Eda Čufer
A conversation with Viktor Misiano
In the last ten, fifteen years life in Eastern Europe has changed completely. You discuss these changes in your collection of essays Kulturna protislovja tusovke (Cultural Contradiction of Tusovka); (Žepna zbirka, Založba /*cf. & SCCA-Ljubljana, Ljubljana 2001). Could you in a few words explain what happened in this break of the social paradigm, which effected Eastern European societies?
It is hard to understand the 1990's, it is hard to define them or describe them. A while ago we dedicated an entire number of the Hudožestvenni Žurnal (Moscow Art Magazine) that I edit to the 90's and in this issue we dedicated an entire chapter merely to definitions. We posed two basic questions: when did the 90's start and when did they finish. We received greatly differing answers. One of the most frequent answers was that the 90's started with one of my exhibitions. Aesthetic Exercises was an exhibition that was created in 1991, immediately after the attempt of a coup d'état in Russia. It was opened merely two weeks later. The moment of this exhibition somehow matched the general atmosphere in the country. We were all under the influence of experiencing this three-day long dramatic performance and the exhibition itself was very beautiful and optimistic. It seemed to celebrate victory. However, if I am totally honest, I must admit that I do not share the opinion that this was an exhibition of the 90's. To me the 90's represent something completely different. By no means could I connect them to a general atmosphere of optimism. They were much more complicated. I linked them to the feeling of rejection. In 1991, in the time of the coup we did not yet feel rejection and we did not feel that we are left to our own resources. On the contrary, we still felt we were standing together, we still perceived ourselves as a community, even though it was obvious that we were very post-modern, very ironic, but we still felt a certain unity, a certain link to a political power, a political trend. We were a unified community, open towards the idea of social progress. The 90's started later on with liberal economic reforms, which emphasised competitiveness and the rejection of responsibility to any kind of organised political power. In my opinion this atomisation, the disintegration of the society's body and the reflection that emerged from the advancement of these processes and all artistic strategies that we proposed as an answer, came a bit latter. That is why I think that the experience of the coup as well as the exhibition that I have mentioned belong to the 1980's, for they are closer to the world which we remember as the period of Gorbatchov, as the period of 'perestroika'. In reality this period was very optimistic, for it still respected and believed in the paradigms of humanistic values. If I thus compare Gorbatchov and Yeltsin as two reformers, then I have to ascertain that the Gorbatchov reforms still belonged to a certain modernistic value system. These were reforms that believed that at the beginning there has to be a certain project, that the government has the responsibility to carry out this project and that it should monitor the development of these reforms, analyse their depth and efficiency. On the other hand we could say that Yeltsin was a typical reformer of de-modernisation. This was a reform that simply adopted the state of events. And this was also the moment when the rules in culture changed drastically. It has to be taken into account that the Gorbatchov reform was still based on the ideological starting points and thus needed culture for it to be efficient. We could compare it to the reforms by Fellipe Gonzales that followed the decline of Franco's regime, for his reforms were also based on the cultural reform. These are still examples of reforms from the modernistic era. On the other hand are reformers, such as Yeltsin, who completely ignored culture. The diction that was used by Russian reporters and intellectuals during the Yeltsin's reforms was something similar to this: 'We all wanted the end of Soviet power. Now that this power has finally ceased, we have to be content and direct all of our powers into economic reforms. In this process culture and intellectual production are of secondary importance. There are other things that are more important and culture has to finally learn how to survive on its own, without the help of the state.' This was the rhetoric that they used. That we have to be prepared for the tough times ahead. And this rhetoric was predominantly aimed at the intelligentsia, which was fighting for cultural reforms and presented an excellent and valuable social structure, which was the only one that really desired reforms. This was also the social structure, which was the first to truly feel and suffer due to the consequences of the emerging social paradox. A part of the paradox was that during this period a certain segment of the population, i.e. semi-criminals, got rich over night. And as soon as these yesterday's mob, today's heroes, started sending their children to Western universities and these children started to return a new cultural formula emerged. Suddenly private funds were created. These people suddenly became patrons. Culture regained its function, it regained its importance and so on, and of course, it once more gained economic support. I do not know exactly to what extent was this paradox a conscious act in 1991. But I am totally sure, that later on the new social elite clearly determined that it does not need the intelligentsia. I am also positive that it did not wish to help culture and this class of reformatory intelligentsia from very pragmatic reasons. The new political elite was not even interested in respecting and preserving any sort of intellectual elite. For the intellectual elite is a group that critically judges events, can be mobilised and is of course a certain social elite that influences the public opinion. This is the reason why they brought down all academic structures and this was also the reason that all media suddenly gained in power. In the 1990's the conviction prevailed that all intellectuals have to work through the media. The media supposedly became the only realistic platform of intellectual exchange. Alexander Brener and Oleg Kulik were not the only ones aware of the new power of the media. The entire intellectual elite of the time had to adjust as soon as possible. In the 90's we were forced to work as reporters. This means that we had to change the ways of writing, accelerate the mental and critical processes, sometimes, even change the intellectual position, etc. And we should not forget that people working in the media during the 90's were paid extremely well. They were paid according to European standards in a country in which the basic living costs were still on the level of socialist prices. This means that they were better paid then their European colleagues, which means that we have become relatively rich during this period.
The 90's presented a challenge for Eastern Europe on a number of levels. On one hand the battle with time begun, the social and cultural trends in the West had to be caught. On the other hand, the past had to be re-thought, or placed within new social frames, into new discourses. At this we were constantly pressurised by the previously mentioned paradoxes of the present. On the Western cultural front of the 90's a historical review of conceptual art was taking place. There were a number of review exhibitions and books that tried to classify and critically evaluate this period. On the other hand emerged the strong trend of neo-conceptualism, which engulfed also spaces that opened after the end of the cold war. What is happening with the historic memory in Russia? We have all heard of the famous Moscow conceptualists, the 'Noma' phenomenon, but if we think for a bit, we realise that we know very little about these practices. Ilya Kabakov and Boris Groys, who derived from this context and were the first to establish themselves outside of Russia are today representatives of Russian art and theory in the west. But what is in fact Noma, how did it work within the frame of Russian reality and how do you see this phenomenon in Russia today?
From my point of view Noma is a phenomenon of the 90's.
This comes as a surprise to me. According to my information Noma presents the tradition of the so-called Russian 'non-official' art that derives from the 70's.
No, Noma is definitely a 90's phenomenon. Noma is the invention of a very small group of people.
What does the name Noma stand for?
This is also very enigmatic. Noma is a name that was first used by Pavel Pepperstein, an artist and theoretician who was a member of the Medical Hermeneutics group.
The name is thus not linked to the Collective Action group and Andrei Monastyrski?
By no means. The name Noma is linked to some mystical context of old Egyptian culture; it is linked to a manuscript that was found in a crypt. I think it is something like that. I cannot recollect the entire story as regards the origins of this name. In their texts from the beginning of the 1990's the group Medical Hermeneutics dealt predominantly with these mystical concepts, like for instance kabbala and other esoteric teachings. This was a part of their game. It is possible that their name appeared already in the 80's, but the important thing is that Noma is an invention of the post-Soviet reality. On the other hand you are of course right, it was Andrei Monastyrski who has the most merit for forming a group of conceptual artists into an organised community. His performances and actions were based on a method, by which the members of the Collective Action group staged very strange rituals in very conspicuous circumstances outside of Moscow. A carefully selected audience was invited to these events and the role of the audience was to be a witness and to a certain extent also a part of these events. Immediately after the performance he asked all of the participants to describe what they have just seen. Later, he asked some of them to give the interpretation of what they have seen. This was followed by organised meetings and discussions on what they have witnessed. Then he gathered the entire documentation from the discussions and interpretations in special folders, at which the final document added into this folder was his interpretation and the description of what really took place. Monastyrski found it extremely important to prove that the spectators could see only a part of what happened in reality. He had his own theory about the field of vision. He had a theory about the human incapability to see the whole. He discussed the human tendency to create worlds from details, from a partial perception. But that was Monastyrski. With this interactive method he greatly contributed to the organisation of the Moscow conceptual art community and to the tradition of associating and debating various phenomena. He influenced a number of younger artists, for instance Yuri Leiderman, Pavel Pepperstein and Vadim Zakharov. But Noma was something else. Noma appeared at a key moment, i.e. a moment when the boarders opened, a moment when Russian art started to enter the international arena and a new generation started emerging. In this moment Noma did not represent a conceptual tradition from the Soviet era, which would be based on the principles and ethics of a 'non-official' community, rather it represented the exact opposite. Noma was created as an order, which was to fight for success in the Western market. This was a strategy of gaining realistic power. In a very harsh way Noma introduced the logic of power to the Russian artistic scene. This could not be attributed to Monastyrski and Ilya Kabakov, but predominantly to young artists, such as Pepperstein and Anufrijev who were Noma members.
But was Noma an official or at least a unanimously confirmed organisation that was accepted also by older artists?
Of course. For instance, Kabakov presented his grand project entitled Noma at the Hamburg Kunstmesse '93, for which my Hamburg Project was also designed. This exhibition was organised as a series of smaller spaces and within each of these spaces one project of each of the Noma members was exhibited, and all of this together was a project by Ilya Kabakov.
And who exactly are Noma members?
There are a number of generations. The first generation includes Kabakov, Bulatov, Vasiljev and all of the Collective Action members, i.e. Monastyrski, Pantikov, Elagina and Makarejevič. Then there is the next generation that includes Pavel Pepperstein, Vadim Zaharov and others. They accepted new members. They even invented some sort of special initiation rituals. But the most enthusiastic for these sort of things were the younger artists, who started to realise the rules of competitiveness and they thus simply used the symbolic capital of the older generation for their promotion. And I think that especially the group Medical Hermeneutics (i.e. Pepperstein and Anufrijev) led this game and wrote the philosophy of Noma. Of course they were both intellectually very talented artists, who invented a number of new concepts within the construction of the Noma discourse. Amongst them are also the very important texts on the history of Russian conceptualism.
Did they use the name conceptual art?
Definitely. They talked only about conceptual art and the tradition of Russian conceptualism.
Was this discourse under the influence of American and Western European conceptualism or did it deal with specific, local concepts? How was this discourse applicable to the Russian reality? We know that at the beginning conceptual art was a movement for a very small group of people, a sort of family also in USA. However, it spread very fast and it intertwined with the system, which finally sucked it into its history.
The main influence was most probably that of John Cage. I think that Monastyrski drew his theories and philosophy from Cage. However, I do not know what were the origins of Kabakov. This is an interesting question. I really do not know what was the starting point for Kabakov, who influenced him. I think that he came to his poetics in a very spontaneous way and that his greatest influences were poetry and literature. This group was most definitely very strong already in itself and the influences from outside were very varied. Their influences were texts and images that they saw in a number of Flash Art or Artforum that a friend from the West brought to their studio by chance. But it is important that Noma was organised in the manner of a religious sect, as a kind of a military order that fought for the dominance over other art trends. It has to be understood that thousands of Russian artists that started to break into the Western market at the end of the 1980's created a great chaos. A number of very bad artists were quick to cash in on the enthusiasm and interest that the West showed for Russian art. In the beginning Noma was an attempt to establish some sort of order, a principle of evaluation and differentiation between good and bad Russian art. Later on new generations emerged, new artists that researched and created outside the frame of this tradition and in this moment Noma became a means for preserving the advantage, the primacy. And this is where another problem became visible, a problem which is in my opinion typical for this rather ruthless community: the end of the Soviet Union brought forth a state when a new collective consciousness had to be established in order for us to be able to understand the new reality in which we found ourselves. This is the West. If we had the opportunity to read the discussions between Ilya Kabakov and Boris Groys, we would discover that most of their debate revolves around the issue how to create a name for oneself in the West. Most of Groys' texts, most of his discussions with Kabakov deal with this issue. How to make a name for oneself in the West? How does this system work? It is not a coincidence that Boris Groys became the best analyst of the Western art system. This happened because he was looking from the outside. Groys dealt with the analysis of the Western art machine for years. And he shared his knowledge with his friends and his friends shared with him their fresh observations, experiences. Noma was thus a sort of collective consciousness, which analysed the operation of the Western art machinery. At the end of the 1980's and the beginning of the 90's I travelled with conceptual artists to the West on a couple of occasions and I was surprised how they reacted to Western reality, how neurotically they clung to their difference, how neurotically they rejected even the most interesting phenomena and contents of Western art and how passionately they believed in their own hidden knowledge. In my opinion Noma was such a neurotic ideology, in which we could find also very nationalistic connotations, which are based on the conviction that 'we' in our deep 'underground' are creating such value that 'you' in the West can not even start to comprehend it. I believe that Noma emerged from this mistake. This mistake was especially obvious in the activities performed by the Medical Hermeneutics, which got total support from Kabakov and Groys. In a certain period the members of Medical hermeneutics produced hundreds of exhibitions. And all of these objects, poor materials, drawings, photographs, this entire network of signs, all of this was supposedly based on a secret knowledge.
Could we thus say that they knew how to make the most of the charm that the Russian position was given by the cold war?
Precisely. And all these professionally very poorly executed installations were as a rule always created in relation to something outside of our reach, even though the creators were very well aware that whatever is on the outside does not truly exist and that they are in reality classical adventurers, who travel from one market to another and are selling dust. And I think that Noma is also a part of this adventure strategy, which was in fact based on a prank.
How should then one perceive the history of Russian or Eastern European modern and contemporary art? In your opinion, is there continuity, a narration, a sort of inner logic? Is it possible to write such a history? To create a discourse, which would critically evaluate and legitimise these practices in a continual process from the historic Avant-garde movements to today?
Before we continue I would like to add something to the Noma phenomenon. Let's take for instance Kabakov, who was very faithful to this notion. There is another important detail, and that is sentimentalism. Kabakov likes to emphasise his belonging to the Moscow circle, even though he lives in the West and all of his friends live in the West. There is even something Jewish in his position. He has a similar position to Chagall at the beginning of the 20th Century. He is trying to recreate his own Russian context from the outside. For Kabakov the Noma theory is a means to preserve his lost reality. In this there is something very sentimental as well as something very pragmatic. Even though he created his career without any sort of reference to Noma (which was created by younger artists) he used it as a means to preserve his own past, his own tradition. At all this it remains surprising (within the operation of the Moscow circle) that even though it operated underground and the violent medialisation in the 1990's, which, as I have already mentioned represented a total rejection of all intellectual and creative values created by this underground movement as well as a rejection of all academic activities (linked to this intellectual practice), this position and the reflection of this position seemed to always return and was always renewed. The phenomenon of Boris Groys within this context was also extraordinary. Truly extraordinary. Groys was a mathematician and after he started dabbling in philosophy, he chose the Moscow conceptual circle as a point of gravitation around which he constructed his reflection. And he has been doing this his entire life. With his existence that he created for himself in the West, he had the option to choose. He could construct his thought around some other, maybe even more fashionable and lucrative theme. But he persisted and all of his texts dealing with the logic of museum operations and the Western art system are based on his loyalty to the Russian context. This dimension is very pragmatic for his theory. This is an issue as to how to create a career, success, how to survive in the West. His researches are something that his friends can use. And finally, if I look at my own work. Let's take for example the book and project Visual Anthropology. A lot of things happen as a coincidence. The idea for the book came later on, but on the other hand I think that it was programmed already before hand though this feeling of respect for the tradition of philosophical and theoretical reflection. Then there is my magazine, which is truly different to the art magazines that emerged in the West lately. At first I had the idea that I would make a sort of Moscow Flash Art, I wanted a more commercial project, but it so happened that I made a more theoretical newspaper, and I think that this is no coincidence. In the end I had to search for people who know how to write and who are capable of a serious intellectual reflection. Thus, in the 1990's the reflection of our own position became the central part of our activities in Moscow. Noma started dealing with the reflection of the Western reality only when it became Noma, before that all of its members were dealing with the analysis of the local conditions. Before Kabakov went abroad he wrote two books, The Sixties and The Seventies, because he analysed these two preceding decades in the eighties.
How would you evaluate your work during the last decade? And what are your plans, what is your projection of the development in the forthcoming decade?
I am very well aware, that due to numerous reasons we can no longer work in the manner we used to. Firstly, because all of the projects that I was working on in the 1990's were based on a very specific situation, in which the Moscow artistic circle gave ten to twelve strong personalities. Each and every one of them was capable of creating his own model, his own coherent position and to invest all of his human and intellectual resources into the defence of his originality. In most cases these personalities were not linked. Yuri Leiderman and Anatoly Osmolovsky have nothing in common whatsoever. As don't Vadim Fishkin and Dmitri Gutov as artists, even though they are friends. But at a certain point of time it was possible to feel that all of these individuals form a very special artistic community. It could be felt that art exists here and now. That is why they were forced to accept a compromise and a dialogue with each other. They were aware that only through this connection is it possible to preserve their artistic process. Already today the situation is completely different. On one hand there are more artists. Younger artists and older artists. New and those who could not find themselves within the obsession with radicalism that prevailed in the previous decade. In this moment there is a completely new situation emerging in Moscow, a situation more open to the logic of museums, which can accept the old with the new. This new sensitivity is much more subtle and complex. Artists are no longer motivated to create a dialogue with people who are standing on opposing positions. In general, any real need for a dialogue, which used to be typical for the 1990's, has disappeared. Artists are much more interested in enforcing their positions and sharing their knowledge and observations with those, who think and experience things in a similar way. Today we have better opportunities to develop longer lasting structures, to establish new institutions. Today we feel that the power structures are more open to dialogue and joint projects, we have a feeling that the power of the media is slowly being reduced and that the public is slowly creeping back onto the stage. And this public is truly searching for contemporary art. It seems that the explosion of the art market will take place in the near future. I think that everything is prepared for this event. Apart from that there is another phenomenon, a phenomenon of returning to the image, which in its way signals the need of the artists to establish a dialogue and be more understandable to the general public. Once again art wants to have the power of suggestion and be capable of creating a social catharsis. Artists are returning to the production of objects that can be enjoyed and consumed. Of course, this new imperative demands completely new strategies from us curators. I have dedicated quite a lot of time to the exhibition Moscow-Berlin. This is an exhibition that I am currently preparing and will be realised in Berlin in 2003. Within it I will try to present a condensed historic review of Russian art and compare it to the social political reality in the period between 1950 and 2000. I do not know what will become of this project, which is evolving under the patronage of two ministries and is in reality a political project. I am certainly of the opinion that these are works that have to be performed with great responsibility. At this I would like open a broad panorama and show the dependency of art on the actual social political conditions. I think that the current situation demands discursive and historic exhibitions and not militant ones. I am thinking about an exhibition, which would establish a sort of multi-dimensional form, in which media, books, poetry, historic chronicles and everything that we need could mix, so that we would be able to reconstruct a certain period. In May 2000 I set up an exhibition in Moscow on contemporary media art. This exhibition could be understood immediately by everyone. I tried to create an exhibition that could be enjoyed. This was an exhibition of only pleasant images. It took place in a semi-dark environment, where the audience could move around the round rooms of the Moscow 'House of Artists'. My intention was to create a pleasant exhibition and convince the general public that contemporary art can still impress. The exhibition hosted Shirin Neshat and similar artists.
As I understand the next issue of the Moscow Art Magazine will be dedicated to Monastyrski?
I am currently preparing three issues. The first that I am currently in the process of bringing to an end is dedicated to the theme of community. I am interested in rediscovering the value of the community, the professional ethics of artists and curators as members of the community. This is an issue that is trying to be critical towards the ethics of the 1990's, when the ethics of the community were under attack. This issue will try to reveal that the century that supported art and artistic communities is over and that in the future we have to create new operative communities, which will not be based on personal relations, but predominantly on professional relations if we wish to survive. The next issue will be dedicated to Monastyrski and it is interesting that the theme was put forth by Anatoly Osmolovsky, who was in opposition of the Moscow Conceptualism throughout the 1990's. This is therefore an attempt to redefine the relations. As I am discovering only now, the book Visual Anthropology is a part of the continuity and tradition of the Moscow conceptualism and is thus merely a new chapter to the books or dossiers that were made by Andrei Monastyrski. The third issue will be dedicated to the Soviet picture. And in this issue I do not intend to discuss the Soviet past in the style of Groys, on the contrary. I am not so much interested in the Soviet propaganda art, but all those streams that were alternative, yet still legal. I am interested in artists, who respected certain academic taboos and operated within the media of pictures and figures, but were not working for the state. Since 1966 there were generations of artists that were greatly influenced by the social conditions and the imperative of the radical 'de-Stalinisation'. Some of them threw themselves into a radical alternative, some preserved the picture, visual quality and plenty of romantic elements and so forth. During this entire period they were judged as representatives of official art, as state artists. But it is possible that we were unjust. Most probably we have to take into account that we can find Joseph Beuys and Georg Baselitz, Jannis Kounellis and Francesco Clemente in Western art. In Western art the visual qualities of the picture were always respected. I think that this general tendency to reject this sort of art in Russia was a consequence of the overstated radicalism of the Russian artistic consciousness. I think that the forgotten art should be returned into the focus of historic reflection.
Do you think that it is possible to expect that the situation in Russia and entire Eastern Europe will in the near future develop into the direction of forming a professional art system, which will be similar to that found in the West today?
I strongly believe there is a possibility for this to happen. It would be hard for me to predict all the details and the entire scope of this, but I am convinced that the forthcoming decade will be completely different. I am not even certain that we will preserve the consciousness that we are 'Eastern Europeans' in the next decade. It is possible that we will find ourselves in a paradoxical situation in which we will, after we master the identity of differences and thus finally establish our differences, loose our selfishness. For this, a constant reflection as regards what it means to be a Eastern European and the question do we have to accept the Western values, i.e. everything that is a theme of discussion in the book Transnacionala, will most probably not be so interesting in the next decade. In the moment that we will become economically independent, this will no longer be the main issue. When I moderated the round table on community, I asked the people that were there, what has changed in the first years of the new decade and the response of Oleg Kulik was that 'we have lost the fear that we will not be invited'. That was the obsession of the Eastern European artists in the 90's; that they will not be invited to the West. The main events in our lives during the 90's were linked to the West. It is not a coincidence that it was Oleg Kulik who remembered this fact and added that he can now imagine surviving at home. Our local infrastructure is still very fragile, but it is developed well enough to provide the artists with interesting and productive operation within the country. The trauma of the West is slowly disappearing and I think that we can shortly expect a great increase in the activities in the East.
November 2001