Well, this is really where I feel uncomfortable and insecure.
I doubt, of course, that anyone will call for the Iron Curtain once again. No need to. You just put a huge padlock. And make sure that those who are suffocating whisk out as quickly as possible. Briskly and unnoticed, which would be twice as desirable.
Those who remain inside will gradually become happier and happier. There is no one to perturb their souls. They just take this mire for granted. No, they do not even think of it. They have actually never been told. And never will.
What also is of huge annoyance is that you either have to surrender by staying here, behind these locked doors. Or you have to escape from what you view as a prison. However, in neither case you are guaranteed to achieve what at least Dyaghilev’s Russian Seasons in Paris did.
Origins. Origins. And once again, origins. The aristocratic environment has always been (and still remains) the most internationally bound milieu. They reached mutual understanding easily. As opposed to lower classes.
Culturally, nothing but lower classes now remain in Russia. Neither in art, nor in science.
Brrr. Is not it horrible to realize that the world has been celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Rite of Spring — without us? One сould expect that Russia was to become the center of this huge cultural tribute. No? Of course no. Just a couple of feeble performances in Moscow and Saint-Pete. Most of them, with artists invited from abroad.
It is just living our history up. To be proud of the former glory. But for how long can a fat forty-year-older be proud of “what a sportsman he used to be one hundred pounds ago”?
Well OK. Actually Stravinsky was just right by choosing to be a citizen of the world. Never caring about returning to Russia again. Unfortunately, oh so unfortunately: everything lies within education and origins…
And now… just comparing where and what Stravinsky was at 32. And myself… well, okayface. Here is to you is a lulling song for the strangled creative class: you are not hungry, you are not cold, look at some countries where people are starving. And consequential sheer rubbish of the sort. Middle-class fairy-tale. Loans. Steady job. Wife and kids. Vacations twice a year.
Empty eyes.
Empty eyes everywhere.
Loans again. Steady job obsession. Kids falling ill. Long-expected ‘alles inklusiv’ vacations in a stinky and disgusting Turkish hotel.
Okayface. At least I have friends arriving from Sochi. Endless walks around Moscow’s gateways and backyards.
Reading about architecture. Discussing art theories. Preparing new plenairs.
Ah yeah. A photographic plenair today with Alexander Abalikhin.
Of course, a lot of theories. Now city+art. Now art+city.
Will this ever become practice?
Dubious so.
Be you seven times as clever as our ancestors one hundred years ago, you are still likely to remain here. Where you are now. That is, on the lower stair.
Not origins are now of importance. But an appropriate phone call at the right moment.
Just because the epoque put a huge padlock on the door.
15 June 2013. – Moscow (Russia)