At the “Exhibition with a Deep Meaning” – as in a fairy tale about Ilya Muromets, where the hero was at the crossroads of three roads and none is good. Before entering the art space, each visitor must put on a sign with a black circle, thereby turning into a vulnerable target.
The first hall is the same crossroads: right on the course – a skeleton with devilish horns, glowing red. To his right, behind a black curtain made from a body bag, is a hall with a toilet bowl, a screaming garbage can and statements – “They won’t take us into the future!” and “no one understands us.”
To the left – four rooms with a “bouquet” of sensations – from depression to disgust. Thus, the Red Circle art group, led by artist Avdey Ter-Oganyan, talks about the trend of our time, where a generation of new decadents has grown up.
Banter, sarcasm and stylization are the methods by which about thirty artists, together with their mentor, the infamous artist Avdey Ter-Oganyan, analyze the mental state of the young generation of today.
In every corner of the five rooms of the New Wing of the Gogol House, the viewer will find signs of decadence, degeneration and depression. So, in a green room overgrown with natural mold, the walls are decorated with works in the style of famous and recognized conceptual artists such as Igor Makarevich, Andrey Monastyrsky, Viktor Pivovarov. All of them are made in an ironic way.
Here we seem to find ourselves in a new version of the “Toilet” by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. It should be reminded that for the first time presented at the Documenta exhibition in Kassel in 1992, the total installation, where home comfort is created in a public restroom, blew up the public and became a household word. Kabakov’s angry and sad satire on Soviet life is now filled with the sharpness of the new time. The green room has all the signs of Kabakovism: flies crawl through the windows, there is a toilet in the corner, and in the center there is a trash can, from which one can hear the artist’s displeased cry: “Why was I taken to this exhibition?”.
Young artists, the authors of the installation, following the now recognized classic, inform the modern viewer in their wall slogans: “We complain about everything and we don’t like anything.” And they add, apparently with a sad sigh: “They won’t take us into the future.”
From green sadness to blue sadness. In another room, painted in sad blue, there are also hints of iconic works by Ilya Kabakov, as well as Salvador Dali. Before us are stairs to nowhere, small mirrors on the walls, scissors hanging in space and clocks with different times.
Next, we find ourselves in the room of “pink snot”. Here, all the walls are painted in a “girlish” color, and on them are pantyhose with eyes, stretched in various bizarre poses. In the corner is a basin with a mirrored bottom, in which you can look and sob, like Alyonushka from Vasnetsov’s painting. In the other corner there is a couch, as in a doctor’s office, on which it is proposed to lie down, get comfortable and listen to the complaints of a young artist whose work was mercilessly or sparingly criticized by senior colleagues in the art workshop.
The wall-mounted tights are also “diluted” with whining – around them are dialog boxes (as in comics) with the phrases: “Life is unbearable”, “No one will ever love me”, “I have no strength”, “I don’t know who I am” .. It seems that we have before us an illustration of a well-known youth meme: “Putting on tights to the very tonsils, it is more and more difficult to overcome the temptation to strangle them.”
In the finale, the viewer finds himself in a “white cube” – devastation. Here, on one side, are photographs of everything very white (but not fluffy) on a white background: toilet paper, a skull, glasses of water (which are obviously half empty rather than full). On the other – two walls covered with natural “materials” that cause disgust – chicken feet and pig snouts. In a word, each of the spaces brings the most negative feelings to the point of absurdity, be it self-pity, longing or boredom. However, such grotesque decadence causes a smile rather than sadness.
“I am against decadence and I openly declare this in the subtitle of the exhibition,” Avdey Ter-Oganyan explains to MK. – But it is impossible not to notice that now decadents are a dime a dozen. Young people feel sorry for themselves all the time, whine, everyone has become so vulnerable. Proof of this is the many words that have added to our everyday vocabulary: abuse, harassment, toxicity, bullying. I remember when I came to a pioneer camp as a boy and local village guys beat me there. But he never said that I was injured, did not reflect on this, well, it was and floated away. If I don’t like a person, I just send three letters and don’t communicate, but I don’t sit and cry about him. And now everyone is complaining about their hard life. Decadence has become a new mental game for the younger generation.
– Why are the authors of the works not signed anywhere, as if the exhibition is nameless? Is this part of the concept?
– The guys and I come up with everything together, complementing each other. This is the collective work of our art association “Red Circle”, where we try to analyze what art is in general. Our first project was called “Circle Balls” and was dedicated to formalism. Then there was “The Worst Exhibition in the World” – about Dadaism as a phenomenon. And this “Exhibition with a deep meaning” is dedicated to decadence, over which we are ironic.