OPUS MAGNUM
March 1997

Our people don’t take such things. Radical Art as a Bulwark of Liberal Values
Ekaterina Degot
Magazine "Itogy"
March 18, 1997

One should define Art Moscow not as just "a good one", but, what is more valuable, as "a right one". The idea was uncompromising and radical. For the first time in our country only "the art of the highest league", i.e. the art of an international level, reputation and quality, was allowed to the fair.

<...> From the very beginning the general director of the joint-stock company Expo Park which organized the fair, had to accept the fact that good art could bring him only a good reputation, so he combined Art Moscow with a second antiquarian salon.

<...> But when a buyer had to make a choice whether to purchase a bad picture by an anonymous Italian artist of the 18th century, or a picture by a famous and good artist of the 20th century which was ten times cheap, he would certainly prefer the first one.

<...> One should think why there is no demand for contemporary art, and not only commercial demand, but there is neither spiritual nor intellectual need for it. <...> Contemporary art learned long time back how to please and entertain the audience, especially a person, who had tasted TV, design, advertising. The viewers were obviously intrigued by the video installation of Vladislav Efimov and Aristarkh Chernishov presented at TV Gallery’s stand where something was rotating and illuminating, while a mirage of a flower was burning brightly on the wall. <...> However, despite being carried away by "amazing" contemporary art, a viewer would prefer to purchase a piece of "beautiful" old art (or its imitation at least).

<.....> Radical art of the 20th century looks like a scandalous and random choice of the artist so far, that is why it is a stronghold of personal expression; moreover, it is a bulwark of liberal values of individualism. And it must be owned that those values are Western ones. Hence in Russia there were always very few artists belonging to this circle. Nothing has changed at present as well. This is why professional circles in the West accept all of them at once, not necessary as stars, but always as their own people. And this is the reason why on the Russian soil the viewer who intuitively understands much more about this art than he thinks he does, does not really believe these artists, hardly placing trust in the West in general.

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