Kunst in Sibirien
Antonio Ortiz
Novosibirsk is the third largest city in Russia. It is the center of Siberia and the capital of crime. Novosibirsk has two million inhabitants, the largest opera house in the former Soviet Union, 500 casinos and a single private art gallery in the cellar of a degenerated concrete building. The city’s former Soviet Party Palace now serves as an art museum. From September 23rd through November 15th, 2005 the museum hosted the International Biennial Festival for Contemporary Graphic Arts. This year’s festival was larger than usual, with 199 artists from 34 countries participating. Over 900 works were displayed, four of which were awarded prizes from the jury. Its size and quality made this the Siberian art event of the year.
The two curators responsible for the show were Andrey Martinov and Wladimir Nasanski. Although the event had a very small budget, these curators made up for the lack of funds with dedication and enthusiasm. National curators selected about half of the works; others were directly accepted for the exhibition by Martinov and Nasanki. The contributions were diverse and colorful. For some viewers, the selection was perhaps too colorful. For others, this represented an opportunity to not only critique established values and structures of choice, but to circumvent them despite the intentionally meager budget grant.
Life in Russia today is not exactly easy. The majority of the population struggles just to survive. What counts these days is money, preferably fast money. The average life expectancy for men since the collapse of the Soviet Union has sunk to the age of 59. In countries where the people die before they go into retirement, art and culture are minority programs. How well could such an exhibition do in the middle of Siberia, when there is just enough money to guarantee the museum employees a life on the edge of the poverty line? Despite the adversities, the curators enjoyed a great accomplishment of creating an international exhibit, producing a professional exhibition catalogue, and successfully presenting artistic works from Canada, Germany, France and Japan next to works from Kyrgystan, the Urals, Kazakhstan and Tasmania.
The day after the official opening of the festival, Viennese artist Lukas Pusch, with the assistance of Ludmilla Ivashina and Konstantin Slotnikov of the art group Blue Nose, organized a procession through the city with eight of his works. This project was the only work that disrupted the official scope of the festival. Pusch painted on-site free associations to Russia with titles such as: Juri Gagarin–Design for a Contemporary Monument, Little Birkenwald, Monument to an Ice Fisher, Day of Victory and Goethe Institute. Some of the paintings were quite large and painted with dirt, bitumen and simple wall paint. They were intended to be direct and easily understood. Pusch used sacred Russian national symbols to deliver radical messages. One painting featured the great Soviet icon and Russian hero cosmonaut Juri Gagarin (the first man in space), painted as a naked cripple without arms or legs. Gagarin is a symbol of a better future, a hero of a Soviet fairy tale about a better world. He stands for the zenith of Soviet power and, with his tragic death in a plane crash, the beginning of the end of a giant empire. In another work, Pusch chides the largest Russian holiday, Day of Victory, which celebrates victory over Hitler’s Germany. Pusch mocked the proud Russian demonstrations of prosthetic military power by painting the image of a saluting general riding a tank with the muzzle as a penis. This piece was his commentary and critique on the army that not only defeated the Nazis, but also waltzed into Prague in the spring of 1968 and left whole cities like Grosny in rubble and ashes.
The art procession was not registered with the local authorities; as a result Pusch and Skotnikov were worried about the police and negative reactions from the public. These worries were unfounded as the procession received a very warm response. In fact, it became quite an affair. Dozens of friends and acquaintances of the artist came to carry the pictures through the city. A few visitors even brought their own works along. The reaction from both the public and the press was superb. Three Russian TV stations sent camera teams. All of the large daily and weekly newspapers reported, held interviews and featured full-page lead stories with photos of the procession. In the evening, all celebrated and danced pornojazz.
Early next year, the Exhibition of Contemporary Art Nahodki will take place in Novosibirsk. Dimitri Puris and Artem Loskutov will be organizing the show. In their press release about the exhibition they write: "Usual passersby will become our spectators. Streets will become our exhibition halls. Squares will become our pavilions. Underground passages will become our museums." Sound familiar?
There is no money for art in Novosibirsk and Siberia. Art lives solely through the strength and passion of the artist. Novosibirsk is a desert. But there is gold there.
