagner". It was with her help that the prisoner Evgeny Nuzhin was killed, which fell on the video, which was published in November, published by the Grey Zone telegram channel, affiliated with the Wagner PMC.
The founder of the PMC Evgeny Prigozhin addressed the “information case” with a sledgehammer in the European Parliament in response to the initiative to recognize “Wagner” by a terrorist organization. However, after that, Prigozhin received an “information case” with handcuffs from the Foreign Ministry of Estonia.
Maternal company Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus
The Eurasian Youth Union (EU) is a Russian ultra -right movement, the youth wing of the international Eurasian movement, which is headed by the philosopher Alexander Dugin and which is built on his ideas. According to foreign experts, the ECM was created by Dugin to combat “color revolutions” and the mobilization of youth against anti -government sentiments.
Alexander Dugin is a philosopher and public figure, who is often called the ideologist of the “Russian world”. He develops the ideas of Eurasianism, which involve the integration of Russia and the former countries of the USSR and the creation of a new superpower on their basis. Since 2014, Dugin has been included in the sanctions list of the European Union, and since 2015 - on the sanctions list of the USA and Canada.
In the rainbow flag of LGBT, the colors are located in a conventional sequence, but there is no blue. In the photo of Montlevich - a full rainbow.
The biker club "Night Wolves" supports the war in Ukraine, some motorcyclists even participate in hostilities on the side of the Russian Federation. Club members regularly support government initiatives. The state, in turn, has been financing "night wolves" from the budget since 2013.
In the “PMC Wagner Center” in St. Petersburg, the “New Order” exhibition was opened about the “The Dark Side of the American Hegemony”. Two main persons of the event - the author of paintings by the permanent exposition of the Erarta museum Alexei Chizhov and the curator of the exhibition Alexander Montlevich.
Chizhov calls himself a "quilted jacket." And the philosopher Montlevich, as the journalists recalled , a year ago was at the center of the scandal of harassment in relation to the child. On Facebook, the curator found an avatar with a rainbow letter Z and a post, where he promised to make a “photo zone with a sledgehammer” at a future exhibition.
"Paper" visited the exhibition in Prigozhinsky business center, talked with its curator and says what is known about Montlevich and Chizhov.
The New Order wire exhibition appeared in the "PMC Wagner Center". Five years ago, she was shown in Erart as a “metaphor of modern geopolitics”
On the evening of January 20, 2023, an exhibition of works by the St. Petersburg artist Alexei Chizhov under the name “New Order” was opened in the “PMC Wagner Center”. The exposition, according to the organizers, is dedicated to the "dark side of the American hegemony."
Chizhov’s works were placed in the assembly hall and hall of the first floor near the elevators and an empty cafeteria. These are meter canvases made "according to the canons of classical painting." The same motives are repeated in them: opium poppies, parrots and people in military uniforms, berets and sunglasses. Only a few paintings (for example, “Sower”) wrote in 2022 - he worked on other canvases before the invasion of Ukraine.
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Report "Paper" from the opening
Chizhov’s exhibition under the same name - “New Order” - was already represented in mid -2018 in the private museum of contemporary art “Erarta”. Most of the work in five years has not changed. Chizhov’s paintings in the museum have been exhibited since 2011, and some works of the artist - for example, Orpheus and Eurydice - are included in the constant exposition of Erartes.
In 2018 , in the announcement of the exhibition there were no words about "American hegemony." In the series “New Order”, as Chizhov himself explained then, he “tried to imagine the general metaphor of modern geopolitics”, and some visitors to Erartians completely interpreted the exhibition as “antimilitarian” five years ago, they told the “paper” .
Now Chizhov, who calls himself a “Z-artist,” presents “a new order” as an act of solidarity with the Russian military in Ukraine and a protest against “globalism and American influence”. The canvases, according to the artist, depict the “glossy” images of US mercenaries, as well as opium poppies, symbolizing the “production of false consciousness” and sending America to the war in Afghanistan.
How is opium related to the war in Afghanistan? ↓
The United States introduced troops to Afghanistan after the attack on September 11, 2001. The goal of the war of the States authorities called the liberation of Afghanistan from terrorist organizations. The war was the most long in the history of the United States. American fighters left the territory of Afghanistan only in 2021, when the authorities nevertheless seized the Taliban terrorist movement (prohibited in Russia).
Afghanistan is the largest manufacturer of heroin in the world, and during the war the cultivation of opium poppy peasants, and therefore drug production, has only increased . Official Russian individuals have repeatedly blamed for the growth of US drug production. According to the Permanent Representative of Russia at the UN Vasily Nebenzi, America arranged a “large -scale humanitarian and economic crisis” and “put the poor Afghans on the facet of survival, forcing many of them to sell organs and children, as well as to produce heroin.
Five years ago, in an interview with Piter.tv, Chizhov explained that warriors surrounded by opium poppy are the personification of the destructiveness of any ideology: from authoritarian to neoliberal-consumer. Although already in 2018, as the interviewer noted, Chizhov was called “quilted jacket”, the artist himself was “normal” and said that he was “a single wolf in St. Petersburg Bohemia”.
The curator of the exhibition was accused of harassment in relation to the child. Now Montlevich proposes to judge the shared texts for this for the "LGBT Propaganda"
The curator of the exhibition “New Order”-a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University 39-year-old Alexander Montlevich-works at the School of Modern Art School and teaches at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet.
Montlevich supporting today's fighting several years ago was published in the Translit literary and theoretical journal, which, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, took an anti-war position. For an exhibition of works by Alexei Chizhov, Montlevich created a textual accompaniment in the “PMC Wagner Center”.
At the beginning of 2022, Montlevich was in the center of the scandal associated with harassment in relation to a sixth grader. His colleague, artist Maria Dmitrieva, told in an interview with the publication about the contemporary art of Crapiva that in 2020, Montlevich helped to look after her 10-year-old son, and then the drunk “guarded” of the boy at the subway.
Once, according to Dmitrieva, she allegedly saw Montlevich closely pressed against the child lying on the couch. Now the site of the Nettle of Crap, where Dmitrieva was a commentary, does not work for technical reasons, but the copy of the Sigma media was published .
In an interview with Paper, Montlevich said that he was slandered. Colleagues who supported Maria Dmitriev and shared her accusations, the philosopher suggested judging by the new law on LGBT Propaganda:
-The first [commentary of Maria Dmitrieva] was published by the Netropiva publication, which belongs to Max Evstropov (he is a member of the Redsole of the publication-approx. “Papers” ), the founder of the art group “Party of the Dead”, which is on the federal wanted list . A criminal case was instituted on him [about the insult of the feelings of believers], and, apparently, his strategy was to discredit and discredit my activity. I think that the authors of the text on the “nettles” can be put in line for verification of “LGBT propaganda”.
Montlevich sees the reasons for “slander” in the “confrontation between the liberal camp with some kind of philosophical” and attributes himself to the latter, because it does not support “Western values and all these Quire moves”.
According to Montlevich, Maria Dmitrieva personally did not make him complaints. He claims that the artist could envy his career and "wanted popularity." “Now, you know, many on antidepressants, mentally unstable after Covid. It would be better if everyone went about their business, make films, make exhibitions, ”he said.
When asked whether it is possible to deprive the freedom of those who “do their own business” - for example, making films (Vsevolod Korolev created paintings about the defendants about “fakes” about the army, and later he himself was accused of this article), - Montlevich replied:
- I do not quite understand what it means "to plant for art." This is too abstract formulation. The Law on the “propaganda” of LGBT has been adopted, accordingly, writers must take this into account and understand what to issue in Russia at the moment. And in general, I do not follow the agenda and news, where and whom they plant. I am not interested in it. I read Kant with Hegel, I am interested in painting.
In Facebook, Montlevich was a rainbow letter Z and a promise to arrange a “photo zone with a sledgehammer”. The philosopher said that his page was hacked
Almost a year after accusations of harassment in relation to an 11-year-old boy, Alexander Montlevich reappeared in the info-as the curator of the Chizhov exhibition at the PMC Wagner Center. As Montlevich himself explained to the Paper , he agreed to participate in the event, because “PMC Wagner Center” is “a new subject that is actively working on the cultural and information field”.
“For the artist and for the organizer, this work is not with typical art-instance, but with a new active participant in cultural life, this is a very interesting experiment,” he said.
Reporting “Paper” from “PMC Wagner Center” - it is empty after three weeks of work
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"Only there were many people at the opening"
Three days before the opening of the exhibition, the Montlevich page on Facebook appeared an announcement of the event. Under the post there were his comments with the idea of arranging an entry in volunteers and a promise to organize in the Prigozhinsky business center “ The Photosone with a Sledgehammer ”.
Since then, a photograph with the letter Z (symbol of the Russian military) in the colors of the rainbow flag (LGBT symbol) has been on the avatar on the social network near Montlevich.
When asked what his avatar and comments on social networks mean, Montlevich said that he had not entered Facebook for three months and that he was allegedly hacked:
- You know, with Facebook there is such a story that in recent years I have been hacked many times. The posts, avatars, comments and even messages wrote and posted not me. From the beginning, I have little relation to Facebook, the social networks of META were recognized as illegal.
The curator believes that his background is of interest, since he is a philosopher and back in 2008 he wrote texts for collections of the Eurasian Youth Union , collaborated with Alexander Dugin . According to Montlevich, his account was allegedly hacked by people "in the mode of information ideological war."
-[Speaking about the avatar with rainbow z], as far as I know, in the flag of LGBT color in some other sequence . Therefore, I looked at the picture from the side and thought: "What is the point here?" You know, generally beauty in the eyes of the watchman. Everyone sees what he wants, ”commented the philosopher.
At the same time, as the “paper” noted, after the publication of screenshots from Montlevich’s page to the media, a comment on the organization “Photoso with a sledgehammer” disappeared. It was not possible to get a philosopher’s answer by this moment.
About 30 people came to the opening of the exhibition at the PMC Wagner Center. The Russian nationalist argued with the artist
On the opening day of the New Order exhibition, about 30 people gathered in the “PMC Wagner Center”, the correspondent of “ Paper ” from the scene of the scene said. There was no photo zone promised to Montlevich, guests were handed out booklets with the text that "art became a new front of aesthetic and ethical sovereignty." The variegated images of the military were hung on the walls of the first floor of the center and coexisted with white pigeons.
The textual accompaniment written by Montlevich to the exhibition says that, having imbued with Chizhov’s work, the viewer can go to the front as a volunteer:
“Chizhov’s work and the exposition of his paintings in the“ PMC Wagner Center ”create a precedent: yesterday, starting a moral career for a mercenary in the service of the beautiful, today the painter gives the viewer his own agenda, tomorrow, taking which he may be a volunteer.”
At the opening of potential volunteers, the “paper” did not notice. On the ground floor of the business center were pro-Russian social activists and those who regularly go to Prigozhin events. Among them are the chairman of the Union of Donbasses of St. Petersburg and Luo Sergey Lisovsky and Finnish journalist Kostya Haiscanen, who read the laudatory speech at the funeral of the prisoner recruited in the PMC. One of the winners of the December Khakaton “Wagner Center” to develop a program for military drones passed by the exhibition walls.
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In social networks they are called “shame of Matmekh” - for help in improving military drones
Unlike previous events, not only journalists and social activists came to the exhibition, but also a group of young girls dressed in modern fashion. In an interview with the correspondent of “Paper”, one of them introduced himself as a “Russian nationalist”.
It was the “Russian nationalist” who became the only one who argued with the artist Alexei Chizhov. The girl said that the “brutal and glossy images of the American military” on Chizhov’s canvases are more clearly showed “demonization, but the heroization of Western hegemony,” the true meanings of the artist may not be counted.
The artist replied: "I do not count on fools." After these words, the audience applauded, repeating the words of the artist. For inappropriate questions, employees of the PMC Wagner Center called the girl a “provocateur”.
The rest of the guests did not ask Chizhov at the opening, but the Wagner PMC praised him and the fighters. After a short introductory part, visitors in 15 minutes carefully examined all the paintings and hurried to the exit.
The exhibition "New Order" by Alexei Chizhov will last until February 20. Now this is not the only cultural project in the PMC Wagner Center. In the lobby, at the entrance to the center, until January 27, a series of photographs of the War “Volunteers” will be presented. Some pictures are accompanied by “material evidence”: a national wreath, a prayer book in Ukrainian and the cross of the burned church.
In the "PMC Wagner Center" the exhibition has been held from the end of December, and now three projects have already been implemented. In addition to the “volunteers” and “new order” in the business center, the exhibition was arranged by participants in the “ Night Wolves ” proceedings. Their project “War in the Persons” consisted of sculptures, for each of which a story was hidden about the Great Patriotic War.
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