MMOMA’s videostudio
February 2012
Transcript by Anastasiya Guseva
Initial editing by Oksana Voronina

Wikipedia
Art-Azbuka

What is your first work of contemporary art?

I think it was the Presley Twins artwork, which was exhibited in the XL gallery. It was an exhibition of first-year students of the ICA Moscow in 1999. There were 15 participants. I consider the artwork was inspired by lectures which we were delivered in the Institute. The artwork was made of two white laconic truncated cones, cut with Presley’s discs, with two radio controlled helicopters inside. Presley’s records were fundamental for the exhibition. Firstly, it was connected with my amazement to learn the fact that Presley had a twin brother. Secondly, it dealt with Benjamin, with different feelings and iterations. I wanted to make two seemingly identical objects. The idea was that exterior didn’t hint at things within. Lately I used this approach in my other artworks.

What is the first work of contemporary art you have seen?

Frankly speaking, I don’t remember the very first one. I think they were all exhibitions that I visited in the XL gallery on Mayakovskaya that year. In general, they were all exhibitions which were shown. They all merged into a single impression for me. It was connected with the fact that I entered the Institute of Contemporary Art launched by Baсkstein. At that moment the sphere of contemporary art seemed mysterious, closed for me. I graduated from the Russian University of Theatre Arts, and the sphere of contemporary art was most attractive for me. I didn’t understand what was going on there and how to penetrate there. I with Natasha Zurabova, my fellow student, decided to the enter Baсkstein’s Institute, and since that time I visited all events which were advertised there.

In 1999, the sphere of contemporary art seemed much closed for me. At present, the things have changed. There is neither halo of mystery nor inaccessibility now.

How do you think it is necessary to teach art skills?

Once I discussed the issue of education in the sphere of contemporary art with different people. I changed my mind in the last ten years. Ten years ago the system of education in art academies seemed extremely inveterate, and it was terribly boring, because there was no alternative. Who needed this in the 21st century world? Who needed academic drawing, anatomy, etc.? Everything should change. But later, when I studied in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and lived in Sweden, I arrived at a conclusion that practical craft skills and art history knowledge were important for an artist.

How to become an artist is a mystery. I don’t know whether it is solvable. There are some masters who a person can join. Or an artist should undertake self-education in some way. If a beginning artist has neither knowledge nor skills, I mean drawing, composition, craft skills, his art turns into an ideological system. It is an education of some strategies which should be constantly changed. Each generation of artists has their own revelations and ideas. When you are politically savvy and learn strategies of behavior, it can’t be a basis of the education.

Does the fact that you have graduated from the University of Theatre Arts and have learnt set design, influence upon your liking of installations in the contemporary art?

Sure. For me, it was a natural conversion. I mainly made models, spatial compositions. Moreover, set design helped me to understand what was going on in the contemporary art easier. Set design differs much from easel painting, for example. We should read many literary works; learn history of theater, etc. Set design deals with narration rather than with illustration.

There is much difference between a film designer and a set designer. Stage scenery is watched from a distance. Sitting in the auditorium, a viewer can’t see scenery closely. So it is made with large strokes; it is a coarse imitation. It has nothing to do with the authenticity. In the cinema, the things are different. A viewer can see everything closely. The authenticity is very important. Objects in the frame should be real, recognizable, related to a definite historical epoch. This theme has been very important for me up till now. Objects carry an information and historical meaning for viewers. They can immerse viewers in a definite historical epoch.

What should the viewer know to understand your works?

I think my artworks can be understood by viewers who have learnt and known nothing at all. Because my oeuvre is no intellectual or concept art. I attach importance to the formal, plastic part of my works. In some sense, it is related to the simple perception of reality. But the more a person knows the better.

What artist do you carry on a dialogue with?

In Moscow, I try to visit exhibitions by all other contemporary artists. But I am more interested in the generation which has appeared recently. Among them there is Nastya Ryabova, Sasha Povzner, Mish Mash, Alexandra Paperno, Anya Sukhareva, Anya Titova, and Arseny Zhilyaev, Alex Buldakov, David Ter-Oganyan. I can call them all.

What artists and what artworks are determinant for you?

When I visited exhibitions of the late 1990s /early 2000s, I was admired with the Collective Actions, and, of cause, with the art of Konstantin Zvezdochetov. Also, Oleg Kulik Oleg_Kulik communicated much with our course. On the one hand, I am interested in all artists from a historical viewpoint, because they all are related to their definite periods. But on the other hand, artworks by other authors do not influence upon me, because I like to find inspiration in nature, architecture, cinema, etc.

Do you divide your art into any periods?

In recent times, I have not been occupied with installation art. Installation art seems to be related to my set design experience. I have wanted to create an atmosphere, an environment, where a viewer can be absorbed.

All my last works are rather objects or sculptures, some structures, which can be walked around. They have transformed from an environment into an object, which a viewer can go around and watch. I don’t know why I want things to be closed up, though there is an opportunity to look inside. I have wanted viewers would go around rather than inside. I don’t know why. I haven’t thought about this yet.

What is your prevailing theme? What is your art about?

I think a very important thing is a difference between the set/production designer’s job and the designer’s job. A designer creates new environments, a new beautiful, ideal reality. A production or set designer, to my opinion, contemplates, watches what exists, what has been created or is going on outside. He doesn’t try to create a new structured beauty, but observes everything in a complex, noticing combinations of things, and thinking what they all are narrating about. It is directly related to the feeling of impact on reality. I have no will of impact. I have an idea of non-intervention.

An artist seems to create a new repressive and aggressive ideology. I consider it needs a rigid will, but I don’t want to use it. It is a kind of lack of will. It is lack of understanding what is good and what is bad. It is absence of any criteria. I think, in the last ten years, people started to admire strange objects of reality. I mean when people travel in Russia and find sudden combinations of views, fences, old houses and artifacts which have remained from the Soviet period and mixed with new depositions. There are whole photo collections on Facebook. It is so pretty that it seems that people should not interfere with it. But at the same time, it is a beauty of ugliness.

What art movement do you belong to? How do you identify the movement?

People are easier to remember clear definitions. They often consider, one artist works with chairs, another deals with strings, and the third one uses plastic. And at times, it is reasonable. Many authors develop a single theme, which seems important for them, and find new depths. I myself don’t think that I deal with a single material. Everybody has remembered this way. It is easier to classify. For me, it is interesting to find new plastic forms. I don’t develop a single niche, a single theme.

What are your political views?

I think I am a skeptic. I was born in the Soviet period. I remember everything what was going on at that time. That is why I can’t honestly share ideas of communism, though, of cause, I understand them. There have been so many changes and unpleasant sides of all political periods and movements, that I don’t share any political views. I see all good sides of the left movement, but I also see its bad sides. That is why, I am no activist.

What is your attitude towards religion?

I am very interested in it. I have created many artworks related to this cultural aspect. I think that the religion, which has been hidden in the country for many years and then permitted, returns people to wonderful spiritual searches. Many people believe in powers of trees, salt stones, and cosmos. There are many narrow religious groups. It interests me. Last year, for instance, I showed an artwork, titled «When the Trees were Big», at MAC/VAL museum in Paris. There were large stumps with rusty monuments like those one can find in the Soviet, post-Soviet cities and locations, which were gradually overrun by trees. They were rusty symbols of the epoch. The stumps were in the water, charged with wires. Light bulbs produced light, taking electric current from the charged water. I mean, the water was charged the way like Kashpirovsky or Chumak did it. It was a combination of different interests and searches of people that I considered very interesting.

What political events, happened on your memory, do you consider the most important?

Frankly speaking, I think all events occurred during the change process of the political direction of Russia. They are all events that I have witnessed. They are events of 1991, 1993, 1985, Chernenko’s and Andropov’s deaths. I consider all these events are important.

What exhibitions that you have participated in do you consider the most important?

They were projects which I made in the XL gallery each year. It was my personal message. Thanks to Elena Selina and Sergey Khripun, the projects were made as best as possible to the moment. And it was absolutely my work. No doubt, when I took part in collective projects, my impressions were covered by emotions remained after project preparation process, interactions with other people and techniques. That is why; I am not ready to think critically about projects where I have participated as an author. I only remember how nice and pleasant it has been to visit Venice or to participate in other big projects. But the most important projects that I had worked hard at were in the XL gallery and a 2009 project that was exhibited in Ermolaevsky pereulok.

Does technological progress influence upon your art?

Sure. Though it depends on what you call technological progress. I think that plastic materials are very progressive as well as oilcloths which I have used for my sculptures like those I have exhibited at the Venice Biennale. There are these materials, Adobe Photoshop, computer programs, cameras, printing, etc. It is a reproduction of the reality on the surface, a kind of the computer reality. All materials replicate the reality, but it is intangible.