Viktor Misiano: We are living in a time that can be characterized as the second phase of globalization. During the first phase in the 1990s, the world was rapidly integrating. Through flows of capital, information and multinational brands, diverse realities started converging towards common ways of life. However, this sparked a backlash resulting in attempts to defend local autonomy, individuality and ethnic identity. Essentially, all this was part of a single mechanism. With the global market functioning as a marketplace for local brands, a third fundamental term of our times emerged: glocal. So this was what artists, including those from the former Soviet Union, were doing at that time. On the one hand, they were learning to play by the transnational rules of the game. On the other, they were developing local brands based on local identity, individual or group poetics, and intimate subjectivity.We are now experiencing the second phase of globalization, which faces the issue of political convergence of the world. The discussion accompanying transnational economic relations calls for democratic renewal, preservation of public space, freedom of migration etc. Joining this discussion, the art world gave up on worshipping uniqueness, originality and authenticity, opening up to universalism instead. Your universal or at least intended-to-be-universal language of great public messages is certainly up to the challenges of our time, which Zygmunt Bauman described as the return to the agora, i. е., a return to the global public space. But who inhabits this public space? Whom does your new agitprop address? Who is your audience? Let’s remember that the art of great public messages is usually born out of broad social movements, which provide it with the required context and justification. What’s more, social movements are what create context within society and justify real democracy. In fact, R.E.P. did emerge in the days of the Orange Revolution, which, whatever one’s opinion of it, undeniably constituted an example of powerful social dynamics. However, now that this revolution has become a thing of the past, what kind of social context provides justification for your language of broad public messages? Perhaps you should have changed the type of language long ago in favor of a subtler one, without entirely forgoing politics as a topic?Sometime ago you discussed communities. Does this mean that communities are supposed to be the new target audience for your messages? But what kind of communities are we talking about exactly? Are they what Negri and Hardt call the multitudes? Do you find them in the post-Soviet countries, which are rather reluctant to join the discussion about democracy? In other words, who is the target group of you work in the PinchukArtCentre? Do you count on an audience capable of emancipating itself from the globalized consumer masses that visit neoliberal art attractions today?
R.E.P.: The audience of the Patriotism project is indeed some kind of community. It is made up of individuals who stand out from the crowd of recreational visitors, the kind that see art exhibitions as a pleasurable pastime. The very effort the viewers must put into unraveling the meaning of the Patriotism text using our dictionary makes them break out of the recreational mode of art consumption. Our pictogram texts depict burning social issues which require the transformative efforts of the multitudes in order to be solved.On the one hand, we deliberately narrow down our audience to only those willing to decipher our texts. On the other, we significantly broaden its scope, seeing that anyone can read them, regardless of their cultural baggage, nationality, or social background. In choosing universalism instead of the commodification of difference on the global market, in our pieces we often deal with local issues, such as Ukrainian labor migration, though in a language which is easily understood. Besides, these and similar issues are present all over the world.With Patriotism we wish to present art as a part of the social sphere, which is open to the public, much like free health care and education. This is why we prefer monumentality to intimacy and why we opt for concreteness and clarity of perception instead of playing with the viewer’s associations. However, walls that used to be covered with agitprop now carry billboards. The symbols we use cannot become as familiar to any- and everyone as the ideological imagery of the time of the metanarratives. Apart from that, public spirit is more pronounced in protest groups than in the law-abiding majority. In Ukraine nowdays, contemporary art obviously feels more comfortable on privatized as opposed to public territory. However, the imagined art space of the Patriotism installations is precisely public.
Viktor Misiano: The museum can indeed provide some very appropriate context for public statements which require, as you put it, “the transformative efforts of the multitudes”. This is what it looks like from a media-theoretical viewpoint: According to Vilém Flusser, there are four discursive patterns of communication, one of them being when the recipients of the information form a semicircle around the sender (as in a theatre), and another when the sender transmits information into space (as on the radio). Each of these patterns has its corresponding cultural situation. The first one corresponds to responsibility while the second one goes with mass distribution. However, in your art operation a message which corresponds to the second discursive pattern is essentially broadcast via the first, meaning that you are transferring a mass message into a cultural situation which evokes in the recipients, i.e., the audience, a heightened sense of responsibility towards it.That said, media scientists divide information into the following categories: indicative information, as in “А is А”; imperative information, as in “А should be А”; and optative information, as in “let А be А.” Truth is the classical ideal of the indicative, good of the imperative, and beauty of the optative. Each of these types of information has its respective distribution infrastructure. Well, in your case, information rather pertinent to the second, the imperative type and following the ideal of good, while partially relevant to the indicative and the ideal of truth, is being broadcast using the infrastructure of the optative, i.e., via the infrastructure of art. Obviously, in real life everything is more involved. These types of information are rarely found in their pure form. Science, aesthetics and ethics are intertwined both in personal experience and in communication. Even so, it is quite legitimate to discuss the aesthetic status of you project. There is a strong tradition of working with text as a stand-alone element. Lawrence Weiner, Komar and Melamid, and Jenny Holzer immediately spring to mind. However, Weiner’s text pieces, which he painted on the walls of art institutions, dealt with the phenomena of art and the art institution as such, i. е., they were an example of conceptual critical tautology. Komar and Melamid, who placed their signatures under bright red Soviet slogans (e.g., “The people and the party are undivided!” Komar and Melamid), which were then put on view in museums, used tautology in a deconstructionist manner. Last but not least, Jenny Holzer sent out philosophical maxims of consumerist society (“I consume, therefore I am”) from the news ticker display at Times Square. In each case, the textual gesture was justified by ingenious play with context. The text was not supposed to be read literally, but playfully. You are presenting us with a direct message that is supposed to be read literally and has no higher aesthetic connotations. The only playful element is the idiosyncratic ideographic lettering system used for its visualization. Is that a good enough reason for these works to appear inside an art institution? Isn’t the aesthetic element being reduced to graphic design of sorts? Brutally speaking, what makes your art real art? This question is particularly important in view of the ongoing debate between proponents of political art and supporters of the autonomy of art. In their criticism, the latter deny art activism any aesthetic relevance, relegating it to the ranks of political activism (with an element of buffoonery) and a kind of visualized sociology. However, this question is definitely legitimate with regard to R.E.P. After all, as far as I know, the work of the individual group members is quite different from R.E.P. poetics. Moreover, it’s mostly painting!
R.E.P.: Let’s think back to the first R.E.P. exhibitions (in 2004/2005) where the works of individual group members were being showcased. Later R.E.P. became a “group author,” which allowed us to make statements—transpersonal, communitarian, political—which were new to Ukrainian contemporary art, but at the same time our art started to split into individual and collective. Now we are seeking to overcome this split, to make the work of the group and its individual members meet within the framework of some kind of New Ukrainian Art, but that’s a whole separate conversation. Patriotism’s visual form is not only a means of showcasing ideas and attitudes, but also something the viewer must overcome in order to perceive them. It places an emphasis on the viewer’s effort. This form communicates the pathos of slogans to texts which are far from always just slogans. After all, the Patriotism artworks contain both the visual equivalent of slogan-shouting (as shown in the KUMU Museum or at the Center for Contemporary Art at the Kiev Mohyla Academy) and neutral representations of known facts (as in the murals showcased at the Roman Capsule Gallery and at the Budapest Art Institute). An artwork may present some kind of contradiction (as in the mural at the Tallinn Biennial). Similarly, a seemingly affirmative text may contain a subversive element (as in the piece shown at the Luigi Pecci Center). However, the tone of all the project artworks invariably remains the same. So, it becomes the viewer’s task to independently single out the “is” and the “should be,” and to discern truth, good and evil from the homogenous flow of text.The producers of mass messages often use all kinds of effects and different ways of suggestion in order to manipulate the feelings of their audiences. In calling for nonreflexive perception, they seek to erode the very ability of the target group to make an informed choice, whereas we appreciate the participation of the viewer, choosing not to use manipulative techniques, or at least trying to neutralize them as much as possible. Although mass channels of information transmission are seemingly much more effective, it should be said that topics calling upon social responsibility are more in line with a language which is responsible in itself. The spectacular monumentality of certain project works indicates the impact of the problems discussed. These artworks take up a lot of exhibition space because their themes are of great social importance. You could say that we produce agitprop, slogans and symbols, but we make them transparent. The viewer can use a dictionary, you can see what the signs are made up of, so the ideological symbol can be constructed and deconstructed. What matters is not its hypnotic effect, but its ability to represent a visual formula of social life phenomena.Besides, the Patriotism pieces utilize not only the art infrastructure as such, but also the contexts of specific exhibitions, institutions, cities and countries. They appear not only in showrooms, but also in open public spaces, like the underground escalator in Kiev or the facade of the contemporary art center in Prato.
Viktor Misiano: If your work is to be seen as part of the dynamics of modern multitudes, then who are your partners in this activist practice? Who are these multitudes, both in your local and the broader context? Who are you linked with by ties of solidarity? Where do you position yourself in terms of associations? Are you to be found exclusively inside the art world, or in a broader context?
R.E.P.: We see ourselves as existing inside the art world. However, we insist on its broader meaning, as on the possibility of a dialogue with different social disciplines and knowledge systems. The point is to open (but not to eliminate) the boundaries between the art world and fields such as political activism, sociology or, for that matter, town planning, and as a consequence, to emphasize the distinction between art and the entertainment industry.Returning to the debate between the proponents of the autonomy of art and the supporters of political art, it should be said that politicized art has come under fire from political activists as well. It is quite rightly being criticized for functioning inside an institutional art system which to a large extent is defined by government and market interests. However, the main point of criticism towards politicized art is precisely that it does not constitute real activism—with or without an element of buffoonery. So, this is where artistic autonomy (but not isolation) protects it from becoming a set of means justified only by noble ends. Political art and activism are related fields characterized by a tense relationship of attraction and repulsion. The main task is to find new forms of cooperation between the artistic, activist and scientific practices. Here we should mention one curatorial and educational initiative we are involved in. It was launched quite recently. At this stage, it comprises meetings and discussions and is called the Creative Committee. The members of the Creative Committee are young artists, architects, social activists and humanitarian intellectuals from different backgrounds—such are our closest partners. In the broader international context we keep in touch with many interdisciplinary grassroots organizations which are different in form but united by common goals for the transformation of society. To define the place of art in a broad transformative social movement is the aim of our dialogical work.
Viktor Misiano: In mentioning your new initiative, the Creative Committee, you have anticipated my next question. In fact, the very nature of your artistic practice naturally requires the creation of institutions of a new kind—inevitably fragile and limited in their resources, but all the more mobile, reactive and artistically innovative. Such initiatives ought to become the centers of discussion, development and legitimation of an artistic alternative to the culture industry. They may be ephemeral, and their representation potential may not be up to compete with neoliberal art blockbusters, but it is really they who ought to become and be the place of true artistic planning.However, I would like to return to the question concerning the coexistence of these two dimensions of contemporary art culture, namely, the art of the culture industry and resistance art. You have already explained the tactics and strategy of your venturing out into the territory of neoliberal institutions. But still, what does the Creative Committee think of the fraction of the art community that is not involved in its work? What do you think of artists who are unconcerned about their cooperation with the culture industry and do not pledge allegiance to the values of resistance? Don’t you think that your activities marked a divide within the Kiev art community?
R.E.P.: Considering that the Kiev art community is anything but monolithic, it is impossible to divide it. If anything, we consolidated a certain part of its amorphous and fragmented environment, which is to say that our strategy is positive. However, it might be really provoking a split. Such a split is only just starting to emerge. It does not follow the line of conflict between certain stances, but is bound to occur at a level of having a stance at all. Our opinion of artists who regard having a stance as an unaffordable luxury when struggling for survival in a competitive environment is that they are of no interest to us at all.
Victor Misiano (b. 1957) is a curator and critic based in Moscow. Currently he is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Khduzhestvenny zhurnal (Moscow Art Magazine).
2008