The San Francisco Chronice reports on the state of Russian art in a not particularly complimentary manner. I did like the sound of this exhibition though.
Two Siberian artists Vyacheslav Misin and Aleksandr Shaburov, known as the Blue Noses. At the biennial, they projected a video image of Lenin’s body into an open cardboard box. Peering into the great embalmed enigma at the Mausoleum, they show a fidgety body, coughing and spinning, never still, forever doomed to agitated discontent.
While this may smack of hackneyed postmodernist pretensions to Western viewers, it encapsulates the ideological discord of contemporary Russia.
Visiting Lenin for real is an oddly disconcerting experience. Lenin lies serene in his glass case, wearing his fashionable, if slightly dated, suit, while everyone else around, despite remaining in hushed silence, somehow seems to be on edge. Perhaps its the thought of the enormity of what Lenin did, or perhaps it’s the guards, who won’t let viewers pause for even a brief moment, but for me visiting Lenin was an experience akin to scraping my fingernails down a blackboard.
So, anyway, I liked the idea of making Lenin do the fidgeting for a change. I guess I’m just not a sophisticated Western art critic.
