Григорий Ревзин о теории заговора в отношениях государства и искусства

Any controversy is merely a surface disguising a number of hidden factors: political machinations, jealousy, fears, stereotypes, assumptions and ambitions all lie at a scandal’s foundation. In this issue, Artchronika attempts to dig deeper and uncover what’s at play and what’s at stake in four scandals that continue to trouble Russia’s art community: Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt’s receipt of the Kandinsky Prize, the Russian Orthodox Church’s demand of the return of Andrei Rublev’s great Icon of the Trinity from the Tretyakov Gallery, lawsuits by nationalist organizations against contemporary artists and the proposed demolition of Moscow’s biggest exhibition space, the Central House of Artists.

In the 1990s, the worst that could happen to radical artists who staged provocative actions was a brief stay at the police station, with a chance of getting roughed up. Today, however, the Russian art world finds itself facing totally different legal problems. In the last year, several curators and artists have faced criminal charges. Who launched these criminal cases? Is it possible we are witnessing a new era of forbidden themes in art? Is censorship returning to Russia?

Like the rest of the world’s art markets, the Russian art market is now living in uncharted territory—one full of both dangers and opportunities.

Tair Salakhov — artist, inventor of the Severe Style in Soviet painting, professor, People’s Artist of the Soviet Union, Hero of Socialist Labor, a living classic and laureate of every possible prize, a handsome bon vivant who for some thirty years held top positions in the Soviet Artists’ Union, with responsibilities that included entertaining visiting celebrities and representing the Soviet Union abroad. Compared with other artists of his generation, he has enjoyed perhaps too much kindess from fate and the authorities. But that is only how it looks from the outside. People close to him say that fate wasn’t just kind to Salakhov—it was fair. As he stood at the pinnacle of power, he defended and stood up for his fellow artists in hard times, as well as the cash-strapped students at the Surikov Institute, where he taught for more than twenty years. As first secretary of the Artists’ Union Tair Salakhov made true revolutions in the Soviet art world and in viewers’ minds. In November 2008, Tair Salakhov celebrated his eightieth birthday. In June 2009, this patriarch of Soviet art will represent Azerbaijan at the Venice Biennale.

Since the 1970s Leonid Sokov has studied Soviet mythology and broken it down into parts. In his sculptures he selects images typical of Russian visual culture and puts them in new environments, juxtaposing incompatible visual traditions or transposing society’s sacred cows to the realm of toys and folk art. And although the artist is highly serious about his work, his carnival devices—the destruction of taboos, the overthrowing of idols—more often than not elicit laughter. Sokov emigrated in 1979 but to this day works with totemic images of Russian culture, from the distance of his New York studio.

Dmitry Vrubel and Viktoria Timofeyeva are an artistic duo responsible for some of the most topical works in Russian art. Their paintings compose a cutting portrait of our times, giving equal space to images of former President Putin, grubby waifs and strays, suicide bombers, and down-and-out lumpenproles, whose daily life they used to illustrate their most recent work, The New Testament Project. Although Vrubel and Timofeyeva personify the contemporary social conscience, Moscow’s artistic community has mixed feelings about them because of their exhibitions in the reception chambers of the Federation Council and their cooperation with state-owned corporations—not quite the right thing for a contemporary artist to be doing.

The Tate Modern opened “Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism.” For the first time one of the world’s major museums is presenting a show of Russian art without Faberge, Malevich, icons, Sots art or even the high-status gloss of patronage from the Russian state. And this workhorse show has become London’s biggest hit of the spring.

In December, Russian contemporary art made its third consecutive appearance in the parallel program of Art Basel Miami Beach. This time, Olga Sviblova was the curator and, as always, she gave her exhibition an optimistic name: “Russian Dreams…” Haim Sokol, an artist and participant in the exhibition, spoke with Artchronika about whether the exhibition was defined by the curator’s will or the spirit of a beach vacation.