Exhibition "Great surprise". National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv
A word from the artists
This project is about the culture of shame; about how mechanisms of concealment work; about combining the roles of convicted and persecutor; about how we – like children – shut our eyes to remain “in the dark” and not see anything; about the construction of functional myths; about those left in the lurch; about charity as a prosthetic limb of the underdeveloped public sphere; about stupid jokes; about the severance of social ties; about spitting on the ground; about infantility; about museum babushkas; and about how people learn to not be afraid. We would also like to talk about the tuberculosis epidemic, although we were certainly not invited to participate in this project because of our understanding of this problem.
The TB epidemic in present-day Ukraine is a silent epidemic. It does not generate mass-media speculation. It’s easy to forget about it temporarily, and even not notice it at all. Yet it has its myth. This myth is relayed from one person to another in hushed tones, with an embarrassed smile. For tuberculosis is still associated with the most disgraceful condition in the post-Soviet infantile-consumer culture – poverty. Even though in fact, TB has ceased to be the “disease of the poor.” It has confidently crossed the divide between the well-off and impoverished, demonstrating an exceptional potential for egalitarianism. But associations are stronger than facts. AIDS – licentiousness, an indecent lifestyle. Cancer – the blind will of fate (or a sign from God). TB – impoverishment, hunger, poor hygiene, bad company.
One component of the culture of shame is the tradition of secrecy. It is customary to hide tuberculosis. If you, a relative, a friend or someone close has TB, silence is kept.
A neighbor, acquaintance or stranger with TB sets off whispered sharing of the news, quick elusive glances, avoidance as a psychological-sanitary barrier. In the culture of shame, the stigmatized is certainly not relieved of the duty to participate in public ritual. One doctor told us, “I still don’t understand the reason why some of the infected get sick, while others don’t. Those who sin the most will become sick.” If the community determines both judgment and punishment, then the accused group member is simultaneously positioned as the object and subject of punishment, which demands a certain actorly virtuosity.
The nation doesn’t know how many people become sick because statistics only record those who register themselves at the hospital. Dispensaries treat those who go there. Meanwhile, prisons provide new patients. However, most are recruited from the ranks of the unemployed – the mobilizable resources of this group are seemingly inexhaustible. With the fall of the Soviet system, which had ensured the population a rather large degree of security through established rapid detection of the disease, TB has become invisible and strong. It has become competitive. Generally speaking, it has joined the ranks of those who have successfully acclimated to the post-Soviet ruins.
The losers include hospitals, dispensaries, prisons; public libraries, swimming pools and cafeterias; schools and museums. The public sphere is in bad shape; it is in greater need of help than it is able to help those in need. But a private foundation sends fluorographs to hospitals. That same foundation – not the state – has given us the opportunity to cut into the walls of the National Art Museum. In the metro, photographs of sick children compete with images of vacuum-cleaners for the attention of passengers-consumers and potential benefactors. All over, crumbling state monopolism capitulates to private initiative. Anarcho-capitalism rules.
The museum is as much a case of concealment as of exhibition. This refers to false walls and what lies behind them. Cutting into the false walls exposes what is not put on display. Signs in the exhibition galleries bear fragments of stories, recollections and jokes – the false walls of language erected between speakers and the space where fear and shame ought to be hiding. However, behind the wall nothing is visible anymore.
The museum is a public space with a sanctioned social function. It is one of the sites of ideology, although various accents appear over different periods. The museum is a territory of “spirituality,” whatever that means. Today – the museum is a place for uncomfortable questions. We want to believe in the necessity of the museum.
To believe in the museum as a place from which it is possible to behold reality. To believe in artistic metaphor as a means of comprehending this reality, in other words, as the first step toward its positive transformation. It is this belief in a certain efficacy of the metaphor that brings us here.
R.E.P. Group, 2010