"ArtChronika will litigate warning Roskomnadzora

[Евгений]

Igor Chuvilin.Gazeta GZT.RU.09.10.2005

The other day one of the exhibits, "Russian Pop Art", held in the Tretyakov Gallery, by order of the director of the museum was removed from the exposure. The reason was the letter signed by the parish church of St. Nicholas in Zayaitskom. By their own admission, the work of artist Alexander Kosolapov, called "Icon-caviar", "excites the authors of this letter, social and religious hatred and enmity." The artist, in turn, wrote a protest letter to the director Valentin Rodionov THG and answered questions from Igor Chuvilin.

- What do you think happened?

- I'm in his letter said that this was an unprecedented fact in the history museum of world importance. And because such Tretyakov Museum. A similar case could not happen in the Guggenheim or the MoMA, in any other place. There is also a social aspect: the planned line, which is not a pluralistic society, not liberal, not a dialogue of intellectual groups - the work simply removed by a hail of religious groups trying to exert control over cultural institutions. For me, totally alien and unacceptable position, when some group sets the ideological format of one idea or an opinion. All of this has been in the twentieth century, I would not want to repeat the twenty-first.
There is also a comic side to this case. Exactly the same work now hangs in Belgium, and the exhibition opened Putin. Hence, a museum in Antwerp, he took the job in its exposition, the president opened, and the director of the Tretyakov Gallery closes. If I as an artist defend the colors of Russia in the Guggenheim, or in European museums, it turns out that there is a person that Russia wants to have, and what she really is.
Plus, I feel personally insulted by this action. As an artist and citizen.

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- It is known that at the last fair "Art Moscow" there was trouble with your other work. Before anything like this happen?
- Firstly, the Sakharov Center (at the exhibition "Caution, Religion!". - "Newspaper"). The exhibition was crushed. And on "Art Moscow" Gelman showing my work, published in his studio. And the situation was exactly the same, but the destruction of yet happened (the young man, who later found a certificate of mental insanity, smashed glass and broken product Kosolapov "This is My Body". - "Newspaper"), and it was a trial .
I've had and the problems in America, for example: long before 11 September, I did the work "Islam is solution", commenting on the issue of Islam in society. It was removed from an exhibition in New York. When an artist does things in a sense, socially addressed, then there is always a group of people who believe these things are unacceptable. This category of people interpreting the art directly. Art is an ambivalent message of the, it dialogic, it can not be interpreted in the spirit of "let's go" - it is absolutely not the kind of message.

- What is your interpretation of "Icon-caviar"?

- It's just part of a large installation. All the work is devoted to one concept. And its meaning is as follows: with the end of communism in Russia, formed the ideological blank area, and in this empty space flooded commercial signs of Western culture, most - Americans. I left in 1975, lived in New York. When I arrived in Russia, he saw that Pushkin turned face to the McDonald's commercials and the Coca-Cola. " That's shocked me. This work is debatable, and it refers to the statement by Andy Warhol, that the foundation of American democracy - consumption. In particular, he cited the example of Coca-Cola, the president who drinks, and drinks a beggar. No matter how much money you have - Coca-Cola is the same. For me it was interesting to consider the Russian authoritarian tradition and create kontrznak - not American, and Russian. I began working on the theme of eggs. I wrote that in the authoritarian president of the Russian tradition of eating caviar, and the beggar did not eat eggs. It is important, how much money you have, and it does not correlate with the Protestant tradition of capitalist America, it is the orthodox tradition of Russian capitalism, it is completely different.
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Alexander Kosolapov was born in Moscow in 1943. He went to school at Art Institute. VI Surikov. From 1962 to 1968 - with a break for military service - he studied at the sculpture department of the Moscow School. Stroganov. In 1972 he made a series of wooden sculptures depicting the subjects of Soviet life in a larger scale, and in 1974 - a series of images of ideological subjects. In 1975 he moved to New York.