New Russian Video
Febrary 21 – March 13
CEC International Partners approached Art in
General about collaborating on an initiative to take American
video art, curators, and artists
to Russia. Jeanine Oleson, former Programs Director, traveled
to Russia in 2002 with Neil Goldberg and in 2003, with Alix
Pearlstein.
During these trips, there were screenings and workshops at
PRO-Arte in St. Petersburg and at the National Centers for Contemporary
Art (NCCAs) in Ekatrinburg, Kaliningrad, Moscow, and Nizhny
Novgorod.
At the same time, it was generally felt that was equally important
to bring contemporary Russian video art and artists to the
U.S., so a study trip and video screening of Russian artists was
organized
by Neil Goldberg, Jeanine Oleson, and Alix Pearlstein.
Viktor Davydov (Zarechny), The Americanizer,
2001, 1:00 min
This
tape introduces a new method of learning how to be happy, with
the help of an absurd device—the "Americanizer." Modeled
on orthodontic prosthetics, the "Americanizer" artificially
corrects the "wrong" expression of your face by stretching
it into a smile, creating the ideal Western image. Natalia Pershina
And Olga Egorova (St. Petersburg), Triumph of Fragility, 2002,
4:40 min
Working together under the cover of the
"FFC" (the
Factory of Found Clothes), Gluklya and Tsaplya address the issues
of vulnerability
in modern society and male/female interactions in contemporary
Russian society. One can easily sense nostalgia for the ideal
community of
the past, which seems to be irrevocably lost. The sailors who
appear in the film are actual students of the St. Petersburg Naval
Academy.
It has become a common practice for the FFC to involve people
from outside the art community in its videos. Andrei Ustinov (Luga),
Expulsion from Paradise, 2002, 2:00 min
This
project originates from a live performance that took place in
a McDonalds restaurant in Saint Petersburg in May, 2002. Maxim
Iliukhin (Moscow), The Tunnel (or Escape from Shawshank ),
2001, 4:00 min
In this performance, based on the Hollywood movie
"The Shawshank Redemption," the main character succeeds in breaking
out
of prison through a tunnel. The moments in the Hollywood film in
which
the actor is crawling through the underground tunnel are not shown,
so the artist decided to shoot this missing episode himself. It
is an attempt to convey the desire of man to come out of darkness
into
light.
Elena Sharova (Ekaterinburg), Murka‚s song, 2003, :38 min
The artist and her cat sing a popular Russian folk song. Viktor
Davydov (Zarechny), Dunia-the-fine-spinner, 1997, 2:38 min
This
is a video illustration of a Russian folk song performed by legendary
Russian opera singer, Fyodor Shaliapin. The film visualizes
the fable of Dunia and her domestic life and mixes it with the
artist‚s
personal observations. Dmitri Bulnygin (Novosibirsk), Georgian songs,
2002-2003, 5 min
Part
documentary, part slapstick, this footage was filmed during a journey
to Georgia in the fall of 2002. A character with a big,
false nose and moustache represents a typical Russian stereotype
of Georgians ˆ a larger-than-life figure who sings, dances
and speaks Russian with a harsh accent. At the same time this image
hints
at a different kind of authenticity, which is not visible externally.
The work was made in collaboration with professional musician,
Arkady Khlobystov. Elena Sharova (Ekaterinburg), The Year 2094,
2003, 2:07 min
In early
spring, two friends set out to hunt mushrooms, because in spring,
when the snow begins to melt, mushrooms have more flesh ∑and
can run really fast. Valerii Shablovskii (St. Petersburg), Solo
for Excavator, 2003, 5:50 min
The viewer sees two screens, one inside the other: the
video screen
and the shadows projected onto the wall, which serves as a screen
itself. It is as if one illusion created the other—a film inside
a film. The main subject of this video work is a kind of "theatre
of shadows." In the first part, the moving machines and people
absorbed by shadows intermingle in a mysterious interaction,
which further develops as a dream within a dream. In the second
part,
one of the shadows breaks free. This is the shadow of the rapidly
moving
excavator, which has the voice of a roaring animal and becomes
a dominating "living" object—aggressive and threatening. Evgenii
Palamarchuk (Kaliningrad), To Alice, 2002, 1:08 min
Palamarchuk
presents a brief, lyrical story about human relationships in
the era of technocracy. A music box, which seems like a useless
piece of antiquity, symbolizes the human soul and its limitations. Viktor
Alimpiev and Sergei Vishnevskii (Moscow), Rock Music, 2003, 7
min
A group of schoolboys listening to their teacher playing the
guitar serves as an analysis of the mythology surrounding juvenile
ideas
about masculine training. Arsenii Sergeev and Zasada Tsetkin Group (Ekaterinburg), Temporary/Permanent,
2003, 5:00 min (excerpt)
The theme of this project is the interplay between two notions:
the permanent and the temporary. The video features a walk around
two
cities—Ekaterinburg and Amsterdam. By combining frame-by-frame
photography and "live" video, the artists set in motion
objects and architectural elements which, in real life, appear
to be still and immovable. These basic details are shot at different
locations and during different time periods and become animated,
beginning to "move" and "breathe." Things
that would ordinarily move are transformed into "constant noise."
At
the same time, the transition from one city to the other is almost
imperceptible to the viewer. Evgenii Palamarchuk (Kaliningrad), Half Kampf, 2002, 1:12 min
The
narrative of this video work is based on the history of Kaliningrad
as a pre-World War II. Stylized black and white images, the abandoned
shell of the House of Soviets built on the site of the destroyed
Royal Palace, and Adolf Hitler‚s voice create an atmosphere
of totalitarianism that describe the strange circumstances of the
region of Kaliningrad. Galina Myznikova And Sergei Provorov (Nizhny
Novgorod), Alternative Play Station, 2003, 2:40 min
The camera captures children playing
an odd game of hide-and-seek, creating a different psychological
dimension to the game. The children
are posing—sometimes establishing contact with the camera;
at other times, camera-shy. They confront a serious "adult" dilemma:
to play with their friends or to "play" for the camera.
During the game, each of them makes his/her own choice. The camera
does not simply record the game and the children playing it—its
presence indirectly stimulates an unusual development of the situation. Anna Kolossova (St. Petersburg), Invisibility Zone, 2002, 3:37
min
This video is based on sketches made by some of the Moscow
conceptualist artists of the 1970s and depicts the performances
organized by
a group of them. The artist has digitized and animated these
hand-made drawings in order to reinvent and revive these activities
in a
contemporary media context. Dmitri Samsankov (Moscow), Infantile,
2003, 1:37 min
This video
work approaches the most tender and delicate aspects of what
once was and is now non-existent in post-Soviet space.
Samsankov balances minimalism, conceptualism, and traditional
forms of cherished conventions and nostalgia for the past. The
artist
combines his love for old Soviet films with visions of a new
utopia and the new Russian reality, with its lack of direction
and initiative. Natalia
Mali, The People and the State Together Create an Image of the
New Russia (Moscow), 2003, 7:22 min
Two characters act as
representatives of the people and the state respectively. They
are engaged in the process of turning an amorphous
substance into a well-formed image of a New Russia.
Viktor Alimpiev
and Marian Zhunin (Moscow), Ode, 2001, 9:09 min excerpt of 34:30
min
How do you captivate people‚s minds by delight? In the words
of the artists, "To captivate. To convince "with a shout,
to seduce" with the everyday, to amuse—with boredom.
To re-invent our comfortable little routines. To forge through
a desert—only
to find surrogate delight like eidetic coffee made of chicory."
Vladimir Seleznyov (Nizhny Tagil), A Visualization of Domestication,
2003, 3:28 min
The artist made three self-portraits using sunflower
seeds on the surface of the white snow. Birds were then filmed
coming
to peck
at them, eating up the images and, in turn, the artist. The
actions of the immediate spectators present art as consumer entertainment,
as a gastronomical pleasure, and as the devouring of the artist
by a public seeking entertainment.
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