The latest show at the Ridzhina Gallery looks as if the artists staged their own revolution, a quest for the genre farthest from the feel-good images of Socialist Realism. And they have succeeded: Assaulted by exhibits like screaming, tar-covered heads, viewers are not likely to come away uplifted.
For Ridzhina Gallery curator Anatoly Osmolovsky, however, presenting these images by what he calls "the most radical artists on the Moscow scene" is part of his duty as an artist. "As Lenin said," he chuckled, apparently pleased at co-opting the demagogue's words, "the duty of the artist is to hold a mirror to reality."
The reality reflected at the Ridzhina is grim indeed. One of Osmolovsky's own creations, "Beetleberry Fields Forever," shows a naked infant girl with her head in a vise.
An oil by another artist depicts writhing naked bodies performing a ritualistic dance in the flicker of a television set, and another shows hazy figures shooting heroin in the blue light of television and computer screens.
The Ridzhina Gallery's current exhibit is titled (take a deep breath first): "Insolent, Heartless, Rude, Paranoid, Ungrateful, Animalistic, Drugged Out, Strange, Poverty-Stricken, Beaten Down by Ideology, Careeristic, Naive, Fashionable, Cruel, Fake, Unfriendly, Insane and Stubborn." Everything about the show is calculated to shock, aggravate, agitate.
Entering the gallery, the visitor is pinned by the glare of three 1,000-watt spotlights. Osmolovsky said the light symbolizes the traumatic experience of birth.
By recreating that moment, he said, visitors are born into the light of the exhibit's "Insolent, Heartless and Rude" world. "The light blinds us and we don't see the works of the exhibit," he explained. "Just as mass media -- propaganda and advertising -- blinds us from the world around us."
"The key word that defines the artists here is 'resistance': against stereotypes, narrow-mindedness, money, corruption, crime, drug addiction, prostitution," Osmolovsky said.
Yet these are the very themes that the works exploit. Osmolovsky said that the artists' best means of taking a stand against the uncomfortable and often suppressed worlds of violence and aggression is to drag that world into the naked light.
The most arresting piece in the exhibit is Tanya Khengstler's grouping of three severed heads, each piece slightly larger than life and covered with black, bubbling creosote. Into each of the heads the artist has fitted a small video monitor. Recorded scenes flicker from the screens cut into each forehead or featureless face.
Khengstler dubs the first head "War Man." An orange fire crackles on War Man's small screen, while the sound of applause emanates from the head's tinny speaker.
The second head is called the "Always-Moving-Nowhere Man." The video, accompanied by the hum of a burnt-out muffler, conveys an endless drive down a deserted road.
The final and most disturbing head, called "Food Man," shows a pair of hands delivering a sinewy piece of meat to a pair of grease-smeared lips. While the mouth chews and smacks and sucks the dripping fingers, the head emits a high, grinding wail that sounds like pigs being led to the slaughter, though Khengstler says it's actually a flock of screaming crows.
Together the heads make up what Khengstler calls the "Three Demons of Modernity" -- gluttony, restlessness and violence.
Overwhelmingly, the artists take their materials and inspiration from the worlds of industry, technology and mass media.
"The artist transforms this visual information," Osmolovsky said, "but he adds different shades -- funny or horrible or aggressive -- and arrives upon a deconstruction of reality."
What sort of reaction does Osmolovsky hope to evoke among his visitors? The curator said the ideal reaction would be "to go out-of-your-mind crazy after the exhibition."
Or, you could buy one of the pieces, all of which are for sale. But who would choose to decorate a living room with a screaming, carnivorous, tar-covered head? "It's not my area of competence," said Osmolovsky.
"Insolent, Heartless, Rude, Paranoid, Ungrateful, Animalistic, Drugged Out, Strange, Poverty-Stricken, Beaten Down by Ideology, Careeristic, Naive, Fashionable, Cruel, Fake, Unfriendly, Insane and Stubborn" appears at the Ridzhina Gallery, which is located at 36 Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, until Oct. 24. The opening hours are daily from noon to 7 P.M., closed Sunday and Monday. Tel. 921-1613. Nearest metros: Chistiye Prudy, Turgenevskaya.
For Ridzhina Gallery curator Anatoly Osmolovsky, however, presenting these images by what he calls "the most radical artists on the Moscow scene" is part of his duty as an artist. "As Lenin said," he chuckled, apparently pleased at co-opting the demagogue's words, "the duty of the artist is to hold a mirror to reality."
The reality reflected at the Ridzhina is grim indeed. One of Osmolovsky's own creations, "Beetleberry Fields Forever," shows a naked infant girl with her head in a vise.
An oil by another artist depicts writhing naked bodies performing a ritualistic dance in the flicker of a television set, and another shows hazy figures shooting heroin in the blue light of television and computer screens.
The Ridzhina Gallery's current exhibit is titled (take a deep breath first): "Insolent, Heartless, Rude, Paranoid, Ungrateful, Animalistic, Drugged Out, Strange, Poverty-Stricken, Beaten Down by Ideology, Careeristic, Naive, Fashionable, Cruel, Fake, Unfriendly, Insane and Stubborn." Everything about the show is calculated to shock, aggravate, agitate.
Entering the gallery, the visitor is pinned by the glare of three 1,000-watt spotlights. Osmolovsky said the light symbolizes the traumatic experience of birth.
By recreating that moment, he said, visitors are born into the light of the exhibit's "Insolent, Heartless and Rude" world. "The light blinds us and we don't see the works of the exhibit," he explained. "Just as mass media -- propaganda and advertising -- blinds us from the world around us."
"The key word that defines the artists here is 'resistance': against stereotypes, narrow-mindedness, money, corruption, crime, drug addiction, prostitution," Osmolovsky said.
Yet these are the very themes that the works exploit. Osmolovsky said that the artists' best means of taking a stand against the uncomfortable and often suppressed worlds of violence and aggression is to drag that world into the naked light.
The most arresting piece in the exhibit is Tanya Khengstler's grouping of three severed heads, each piece slightly larger than life and covered with black, bubbling creosote. Into each of the heads the artist has fitted a small video monitor. Recorded scenes flicker from the screens cut into each forehead or featureless face.
Khengstler dubs the first head "War Man." An orange fire crackles on War Man's small screen, while the sound of applause emanates from the head's tinny speaker.
The second head is called the "Always-Moving-Nowhere Man." The video, accompanied by the hum of a burnt-out muffler, conveys an endless drive down a deserted road.
The final and most disturbing head, called "Food Man," shows a pair of hands delivering a sinewy piece of meat to a pair of grease-smeared lips. While the mouth chews and smacks and sucks the dripping fingers, the head emits a high, grinding wail that sounds like pigs being led to the slaughter, though Khengstler says it's actually a flock of screaming crows.
Together the heads make up what Khengstler calls the "Three Demons of Modernity" -- gluttony, restlessness and violence.
Overwhelmingly, the artists take their materials and inspiration from the worlds of industry, technology and mass media.
"The artist transforms this visual information," Osmolovsky said, "but he adds different shades -- funny or horrible or aggressive -- and arrives upon a deconstruction of reality."
What sort of reaction does Osmolovsky hope to evoke among his visitors? The curator said the ideal reaction would be "to go out-of-your-mind crazy after the exhibition."
Or, you could buy one of the pieces, all of which are for sale. But who would choose to decorate a living room with a screaming, carnivorous, tar-covered head? "It's not my area of competence," said Osmolovsky.
"Insolent, Heartless, Rude, Paranoid, Ungrateful, Animalistic, Drugged Out, Strange, Poverty-Stricken, Beaten Down by Ideology, Careeristic, Naive, Fashionable, Cruel, Fake, Unfriendly, Insane and Stubborn" appears at the Ridzhina Gallery, which is located at 36 Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, until Oct. 24. The opening hours are daily from noon to 7 P.M., closed Sunday and Monday. Tel. 921-1613. Nearest metros: Chistiye Prudy, Turgenevskaya.
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