MEETFACTORY GALLERY
PUSSY RIOT AND THE RUSSIAN TRADITION OF ART REBELLION
Travelling Exhibition of Russian Politically Engaged Art
Vika Begalskaja (RU), Blue Noses Group (RU), Alexander Brenner (RU), Dmitry Bulnigin
(RU), Lusine Djanyan a Alexey Knedljakovskij (RU), EliKuka Group (RU), E.T.I. Group
(RU), Gnezdo Group (RU), Alexey Iorsh (RU), Komar and Melamid (RU), Masha Kiseleva
(RU), Alexander Kosolapov (RU), Oleg Kulik (RU), Rostislav Lebedev (RU), Victoria
Lomasko (RU), Artem Loskutov (RU), Vladislav Mamishev-Monroe (RU), Igor Mukhin
(RU), Vikenti Nilin (RU), Anton Nikolaev (RU), Maxim Novikov (RU), Avdei Ter-Oganian
(RU), Anatoly Osmolovsky (RU), Boris Orlov (RU), PG Group (RU), Pussy Riot (RU),
Leonid Sokov (RU), Tsvetophory Group (RU), Voina Group (RU), Olga Zitlina (RU)
Curator: Andrey Erofeev
Co-organizers: Alexandra Kondrashova, Elizaveta Konovalova
Discussion in Tranzitdisplay: 6.2.2013, 7pm
Exhibition opening: 7.2.2013, 7pm
Exhibition Duration: 7.2. - 24.3.2013
Open daily 1 - 8pm
The exhibition curated by the Moscow-based art critic Andrey Erofeev and his coworkers Alexandra Kondrashova and artist Elizaveta Konovalova presents the
development of Russian politically engaged art from performance to art activism,
illustrated by leading examples of artworks, video clips, documents and props from
particular mass actions. The project was, on a smaller scale, presented within the
Alertes! exhibition series at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. For the MeetFactory International
Centre of Contemporary Art the authors present recent reflections of the Pussy Riot
action in a wide historical and contemporary context of the Russian art and activist
scene. After Prague, the exhibition will travel to Paris, Milan and elsewhere.
The project investigates aesthetic aspects of the oppression-struggling creative act:
street art-vandalism, ridiculing flashmobs, clownish posed photos, parodic video clips,
idiotic role games in urban environment or costume personage performance realized in
Russian art for the first time in the last 30 years and reflected in the performances and
video clips of the Pussy Riot band.
Both the supporters and opponents of the "Punk Prayer" by Pussy Riot, an action that
took place in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow almost a year ago, interpret
it as a demarche, a politically incorrect commentary addressing the pre-election pact
between president Vladimir Putin and Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill.
This action is in fact an art performance, which has played an important role in the
tradition of this genre, at least within the context of Russian contemporary art scene.
Before Pussy Riot and their allies, the Voina group, Russian political art was reduced to
individual actions, often accommodating open and eccentric role-plays. The artists
exhibited themselves as extravagant personalities, "lunatics" or "cranks", engaging in
illogical or even inappropriate acts. Ridicule was a key element, mocking the verbal or
visual rhetoric of power, its propaganda, signs, symbols and personifications. All these
elements were taken to absurd levels. The historical predecessors of such political
statements are clowns and the carnival atmosphere ridiculing all values. Pussy Riot
and the Voina group gave up unique authorship to enhance banal imagery and an
anonymous, yet universal character of their statements. A simulation of the “voice of
the people” replaced the cry of an alienated artist. However, the clear distinction
between the performers and the public remains: the artists as a group of street
troublemakers or a teenage band performing a daring action, while the viewers
subsequently experience it through its documentation shared on YouTube. The
turning point, which transformed these viewers into "politically engaged art activists"
were the mass protests held in 2012 and the beginning of 2013. In this context, it
becomes nearly impossible to separate a performance from a political gesture, a
demonstrative interpretation of an event from the event itself. These elements coexist
in the mass spectacle of a parade, where both the form and the content relate to the
concrete meaning and goal of the protest. The artists direct such an art-activist
happening as a theatre production, with all the participants of the demonstration
featuring as actors.