REALITAET & $CHEIN / REALITY & VISIBILITY
September 3-26 1999

Exhibition Hall Faust and Medienhaus, Hannover [www.medienhaus-hannover.de]
and TV Gallery, Moscow,
present:

Installations and new media art of Moscow and Hannover.

Within the framework of an international project Medienhaus Hannover and exhibition hall "Faust" organise exhibition "Realitaet & $chein"/ "Reality & Visibility", which is to be held at "Faust" exhibition hall after a week symposium of the same working title.The exhibition will be accompanied by various screenings, actions and a parallel program prepared by art association AFKA. Besides, at Medienhaus Hannover there will be held screenings of Russian video program presented by Nina Zaretskaya, curator and gallerist. The second part of the program will take place in Moscow in 2000.

"Realitaet & $chein"/ "Reality & Visibility"
September 3 – 26, 1999, Kunsthalle Faust / Exhibition Hall Faust
September 3, 1999, 19.00 Vernissage
September 3 + 4, 1999, 19.15 "Bruner'$ Trial". Film by Mitya Troitsky and Olga Stolpovskaya
September 4 + 5, Zinnober Rundgang

Participating in the exhibition Russian artists are related to a new generation of the artists which has been recognized in the West as well, who have a natural and perfect command of new technologies in art.

For example, one could see provocative art of AES group not only at the well-known Pushkin Museum in Moscow but at famous galleries in Paris, Basel , Berlin, New York, etc. A photo-video installation "Who Wants to Live Forever" by AES is intended to evaluate the role of mass media, especially television in the future. Demonstration of ten minute long video clip "Who Wants to Live Forever", Queen, will commence celebrations in the memory of the legendary princess Diana.

The works by Leonid Tishkov, a surger by profession, were purchased by Schteffi Graff for her collection. One can get a splendid photo album with former works of the artist in any good library. Apart from pictorial art Leonid Tishkov makes stagings and video films. His exhibitions were a success in France, USA, Sweden and Ukraine.

Vadim Fishkin who had participated in biennials of an international level (Boston, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Liverpool, Berlin, New York), is a representative of new Russian avant-garde. His work "Home TV Installation" was demonstated in 1996 by Graz Art Association.
The project "My Private TV" involved the organization of a short TV program. The principle of the program was to deal with the idea of "television" involving personal action, for example such as takes place in educational TV programmes in which a viewer is instructed how to prepare a specific meal, or even how to make a painting.

Although the duet of Aristarkh Chernishov and Vladislav Efimov is pretty young, we were very much impressed by their CD-ROMs and interactive installation we happened to see in Moscow. We don’t doubt that we’ll hear their names more than once.

"Bruner'$ Trial" directed by Mitya Troitsky and Olga Stolpovskaya.
An artist against art mafia. This is a story of an artist who painted, inWarhol style, a green symbol of a dollar on the Malevich’s picture "The White Cross". In the basis of this feature film is a real art action made by Alexander Brenner in Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1997.
Alexander Brenner’s installation was presented at Medienhaus in 1997.
September 3 + 4, 19.15

Screening program

Rusian Video from TV Gallery Collection. Part 1.

POP-CULTURE
Directed by Boris Yukhananov
25 min., Betacam, 1991
Absurdist video show based on actions and performances of Moscow avant-garde artists, made in the genre of TV program.

MORAL CODE OF COMMUNISM BUILDERS
Directed by Sergey Savoushkin
7 min., Betacam, 1991
Reconstruction of the spirit of official ideology of the first decades of the Soviet power in our country. Using authentic materials, such as posters, music, texts, news-reels of those years, the authors reproduce the image of proletarian culture which had made its own principles regulating all spheres of life including intimate one., i.e commandments of Communist morals.

TRACES ON THE PODIUM
Dirested by Serdey Savoushkin and Konstantin Gadaev
5 min., Betacam, 1992
How can we reproduce something inexplicable, inexpressible, lasting for an instant, which appears here and now and gets lost in eternity at once?
This video is based on the action which took place at Regina Gallery in Moscow with the participation of Saira Blansch Theatre.

CACISTOCRACY
Written and directed by Gia Rigvava
3 min., Betacam, 1994
The word "cacistocracy" which had been forgotten long ago, means "the government of the worst citizens".

LaRe FASHION
Directed by Maxim Vasilenko, Sergey Savoushkin, with the participation of Dmitry Zinger
7 min., Betacam, 1992
Mini-clips playing up the series of costumes of the queen LaRe and joined by a general theme of "female love". Music by Microsurgery Group.

THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
Written and directed by Nina Zaretskaya and Sergey Savoushkin
7 min., Betacam, 1993
This video made a few days before the October coup of 1993, turned out to be prophetic.

GOD IS WITH US
Written and directed by Andrey Velikanov
10 min., VHS, 1994
The idea of the video is based on the assertion that in the modern world true reality has lost its meaning, moreover, it has become only another interpretation of itself identical in connection with other interpretations, concepts, forms, etc. The name can be understood as some incidental phrase which appears on the screen for a short moment. During the demonstration in Moscow the followers of Orthodoxy are carrying a poster with these words. On the other hand, this phrase refers to such theses as "God is dead" of French philosophy of the Enlightment, or to Dostoyevky’s "All is allowed", which characterise an excruciating and ethical search in the 20th century and especially nowadays. The author tries to show an inner life of a modern Russian man in clip style.

MAY 8 OF 1995
Directed by Andrey Velikanov
7 min., VHS, 1995
Film-collage based on two art actions of the author which took place in Berlin. Fragments from feature films about war and from news-reels showing Germany’s life before, during and after war have been used.

THREE-DAY WAR
Written and directed by Andrey Velikanov
11 min., VHS, 1995
Art documentation on the author’s actions which took place in Moscow from March 31 – April 2 1995.

BEING GUIDED BY NO ONE
Directed by Boris Yukhananov, Sergey Savoushkin, with the participation of Nina Zaretskaya
16 min., Betacam
A kind of the Gospel according to the children suffering from Down syndrome. Surrounded by the faces of saints and pictures of great masters on Biblical themes, they give their own interpretation and understanding of Jesus Christ’s life-story.

Russian Video from TV Gallery Collection. Part 2.

THE SYSTEM OF ONE’S OWN TV
directed by Vadim Koshkin
9 min., VHS, 1994
This film announces the video project "Man, Word, TV" which was produced by the Studio of Egocentric Peculiarities.

PSYCHOPATHY OF AN INLAID CIRCLE
Directed by Vadim Koshkin
8 min., Betacam, 1994
"When I died, there was no one to disprove it".

PUZZLE
Directed by Vadim Koshkin
6 min., Betacam, 1995
"Being born, we carry in ourselves a hermetic symmetry of main concepts. Further knowledge multiply chaos."
These two films by Vadim Koshkin present a dyptich on the topic of death, birth, revealing of objective memory of little children at the age of 1.5 – 2.5 years.

BATS
Directed by Tatiana Detkina
7 min.,Hi8, 1995
The first experiment of the author in joining video and different kinds of digital animation. The basis of the plot, i.e. forced transformation of a bat into a teddy-bear, was caused by communication with biologists. It got several awards: "The 3rd Reality" in St.Petersburg (first award), "The 5th World Video Festival" in Brussel.

GRANDMOTHERS
Directed by Roman Anisimov
As we’ll get to know, one’s life is a very hard and complicated thing.

SAVING SOULS
Directed by Alexander Kuznetsov
1 min. 20 sec., Betacam, 1997
The film tells the problem of struggle and coexistence of Matter and Spirit.

FATE
Directed by Andrey Silvestrov
14 min. 36 sec., Hi8, 1997
In the very first frames of the film the hero who got lost in a virtual space of the game of thoughts, makes an attempt upon God himself masked as Santa Claus.

RA
Directed by Masha Khovenko
2 min. 05 sec., Betacam, 1997.

AB OVO
Directed by Roman Anisimov
3 min.,Betacam, 1997
The film tells the problem of one’s unique life which aims to find the reflection of itself.

SHE
Directed by Radda Novikova
3 min. 47 sec., Betacam, 1997
The sketch about the girl who is searching for love.

HOMOURBAN
Directed by Platon Infante-Arana
3 min. 02 sec., Betacam, 1997
An attempt to synthesize the urban rhythms and the one’s of a man (homo) in a constructive way.

PIANO
Directed by Platon Infante-Arana
2 min. 09 sec., Betacam, 1997
An attempt to dicompose the context into several imagebearing components to reveal the meaning in the most capacious and expressive way.

RUISONDERDRUKKING
Directed by Daneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov (Blue Soap)
1 min. 23 sec., Betacam, 1997
Ruisonderdrukking – an experiment on cause and effect.

MODEL SIZE OF ROCKETS
Directed by Daneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov, Kirill Ass (Blue Soap)
2 min. 50 sec., Betacam, 1998.

FOREVER IN THEWAKE OF THE SUN
Directed by Daneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov (Blue Soap)
4 min. 40 sec., Betacam, 1998
The film is dedicated to the launch of the first North-Korean satellite.

THE HATCH
Directed by Daneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov (Blue Soap)
1 min. 19 sec., Betacam, 1998
"The hatch – exit is there."

LUCIDITY
Directed by Daneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov, Kirill Ass (BlueSoap)
1 min.,Betacam, 1998.

THE CABINE
Directed byDaneel Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov(Blue Soap)
2 min. 12 sec., Betacam, 1998
"The cabine is my fortress."

JUST TAMPAXES IN JAZZ, or SOME LIKE IT WITHOUT SUGAR
Directed by Andrey Gagarin
4 min., CD-ROM, 1998
Dedicated to D.D.Shostakovich
"I say I like ads and ads like me. Art, literature and all contemporary culture is nothing by comparison with ads. Love is better but not much more. If I am sick, I just take ads as a pill (and it helps). When I am in low spirits, I keep sayin g "wriggly spearmint double juicy fruit without sugar" – and the pain is off. And I would add one more thing that a strange Russian-English double name of the film can be explained by the fact that one of the heroines of Marylin Monroe was called Sugar. And I would add another thing that Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich is a genius of mass culture. If he were alive now, he would compose the music for trailers. And in case I noticed that a man listening to me was writing my words, I would have carefully checked this text, made corrections, put punctuation marks and sighed about futility of everything existing. Always ultra with wings gives you the feeling of staying dry", Andrey Velikanov.

BRUNER’$ TRIAL
Directed by Dmitry Troitsky, Olga Stolpovskaya
10 min., Betacam, 1998
Not more than half a year ago the artist Alexander Brener draw the sign of dollar on the Kazimir Malevich’s picture "White Cross" (1927), which belongs to Stedlick Museum in Holland. This event became the basis of the short film presented.

ANNOTATIONS TO THE FILMS FROM THE PROGRAM

DREAMS
10 min., 35 mm, b&w/color, 1999.
Directed by Anna Fenchenko.
All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography. V.I. Khotinenko Studio.
Lyrical documentary based on Ludwig Ashkenazy’s poetry. The heroines of the film are women of various ages. While the image of their inner world has been coded in a black & white slide show /film in film/, there occurs a sort of "animation" of reality, close to phantasm, corresponding to the nature of cinematography as a "factory of dreams". Shown in Vedo Corto (Italy, 1999), Art Film Festival (Slovakya, 2000).

ASME TODI
4 min., VHS, color, 2000.
Directed by Angela Arsinkey.
"Asme todi" means "to know oneself" in the Udmurt language.
The spontaneous performance by artist’s relatives and countrymen neighbors, executed according to the script known only to them Udmurts, the far north minority, happened to be recorded by chance. The author just put this vivid material into the context of art. As a result, we are presented with an amazing picture which came out of characteristic Udmurt behavior: to hide from the strangers’ eyes and, thus feeling safe, to give the way out for the energy of their pagan roots.

BLUE GARDEN
5 min., 35 mm, color, 2000.
Directed by Roman Anisimov and Alexander Kuznetsov.
All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography. V. Kobrin Studio.
Somewhere not so far off there is an unusual garden – a kind one, magic and accessible. Within half a century a great many various things have gathered behind its walls. Branches fell off the trees, flowers grown throughout the grounds, things destroyed by people’s hands – all this gave their sprouts, mingling with one another, having absorbed both nature and man. But this is not chaos. It is an amazing portrait of a garden’s owner entered into nature, itself. It is a garden-cosmos, love and trepidation, peace and order. This is a garden the color of the sky, the color of the eyes.

THE HEAVEN
23 min., Betacam, color, 1999.
Directed by Olga Stolpovskaya.
The year of 1999. They are to get an answer to the key question of Being.
At the turn of the epochs young artists and common people from Russia and Europe answer only one question asked by the author of the film: What does Heaven mean? This film can be interpreted as a sort of a documentary – provocation with respect to actors and viewers. The challenge of this provocative action is to study a spiritual paradigm by means of a documentary as a genre.

EVE
5 min., 16 mm, b&w/color, 2001.
Directed by Masha Saakyan.
All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, V. Kobrin Studio.
"Eve" means "life" in ancient Hebrew.
In this film, the very birth of life is considered as a cultural phenomenon inculcated in a general course of the development of civilization. With the help of computer graphics and animation one can trace the development of this theme in art: painting, sculpture, photo.

I AM THROWING THE GROUND
9 min., Hi8, color, 1999.
Directed by Victor Alimpiev and Sergei Vishnevsky.
Similar views on the actual and non-actual in contemporary art united Sergei Vishnevsky and Victor Alimpiev in realization of their joint, multi-stage video art project with the film "I am Throwing the Ground" as one of its parts. This project initiated development of a new genre in their work, where the mental lyrical space and indication of its borders are introduced as an object of creation.

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