Art exhibition “Russian Poor” is opened in Perm. It
presents the works of thirty-six artists inspired by hand-made
and anti-glamour ideas.
photo dp.perm.ru
“Boom! Bang!
Flop!” Those strange sounds could be heard at the river-boat
station. On a stage, constructed on the bank of the Kama river,
musicians wearing khaki dungarees and gas masks fiercely hammered
garbage cans, wooden chests and roofing iron. Shrilled sounds
of siren and other fake instruments were also added to the
clatter of those “percussion instruments”.
A female singer, wearing a dress made of posters, cried out
shaman spells, roared and growled. The musicians followed
every movement of the conductor’s baton. Mark Pekarsky was
at the stand and conducted the ensemble of percussion instruments.
By his side, holding back his music papers and shivering with
cold wind, there was Georgy Dorokhov. It was he, who composed
that thirty-minute “Russian Poor” bacchanalia that opened
the exhibition of the same name.
The largest exhibits could be seen long before the exhibition’s
official opening day. It is next to impossible not to notice
the logs dug vertically into ground just opposite the river-boat
station. On their tops wooden eagles look like idols protecting
the “Borders of Empire” (name of the work by Nikolai Polissky,
the most ecological Russian artist). Being shabby outside,
the river-boat station has changed inside. Premises have been
renovated and accurately divided into halls. Visitors leave
every hall with smiles upon their faces. Serious works are
placed together with the interactive ones that require spectators’
participation. The exhibition itself is organized for people.
Most exhibits are made of quite simple and sometimes waste
materials. At the entrance visitors see a half broken Greek
temple made of ordinary sticky tape that is adjusted to the
wall. Next to it there is a plastic foam foot in a sandal
that seems to belong either to an antique hero or a god left
here by an artist Valery Koshlyakov. Olga and Alexandra Florenskih,
people behind the former Peterburg’s art project “Mit’ki”,
presented animal skeletons made of household litter such as
washing tubs, watering cans, nail drawers and other household
rubbish. Dmitry Gutov works with metal, too. He welds scrap
metal into beautiful gratings with Chinese calligraphy. Haim
Sokol uses laundry soap as a construction material, and Vladimir
Aselm uses coal. Another fine example of ‘minimalism in materials’
is shown by Yuri Shabelnikov in his installation “To Soldiers
of Labour” which is made of cigarette ends laid out as a five-pointed
star. Vladimir Arkhipov’s project has become an apotheosis
of Russian poverty. The artist collects household things made
by common people. These things are supposed to be used not
for interior design but for everyday life. A handmade shower
cubicle made of “Ikarus” bus doors is just one example of
them.
To be fair, not all the exhibits may be called plain and primitive.
You can see quite complicated things such as three-meter plastic
heads with circling brain tubes inside – the creation of “Recycle”
group; a very funny video of Uralo-Siberian madcaps “Blue
Noses” and a video of small people making love. Architector
Alexander Brodsky also uses video. His side-spitting “Psychedelic
Van” is made of green clay with small clay people sitting
inside as if they were in a cinema and looking at the screen
where video is projected.
The idea to bring together various artists, who use different
techniques and strategies but work on one topic, did not show
up spontaneously. Its author, the senator Sergey Gordeev,
offered to create a museum of Modern Art in Perm. Here is
a quotation from his announcement, “the museum would become
a source for artistic talents, new collectors, remarkable
cultural events in city’s life, limits of its identity and
distinctions from others”.
In fact, the exhibition is the first part of the project that
has been organized by famous Moscow picture gallery expert
Marat Gelman. In his statements he underlined that he got
the idea of exhibition in Perm under impression of Perm Wooden
Sculpture. While working at it, Marat Gelman came to a conclusion
that the “Russian Poor” is a common view of Russian Art and
it is the key to understand the whole Russian Art. Marat Gelman
seems to foget that eight years ago he organized an exhibition
with a similar title. In 2000 “Poor Art” was presented as
a part of Marat Gelman’s gallery project “Art vs. Geography”.
It was a mobile museum presenting its exhibits in a number
of Russian cities such as Saint-Petersburg and Izhevsk. The
exhibition’s press-release announced that “Poor Art” just
like Italian “Arte Povera” includes the works of national
artists made of “post-industrial litter” such as “cheap” materials
or second-hand things thrown away by people.
Thus, the “Russian Poor” project is made professionally as
an ambitious remake of eight-year old exhibition. It is now
the only possibility for Perm spectators to see modern art.
As for the museum, we can agree with senator Sergey Gordeev
who called upon Perm creative intellectuals “to unite in order
to make the idea of the museum come true”. However it is necessary
to unite to discuss the conception thoroughly first.
