It is Mama’s firm belief that modern art is the medium to go for if you want childish appreciation of visual virtuosity. Classical paintings are very flat. Contemporary… whatjmacallits tend to be a lot more pace roundable, climb upable, crawl alongable, duck underable and even, occasionally, touchable.
The current exhibition at the Garage art gallery in Moscow, the Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, has items on display which allow you to do all of these things, and put on headphones to listen to the soundtrack that accompanies them as well.
Of course, so far we have only been to one exhibition where you were invited to handle everything, and the Garage Triennial wasn’t it.
Figuring out which items you are supposed to manipulate and which to contemplate from a safe distance by carefully observing the appropriate behaviour of more clued up others is both a profoundly moving representation of an essential aspect of the human condition and also a very good opportunity for children to practice this vital social skill.
To limit the potential damage this might cause, the very practical Garage gallery had stationed a large number of young docents at every possible corner on the lookout for people doing it wrong, so generally the art was safe from everyone except Mama, who absent-mindedly walked into the dangling skier model. We simply can’t take her anywhere.
Adding to the child-friendliness, in the Garage Triennial, when the art is flat, it tends to be on TV. Can we recognise the difference qualitative difference between Spongebob Squarepants and a woman being sloooooowly covered with large smooth stones on a beach? Mama has no idea, but she does know that my Predictable Big Brother will be entranced as long as there are moving images.
Mama wouldn’t say that the Garage Triennial is simply uncomplicated fun for the more youthful element of society though. So she experienced trepidation every time I put on the headphones, and even insisted on sampling the soundtracks first if she could get there ahead of me. But since I retained my sunny delight in trying on every single one of them for the whole of the exhibition, Mama concludes that it was fairly innocuous after all. And the set that also included virtual reality goggles was simply FABULOUS. Floor to ceiling dancing babushkas. ‘Nuff said.
The Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art is organised into a number of themed sections. Its overall aim is, for the first time ever, to showcase the current state of the modern art scene for the whole of the Russian Federation, and to this end curators spread out all over the very very big country in order to discover what is going on out there. Way way out there in some cases.
They seem to have decided that artists are working on being famous (‘Master Figure’), describing themselves (‘Personal Mythologies’), describing their location (‘Fidelity to Place’), describing what’s wrong with that (‘Art in Action’), describing art (‘Common Language’) and scribbling on walls (‘Street Morphology’).
And actually Mama, who can sometimes find herself in a modern art gallery staring a large, random, piece of burnt wood and wondering if it would make sense the other way up, felt that either the Russian artists had been unusually successful in getting a point across or that the groupings were particularly well thought out. In pondering the connections between pieces or between the piece and the topic, she made a lot more sense of what was going on than that time when she was interviewed by a psychic guru in the catacombs of the Tate Modern.
Went a bit over our heads, mind you. My Predictable Big Brother stared particularly blankly at the large golden model of a priest and inquired with some disapproval as to why he was making a mildly rude gesture. Being moved to read the caption and finding out it is a self-portrait didn’t seem to help much.
Basically, both of us much preferred the shiny metal spiny sculptures, the giant pile of rubbish that changes into something much more attractive when the lights go down, the sand tray where you could use tweezers to move a few buttons, twigs, grains of sand, plastic baubles and fabric flowers around, and the giant multi leveled wendyhouse, with the extremely steep twisty stairs.
Most of all I liked the dolphin buried in a concrete brick. Look, I just like dolphins, alright? No need to overthink things.
I liked it so much, in fact, I drew it in the visitors book, full of sketches by other gallery goers too, after double checking to make sure it wasn’t just another piece of art.
Mama thinks that very much in evidence was the Russian surrealist sense of humour, impressive commitment to fixing anything as long as there is a bent paperclip or a large hammer to hand, and habit of flinging themselves wholeheartedly into their latest project.
But the Russian reputation for startling directness is also not unjustified and this was definitely on display at the Garage Triennial too.
Take this one, which Mama found one of the most powerful examples, given that it marries the very delicately pretty feminine art of watercolour painting with the ugly subject of domestic violence.
Or this one, in which items from the personal and political history of the country have been embedded in amber, itself an iconic item from this part of the world. Can’t get more crushing that the implication that the symbols you held so dear are now fosilised remnants of a disconnected past.
Or this one. These are house numbers. Note the missing ones, intended to represent the losses suffered to wars and instability in the artist’s hometown.
Which is Grozny in Chechnya.
Let’s just take a moment to add a new layer of painful interpretation to that, shall we?
But the problem with message-driven art is that at some point that you do start to wonder if perhaps standing in a swish custom-built chrome-plated art gallery, thinking about the coffee you can have in the large, tastefully-appointed cafe downstairs, next to the extensive souvenir cum glossy art books shop is all a bit… too… comfortable.
Is there, in fact, a point to looking at this kind of thing if all you are going to do afterwards is play on the table football, and then wander downstairs to the elegant toilets, where there are sprays so you can detoxify the seats before parking your rump, as well as a mirrored area with a built in clever-clever hashtag for teenagers to primp in front of before their edgy Instagram session upstairs? And all this while listening to the deliberately amplified sound of flushing loos?
A question already addressed in the Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, by the Monstration happening.
This is an event which takes place annually, and which at first glance seems to show a large street demonstration in action.
But if you look a little closer (and you can read Russian), you will see that the placards are covered with pseudo slogans.
Because this is a pseudo protest.
Yes, the artist organizer may occassionally get arrested for planning it, and the onlookers heckling the participants may also be taking it seriously, but no, these people have turned out en mass and with considerable enthusiasm, having taken the time to paint up their own signs with absurd sayings to participate in an entirely content-free demonstration.
Mama simply cannot decide whether this is the most genius bit of biting sociological satire she has ever seen, the angriest political commentary or an egregious example of shocking frivolity given that it is 2017, the year after 2016. It’s been bothering her considerably.
Which, I suppose is the point of art, contemporary or otherwise. To get under your skin, to stay with you, to make you examine the world in a different way.
So go, if you can. It’s interesting, fun and worthwhile. And your kids will love it.
More information
The exhibition’s website (in English).
Address: 9/32 Krymsky Val, 119049, Moscow
Opening: The Garage Triennial of Contemporary Russian Art is on until 14th May 2017. 11 am to 10pm daily.
Admission: 400 roubles for adults. Children under 11 are free. Children over 11 cost 100 roubles.
Public transport: The Garage gallery is in Gorky Park. The two nearest metro stations are Oktyabrskaya (orange line) and Park Kultury (red line).
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I tend to find modern art falls into two categories for me – thought provoking and powerful, or baffling in a kind of ‘but what is it?’ way. I am not an artist so if there’s ever the thought of, ‘I could do that’, I’m not usually impressed. The collection here sounds like it’s definitely far more into category one territory, even the descriptions have got me thinking and I rather like the amber. Clever. Thanks for linking up with #citytripping
I failed miserably to convey what I thought about the amber really, but ‘clever’ pretty much sums it up. I like the idea of contemporary art a lot. If there is an idea. Almost I don’t have to see it then. In fact, it might even spoil it. I followed an installation in London many years ago, which was a woman sleeping in a glass box. The papers would have regular updates (yup, there she was again). I never went to see it. I suspected I would be disappointed.
If I were doing a show, my pieces would be the program notes for non existant pieces the visitor would have to imagine…
Such an interesting post! I love art but some of it is just waaaayyyy beyond me.
Well, I’ll be hnest, I never did figure out what the onion in a brick was supposed to be about.
I gotta admit, I’m not a big art lover….but the older I get, the more I tend to appreciate art….. daddytravels.wordpress.com
Many things make more sense as we get older!
This sounds like an incredible collection. I was particularly taken with the collection of door numbers. Modern art tells a powerful story of where a society is at, and I feel as though I’ve learnt a lot about modern Russia by reading this post. More than via the news here, at least! Thanks for linking up with #CulturedKids.
That dolphin sounds jolly interesting #CulturedKids