SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE LITTLE THINGS, march
2002

Chuykova Masha, Kotyol Nina, Efimov Vladislav, Leiderman Yuri

"Little Things on Their Own" is a second part of the Russian-Swedish project. The name of its Swedish part was "Till Moscva!" – by Asa Lipka Falc, Helena Bystrom, Nils Claesson. It referred to the title and contents of Chekhov's play. There is a more deep meaning – it is something impossible, a wish that has not come true, important goal, which could not be achieved. In general the project is dedicated to personal and collective desires, experiences, recollections, self-knowledge and existence.

You won't find any cultural connotations in the title of the Russian part ("To Stockholm"), apart from the fact that four Moscow artists who permanently work with Art Media Center "TV Gallery" – Masha Chuykova, Nina Kotel, Vladislav Efimov and Yuri Leiderman, will actually come to Stockholm and make their exhibition there, united by one theme, i.e. independent spiritual and physical life of little things. The works of all the four Russian artists have been inspired to a great extent by Nikolai Fyodorov's philosophy, a well-known Russian philosopher of the 19th century, who called to direct all forces of mankind, science and technology for "fathers'" resurrection, i.e. all deceased mankind. Fyodorov's concepts have become the basis of the Soviet communist utopia, Stalin industrialization, the program of the nature exploration. They used to stimulate the development of the Soviet cosmonautics (Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the theorist of interplanetary flights, has developed the methods of resettlement of raised from the dead people to other planets; for this purpose he had invented a liquid-propellant rocket).

The ironical attitude of the artists towards this very important discourse of the Russian culture of the 20th century can be seen in the fact that they care about life, death and resurrection of things, not people.

In Masha Chuykova's installation "Sounds of Soup" the figures made of vegetables, are fading, getting sick and old, and then die. In Nina Kotel's video "Things Rising from the Dead" there arise from the grave (trash box) only the things of quick use and of red color only. In Vladislav Efimov's work "Things Resurrected" old mechanisms, an alarm-clock, manometer, phone receiver turn into angels, flapping their wings and making their own sounds: the alarm-clock is ringing, the receiver is buzzing. Yuri Leiderman's installation presents the population of kefir funguses. The artist gives the names to all of them, makes their society and then studies it.

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia