[gans]

Viktor Mazin

When we speak of the existence of contemporary art, it must be borne in mind that it is in principle can not exist without context. In this context usually consider art market. We constantly hear the lamentations about the absence in Russia of the art market, but it seems to us, and can not be outside of the general ideological context.

Читать дальше... 

The Economic Market, and along with it and contemporary art can not exist outside the market of symbolic. Otherwise, we will deal only with the production and the sharing of the financial cake at the birthday party of an unidentified infant. This kind of division sometimes happens, but to a market economy, it is irrelevant, because it is not designed for the reproduction of the pie, at least double its consumption. Is it fits into the market economy, maddened with joy the face of the curator or the artist, who instead of eyes burning a temporary dollar signal?

Once again: no long-term economic program may not be the market. The program does this can not exist outside the field of symbolic capital. Recently, in anticipation of friends, I spent half an hour in the hall of the Hermitage, which is situated "Square" by Malevich. I peered into the box as much as listening to what they say about him museum visitors. Opposite the painting hung stand with gratitude Potanin for $ 1 million, ensured the acquisition of Squares for the Hermitage. So, on the one hand, the economic fact, on the other - an aesthetic object. And between them - is no connection. Between them - complete bewilderment. "For that million?" "Why millions?" Neither the amount spent, the canvas and paint, nor the size nor the visual features can not give an answer to these questions. Confusion viewers is precisely due to the lack of context, clarifying the significance of this work, its revolutionary nature, its symbolic value, the value of the name "Malevich", it is twice the "Square". This symbolic value and is determined by the critical discourse, a position in the symbolic work of art - aesthetic, economic, political - the network.

Speech in this situation is not about training in the field of contemporary art. This is - a separate issue. And not about the training of journalists. This is also a separate and painful question, because the journalist concerned about the rating at any price, and that any price does not lie in the field of pedagogy, didactics, and critics, creating a context of modern art. If you do not know the Boys and Malevich, Duchamp and others, Cézanne, Picasso, and Nam June Paik, ie those who, following Foucault, may be called by the founders of discourse, then the following works of art hang in the air. Contemporary art can exist in society - including in the much desired by many of the market - only on certain discursive grounds. The question of his understanding is always wider than just understanding it. Malevich, Rodchenko, Buren, Kabakov, Kossuth ... should be part of history that makes modern art of reading. A "readability" This goes far beyond the representation itself, which, by the way, "as such" is possible. Need to give lectures on contemporary art, to generate interest in it, if we want to make it even existed. Must not only hold annual congresses "How do we create the market?" How much space to create an understanding of contemporary art. Where can I listen to lectures on the art of XX century? What public places are concerned about the spread of knowledge about contemporary art? Maybe you want to enter such a thing? as the general history of art? in schools, and there would be children told of revolutions made by Giotto, Leonardo, Cezanne, Malevich and Duchamp. To "Black Square" did not cause them dizzy from the black hole, absorbing millions.


Viktor Mazin
The theorist, art critic and curator. Specialists in the field of theoretical psychoanalysis. Lives in St. Petersburg.