Crisis Provides Temporary Home to Seven Artists

Moscow's art world has proved as vulnerable to the omnipresent "C" word as anything else. But for the organizers of "Escape Hatch 7," which opened last night, the current economic downturn presented a unique opportunity. Co-organizer and participant Davina Garrido de Miguel brought six other female artists together for a last-minute group show in an unused office space formerly belonging to the Moscow Arts Center.

The Moreque building, designed by Boris Freidenberg in 1894, was originally home to expensive shops and luxury apartments, one of which was rented by playwright Anton Chekhov after his marriage in 1901. Made an architectural monument after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it hosted blue-chip exhibitions over the last 10 years featuring artists ranging from Futurist David Burliuk to current young stars Alexei Kallima and Diana Machulina.

Now, however, the space is abandoned and its future uncertain. "Last year, the space was bought by a property company for use as a showroom and the gallery moved out, but because of the crisis they never wound up expanding into it," explained Garrido de Miguel. "But the rent's been paid until the end of this month, so when I came across this in October I just leapt at the chance."

The building, located on Neglinnaya Ulitsa near a row of luxury goods stores and the country's Central Bank, is still as much prime real estate as ever. Its landlords, according to Garrido de Miguel, are keen to find a major gallery willing to move in to what was one of the best and largest private exhibition spaces in Moscow.

Appropriately, the artists envisioned "Escape Hatch 7" as a direct comment on the economic crisis. "We all agreed on 'Escape Hatch' as a title in English, but there are two ways to translate it into Russian ?€” avariiny vykhod and avariiny lyuk," explained Sarah Watterston, the only American in the group among two Russians and four Spaniards. "The first you can see everywhere, on exit signs, trolleybuses. But lyuk is much darker ?€” it signifies escape as a last resort. So we went for that."

Martina Anagnostou's pieces in particular draw on the gloomy aspect of the theme. These include paintings of African poverty scenes all too familiar from the news media, featuring traditional Ethiopian child-carrying sacks and large photographic collages overlaid with questions such as "Do you suffer from tuberculosis?" in English and Russian. Others, however, are much brighter and lighthearted, including Olga Khan's ceramic self-portraits and whistle sculptures or Garrido de Miguel's satirical cartoons inspired by TV news.

This apparent incongruity was a deliberate part of the exhibition's conception. "Russian friends I mentioned the title to were kind of shocked by this," said Watterston, who describes her own paintings as abstract expressionist. "They said, 'You can't call it that, it sounds like James Bond jumping into a manhole!' But I like the idea of being able to escape from the crisis into beautiful painting."

Any escape the show provides will be temporary ?€” its run only lasts to this Sunday, and 24 hours before the opening Garrido de Miguel seemed uncertain even of that. Under the circumstances, its title seems ominously appropriate, as a space once exhibiting major figures from the last two centuries of Russian art opposite the federal tax authority and next to the Russian Central Bank now risks falling into disrepair. But Watterston remains optimistic. "I want people to relate to the exhibition in their own way. It's not the end if you lose everything ?€” you will still always have art."

"Escape Hatch 7" runs through Jan. 25. 14 Neglinnaya Ulitsa. Metro Kuznetsky Most. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 8-963-612-6096.