English

Елена Селина

Если попытаться проанализировать состояние московской художественной ситуации на сегодняшний день, то несмотря на объективные трудности (отсутствие моральной и материальной поддержки со стороны государства и частного капитала), и как следствие, несколько подвижнический характер существования актуального искусства — очевидно, что точку ставить рано. Жизнь продолжается, и думается, что будет продолжаться и дальше. Отсюда, задачу свою ХL Галерея видит в поддержке и стимулировании ЛЮБОГО свежего решения (совершенного или эскизного) как в области идей, так и новых форм высказывания.

The Moscow Tribune 1993, September 15
By Olga Listsova Special to The Tribune

The model of the aesthetic revolution in the contemporary social and cultural situation

The artists: A. BRENER, V. MARKOV, A. NIKOLAEV, D. PIMENOV, A. REVIZOROV, N. HALEZIN, V. SHUGALEI
The curator: A. OSMOLOVSKIJ
Sponsors of the exhibition: Join-stock venture "VITT"/Minsk/, Gallery "VITA NOVA"/Minsk/
The openning: 30th of March, 1993 at 6 p. m.

The exhibition is open till the 1st of May, 1993. every day - from 12 a. m. to 7 p. m. days off - Sunday, Monday

"Artists, gallery owners, critics, and the public throng to wherever 'something is happening.' But the reality of this 'something happening' is the reality of money. In the absence of aesthetic criteria, it is possible and useful to determine the value of works of art on the basis of their profitability. This reality reconciles everything, even the most contradictory tendencies in art, provided that these tendencies have purchasing power."

The Necessity of a Method as a Basis for Forming a Culture of Left-Wing Opposition

It is widely known that from its very origins Moscow radical art (so-called "Moscow actionism") defined itself as left-wing art, following the great political tradition of the 20th century avantgarde. The absolute majority of texts, collective and individual declarations, manifestos, and interviews by almost all the main proponents of this movement contain an unmistakable left-wing political message. Almost no art critic took these political assertions seriously when they were made; instead, they were understood as rather obscure manifestations of artistic whimsy. In analyzing this strange tendency from today's perspective, it does not seem to be a great exaggeration to admit that a will towards method lies at the very basis of left-wing political choice, a wish to make one's own practice understandable and reproducible by others. In the past decade, this idea has passed through a thorny path of trial and error. At time, it has deviated from its main goal, but at other points, it has hit its mark, defining some of the central artistic events of the 1990s.

The 1990s saw a drastic intensification of the problematical relationship between ethics and aesthetics. This comes as no surprise: as the symbolic order of previous decades headed for a total collapse, it dislocated older social and ideological points of reference, jumbling and tangling up new economic relations with behavioral ethics, and aesthetic values with one another.

„Wir sind in einer anderen Epoche angekommen…“ Ein Interview mit dem Künstler Anatolij Osmolovskij

http://www.novinki.de/html/zurueckgefragt/Interview_Osmolovskij.html

Weniger politisch und skandalös als früher, und doch nicht weniger umstritten, ist die aktuelle Kunstproduktion Anatolij Osmolovskijs. Umgeben von einer kleinen Sammlung alter russischer Kultobjekte sowie den Objekten des Künstlers selbst, in seiner Wohnung, unweit der Krasnaja Presnja Straße in Moskau, fand dieses Gespräch über Kunst und Politik statt.