Marat Guelman—gallerist, director of the Art Center in Montenegro, and member of the Anti-War Committee—spoke to Anastasia Izumskaya on the program "Vozdukh" (Air) on the Khodorkovsky Live channel about the conformism of the art community, the "cancellation" of Russian art in the West, the confrontation between art and power, and the tasks ahead of him.
Izumskaya: Let's start with the story about Oleg Kulik. His sculpture at an exhibition in Moscow caused public outrage—people say it is blasphemous and an insult to the "The Motherland Calls" monument. Let me remind you, his work is titled "The Big Mother." What happened, in your opinion? Why did a sculpture created in 2018 become offensive four years later?
Guelman: The times have changed drastically, in the sense that now they choose to be offended by absolutely anything. It must be said that previously there were also people who got offended—they were various obscurantists. They sued our gallery eight times, including over "Kitchen Suprematism" by the Blue Noses group, who currently have an exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery. Fundamentally, the issue isn't that someone got offended and saw a parody of Vuchetich’s woman in this Rubenesque figure, which they consider a standard. Oleg Kulik was inspired by a Rubenesque Venus, voluptuous and spread out...
Izumskaya: We can even trace this story further back, to the Venus of Willendorf, straight into prehistoric times...
Guelman: What I want to say is that the danger lies in the fact that this state of offense felt by some specific official like Khinshtein now poses a real threat to the artist. Previously, as I said, they sued the gallery eight times—meaning back then, the responsible party was not the writer or the artist, but the publisher and the gallerist, the people who brought these works into the public context. On the whole, contemporary art as a sphere is, of course, against the current regime, and its very existence causes offense. Or rather, I would say it the other way around: the current totalitarian regime insults contemporary art. We—even those artists who paint abstract pictures without calling for anything—are at polar opposites with this regime.
Artists always want to be part of the world. There is no artist who would say: "I want to be famous in my city, to be loved and understood here, but I don't care about the world outside my country." No. An artist wants to expand globally and be part of world culture. Our regime, conversely, says that we want to construct an isolated world and shut everyone out. An artist always looks to the future, while the current regime looks to the past—it’s a form of revanchism, an attempt to return everything back there. And perhaps we are still lucky that they haven't decided where exactly to return—to Stalin's times, Brezhnev's, or the monarchical era. But the key point is that here, too, we are looking in completely opposite directions.
And most importantly, there is freedom—freedom of expression. For art, it is like blood for the body. Without freedom, art cannot exist. Consequently, this is exactly what Kulik is truly "guilty" of—of being a free artist. He expresses what interests him.
As for this specific piece, these works were created a very long time ago; they are all dedicated to specific performances by specific artists, and they certainly did not intend anything of what Pushkov and Khinshtein are accusing them of. But this doesn't change the fact that contemporary art and power will always be in confrontation. I have always told my colleagues that you need to declare as quickly as possible that you will never cooperate with this regime, because it will part ways with you very quickly anyway.
Izumskaya: Doesn't it seem to you that you are painting this picture with too broad a brush when you say that all contemporary Russian art does not support the regime?
Guelman: No, that is not what I said. On the contrary, the majority of our community are conformists. They would like to come to an agreement with the regime, but it won't work at the level of language. Look at Grisha Bruskin at the Tretyakov Gallery. Grisha Bruskin is the establishment; he is our everything. I think a large number of these sanctioned oligarchs have his works in their collections. At least, I know for sure that Aven has them, among many others. And the Tretyakov Gallery is our main institution. They opened the exhibition—and closed it a week later. It means someone saw something, and this shows that a kind of oprichnina is emerging, which will now hand out judgments everywhere. Soviet censorship was structured differently; there were professional people who looked for something between the lines.
You are right that, unfortunately, our art community is sick with conformism. But that won't save it. The moment is coming when they will approach even the most loyal, most devoted to the regime and say: "No, in reality, in these works of yours, you didn't fully understand, or you are not fully with us."
Contemporary art is against power—this is immanent to it, it is inherent. It cannot exist without freedom; it will die.
But the fact that, unfortunately, starting from 2014, my colleagues practiced conformism, preached what they called "enlightened authoritarianism"...
Izumskaya: Well, in that sense, art seems to reflect the disease infecting the entire Russian society—conformism. How did this happen to cultural figures?
Guelman: Look, I would roughly divide us into three groups. One of them, let's call it pop culture—variety stage and entertainment cinema. These people are always aligned with power. The regime changes, and they change along with it; we can look at Nikita Mikhalkov. This group does not belong to contemporary art; it is a form of artistic servicing of the regime and the electorate. The second group is our establishment—my colleagues, museum directors (I was a museum director too), and serious artists. This is an establishment embedded in the system of world art, the ones we are talking about. And third, there are the youth, street artists—they make up the largest number.
If we talk about conformism, it all started in earnest in 2014 after Crimea. The isolation of Russian art from the global art market began. And the market is, after all, a source of independence. Artists who sell their works on the open market are absolutely free in their expressions, and they are secure financially. When the market vanished, artists fell into dependency on institutions: Roman Abramovich's Garage, for example, and various other institutions that said they were ready to work and provide funding in exchange for loyalty. This process didn't happen overnight; a number of artists left, but by today it has led to a situation of, unfortunately, almost total loyalty within this community.
When this war broke out, people stirred because it was utterly monstrous. After all, the first anti-war letter was signed by 17,000 cultural figures. And it was visible; it was their sincere gesture. But then it began: I know that at MoMA they started demanding the firing of employees, and it went on, and they returned to their conformist state. Unfortunately, they do not understand that everything they do now—unless it is a protest against the current war—is irrelevant from the standpoint of art. I am not talking about politics; from the standpoint of art, it doesn't matter. This will likely be realized after some time.
Izumskaya: Kulik was summoned to the Investigative Committee, but his fate is not yet determined. Meanwhile, artist Sasha Skochilenko is already sitting in a pre-trial detention center, facing up to 10 years in prison under the "fake news" law. Let me remind you, she replaced price tags in a grocery store with short texts stating that a war is going on and people are dying. Still, where is the line between art and politics, between art and a political statement?
Guelman: You know, this line is a false distinction. Any gesture by an artist is simultaneously a gesture of artistic life and a civic act. Therefore, the attempt to divide it into "this is art" and "this is not art" is inherently flawed. If we talk about actionism, we must bear in mind that besides the artist, society always participates—either on its own or through its counterparty, the authorities. And some things become great art precisely at the moment the reaction begins.
Let me give you a simple example: a comparison between Pussy Riot and Alexander Brener. In the early '90s, Alexander Brener challenged Yeltsin to a fight, coming out to the Lobnoye Mesto on Red Square in boxing shorts. They picked him up, held him in the police station for four hours, he wrote an explanatory note, and they let him go. Later, during the First Chechen War, he burst into the Epiphany Cathedral shouting: "Chechnya! Chechnya!" and smashed everything around. They picked him up again, held him overnight, I arrived in the morning, paid a 500-ruble fine for him, and they released him. Nobody knows about it—and that's it! Pussy Riot did the same thing; they disrupted far less in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior than Brener did in the Epiphany Cathedral, but the regime staged a show trial, imprisoned them, and it became a monumental global event.
So in this action, the regime is just as much a participant as the artist. And how loud, vivid, and interesting it becomes depends not only on the artist. In this sense, a seemingly quiet gesture by an artist—you could even say a humble one, as she anonymously placed these price tags and did not strive to become famous like Pussy Riot—became a powerful event because the state suddenly threw its entire state machinery against such a gesture. Therefore, yes, I believe that actionism will continue to be the most successful art form in Russia, and the blame for this lies not only with vivid and honest artists but also with the horrific repressive machine of the state.
Izumskaya: Besides Brener, you like to tell the story about Prigov, who printed out quotes from the Gospels and hung them at bus stops. He was also called in for a chat, they talked, and they let him go. But now actionism poses a real threat to artists. Do you believe there will be brave souls willing to go to prison for 10 years for the sake of an artistic statement?
Guelman: The thing is, you and I never know what will trigger a reaction. When Oleg Kulik submitted this sculpture—I know it well, I have a sculpture from the same series in my collection here in Montenegro—he wasn't thinking about anything like that. You can never guess what exactly will provoke a reaction.
I was fired from my position as a museum director; I was the director of a state museum. I knew there were three taboo topics, and I decided for myself that if there were artistic expressions on these three topics—Chechnya, Putin, and the Church—I would do it outside the state museum. And suddenly it turned out that the Olympics was a taboo topic too! Nobody knew! We made an excellent exhibition by Slonov, “Welcome! Sochi 2014”—it was, of course, ironic, sometimes sharp towards all this glitz that accompanied the Olympics—and suddenly it turned out that this was also a forbidden topic, and that Putin personally took offense.
The same goes for this sculpture. After all, this parallel with "The Motherland Calls" monument was drawn not by the artist, but by Pushkov or Khinshtein. Similarly, when I talk about "Kitchen Suprematism," it was a response to Malevich's exhibition. There were three main figures—a square, a circle, and a cross—and they decided that any cross in contemporary art is a mockery of the Orthodox cross.
That is why I say that the modern, totalitarian regime and contemporary art are immanently alien to each other. Whatever an artist does today will provoke an aggressive reaction from the authorities. Even if an institution wants to be highly conformist and wants to create something for the May 9th anniversary, the language of art is different. You know, it’s like watching documentary films from the Soviet period—they still tell the truth about how it was, about the phoniness that existed. Art is the same way; it will still trigger these Khinshteins, it will still spark one way or another. And it’s a different question that, of course, if artists, understanding this, raised their voices against the war and against relations with this state, it would be much more correct.
Today, we must declare that it is impossible to work with this state.
Izumskaya: But do you expect them to raise their voices?
Guelman: No, unfortunately, I don't think such a moment can happen anymore. You know, I put on exhibitions three years ago, quite sharp exhibitions. I exhibited the Voina group and Pussy Riot in a museum in Moscow—meaning there was a time when one could carve out this space for oneself. Now, it seems to me, the main tool is the boycott of state institutions as such. Now is the time to fight them, but there is the power of the weak.
In art, there is this very important concept, and it probably exists in politics too—by the way, Khodorkovsky demonstrated this. The power of the weak is when they can no longer do anything to you. A good example here is Pavlensky. He wrapped himself in barbed wire and rolled up to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg in that state. What can you do to a person who inflicts pain upon himself until he bleeds? Beating him is pointless; he is mutilating himself. He essentially showed: "You can't do anything to me." The same happened when he nailed his scrotum to Red Square; he was saying that a weak person who has no money, no institutions, nothing—but most importantly, has no fear and is ready to inflict self-injury—leaves the regime powerless against him. When they tried him after he set fire to the door of the FSB, they charged him with "aggravated hooliganism," trying to scare him with a ten-year sentence. He said: "No, I disagree. Oleg Sentsov only intended to set fire to a door, and you tried him as a terrorist with a 20-year sentence. I actually set it on fire, so I demand to be tried under the same article." That is the power of the weak.
Khodorkovsky sat in prison, they couldn't do anything more to him, and still, he passed a letter out, and that letter had a massive effect. What remains is the action of a lone artist on the street, which can sometimes be anonymous, because street art is inherently anonymous. This always remains. These are actions designed to show the rest of society that perhaps they shouldn't give up—that yes, the regime has everything, they have a totalitarian machine, money, weapons, prisons, but even in this situation, something can be done.
Izumskaya: You say that art is the pain of society, and if you strip it of its voice, it reduces to interior design. How does the voice of Russian art sound to you right now?
Guelman: You know, I have been organizing the forum of Russian culture in Europe since 2015, and it started because of an argument I had with Natasha Sindeeva. I had left, while Dozhd TV was still developing, and she told me: "Well, you left, so maybe you shouldn't deal with our problems?" I said: "You know, Natasha, some things are visible better from the outside, and some from the inside. But that's not the point. Let's look at who 'we who left' are." Russia is a literature-centric country; a writer there was always more important than a politician—Leo Tolstoy was more important than Nicholas II. Vladimir Sorokin, the number one writer, lives in Berlin. Mikhail Shishkin lives in Switzerland. Pelevin lived in Kyiv back then, now he is in Thailand. Akunin is in London, Ulitskaya is currently in Berlin. Meaning Russian literature has left you. Let's take visual art. Number one, Ilya Kabakov—on Long Island. Number two, Komar and Melamid live in New York. Number three, Erik Bulatov is in Paris, and so on. Composers—half of contemporary Russian composers live in Berlin. So the first thing I want to say is that Russian culture is European culture. It is part of European culture.
At the moment when Russia tries to distance itself from Europe, Russian culture relocates to Europe.
Therefore, today we cannot say that the borders coincide—the borders of the Russian language and the borders of Russia do not coincide. This seems very, very important to me.
Second, of course, a highly significant process is unfolding today. There are several fetishes that we have now lost. One of them is the idea that "a poet in Russia is more than a poet." We already know that this is not the case—a poet is a poet, a public figure is a public figure. Sometimes they coincide, like in the case of Václav Havel. But it doesn't mean that a poet or a writer cannot be a bad person, cannot abuse, deceive, betray, and so on. This is a very important point: we must look soberly not only at power but also at people of culture, and understand that not every talent is a moral compass.
Izumskaya: There is the classic example of Wagner, about whom people still haven't fully decided whether he is a great composer or a supporter of Hitler. It seems that Russian art faces the same ethical question now.
Guelman: Ethical questions face producers specifically today; they must send a signal. And in this sense, it's not about talent; it's simply that today the main signal that needs to be sent to all people of art is support for Ukraine. Two of my exhibitions have already been canceled. I have excellent relationships with these European institutions, but they say: "Now is not the time, now we need to send a different signal to society."
Izumskaya: It turns out to be a kind of cancel culture—the cancellation of Russian culture where you are deemed bad simply because you are Russian. And it doesn't even matter what position you hold. Teodor Currentzis expressed that he is for world peace, yet one of his concerts was dropped, and his participation in the Salzburg Festival is in question...
Guelman: The thing is, nobody is saying that you are bad. They are telling you that today culture must also become an instrument for restoring peace in Ukraine.
Izumskaya: I don't understand how canceling Russian art restores peace in Ukraine. How does depriving Russian-speaking authors with Russian roots of the opportunity to express themselves in a shared space support peace in Ukraine?
Guelman: The loneliness of the Russian regime must be ensured in the exact same way as economic sanctions—in the exact same way. Understand that a writer keeps writing. I met with Vladimir Sorokin two days ago; he is writing. It’s just about not publishing right now, not exhibiting right now. Right now, everyone has one task—this moment must be absolute, there should be no debates through which the regime can start operating again. The first thing with cancel culture was the refusal to interact with Russian cultural institutions. I am very devoted to the Tretyakov Gallery, I know its staff, I gifted them 200 works. But right now, I understand perfectly well that if they receive a call from the ministry ordering them to close Grisha Bruskin's exhibition, they will close it. You answer me this question: who is canceling Russian culture then? Is it my Berlin partner who says that now is not the time, let's postpone the exhibition until later, or the Russian Ministry of Culture which bans Russian exhibitions inside its own country? So the topic of cancellation is a politicized one.
There is, of course, a movement by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the Ukrainian public, and we support it. Furthermore, there is the position of major institutions that make decisions independently, and for the most part, their stance is this: to have no relations with any Russian state institution, but not to extend this to individual creators who do not support the regime and, on the contrary, support Ukraine. So there is a interplay between these lines. And then there is our internal stance. My position is that as long as the war is going on, one must either remain silent or protest. Remaining silent doesn't mean you do nothing—you do everything you need in your studio, you write or paint, but displaying and publishing it will come later. Alternatively, today you can count on my interest if you express yourself in some way regarding the current crisis.
Izumskaya: The famous Russian artist Evgeny Antufiev asked to remove his works from an exhibition at the V-A-C Foundation's GES-2 house of culture. He says it is impossible to participate in exhibition openings and sip prosecco when people are being killed and blood is flowing. Can an artist occupy a position of "nothing is happening" right now?
Guelman: They do not have such an option. An ordinary citizen theoretically has the right—they are not a public figure, they weren't public in normal peacetime, they didn't want and didn't seek this publicity. But if you are a performer, an artist, a musician—if your profession is public, then it is your duty to speak out. You have an audience, and this audience expects something from you. Therefore, there is no such privilege. In the 8th century, an artist signed his work for the first time. Since then, the entire trajectory of art went along the line of the author's statement. You receive a lot due to the fact that you have a name. But you also owe a lot. And, of course, the more famous an artist you are, the greater your responsibility. If you are just starting your path, well, perhaps you have the right to pretend that you have nothing to do with anything.
Izumskaya: I don't know if you saw Chulpan Khamatova’s interview with a Latvian media outlet. The journalist tells her that it is necessary to declare one's position daily, even though Chulpan Khamatova’s stance on the war is already well-known. This caused outrage, and as always, opinions split. Ksenia Sobchak, for example, said: "What kind of European values are these when you are obligated daily to prove that you do not support the regime?" To what extent does one need to articulate their position?
Guelman: This is certainly a debatable topic. I would say from my own perspective: first, it depends on how much you feel your responsibility or guilt for what is happening. Unfortunately, I have made quite a few mistakes in my life, and I feel responsibility for what is happening. Therefore, I try to process all available information every day and speak out.
Of course, there are people who defined their place at the very beginning, and subsequently, it seems to them that it isn't necessary to repeat it. The problem is that everything changes. For example, when the war started, it was enough to say: "I am against the war." But now, after Bucha, is it enough to simply say "I am against the war"? The situation has changed. That's why I strongly disliked that list where many spoke out for peace—having Ivan Urgant and Boris Akunin next to each other on the same list. Akunin has positioned himself as an opponent of this regime from the very beginning, considers it inhumane, constantly campaigns to resist, expresses protest, and organized walks with writers. And Urgant, who once, interrupting his broadcast on Channel One, said: "I am for peace." These are different positions.
At the very beginning, on February 24, one could simply say "I am for peace." But on March 24, that was no longer enough. One had to express oneself more definitively.
And it seems to me that the world has changed over these months reality-wise, though on the whole, we cannot demand specific claims from a person—they act based on their own understanding of themselves and their interests.
Regarding art, I just want to say that all those people who do not process this through themselves every day will ultimately drop to the sidelines. Just as I told those artists who engaged in such conformist servicing of power: "Of course, it's your choice, you have your life circumstances, just bear in mind that on this path you will lose your talent, lose your audience, and, ultimately, lose yourself."
Izumskaya: Wait, if we talk about the audience, according to any polls—including independent ones—there is quite a lot of audience supporting the war inside Russia. Maybe an artist will, on the contrary, gain an audience?
Guelman: No, the thing is—look at Socialist Realism. It was the mass art of the Soviet Union era. There were 70,000 artists; in 1983, there were 76,000 artists. Everything dissolved. Only one artist remained in history—Stalin, meaning Stalinist Socialist Realism. They all went into nowhere, into the sand. As ordinary citizens, they probably provided for their families, painted, sculpted Lenin—sculptors called him the breadwinner because every village had to have a bust of Lenin. But this has nothing to do with art. I am trying to speak to artists whose ambition is to be the voice of the era, to remain for future generations in museums. It is a very important point that these are two different processes. Of course, if you serve power, they will herd this audience to you even if it doesn't exist, but that is completely different.
Izumskaya: I immediately recalled the concerts of our rock musicians in Mariupol when you mentioned herding the audience.
Guelman: It is very important to clarify here: nobody owes anything to anyone on the whole. Everyone makes their own decisions. But one must bear in mind that if today Russian culture or figures of Russian culture do not speak out regarding the war that Russia is waging, then they do not exist. As an individual, as John Doe, you solve your specific tasks, but there are a hundred million such citizens, and each solves their own tasks. But if you are an artist—meaning you want to raise your voice, you claim attention, historical attention, and not only the attention of today's audience but also tomorrow's, not only the audience in your village or city but a global one—then you must process this through yourself. It simply doesn't happen any other way.
Izumskaya: To what extent does the fate of Russian art depend on the choice made by Russian artists and cultural figures today?
Guelman: Very heavily. Today we understand perfectly well that while the war is going on, the general attitude toward Russian art is to ignore it at best. But we are doing everything so that when the war ends, a large number of not only artistic gestures but also human acts committed by people of Russian culture in support of Ukraine—and including for the speediest conclusion of the war—will be uncovered. Therefore, of course, this is very important. Those individuals currently outside Russia, over whom this Sword of Damocles does not hang—it is crucial what they do. Practically, it depends on them now how deep in time this cancellation of Russian culture will remain. And these activists—I know guys who engage in street art, they travel from city to city in Russia to create a mass scale of protest. There is a huge number of protest expressions by large artists and small artists. Moreover, frankly speaking, I think that not only the fate of Russian art but perhaps the fate of Russia itself depends on this to some extent.
I’ll tell a story—I tell it periodically—about how artists changed history in Prague. There is an artist I met back in New York, David Černý. When Perestroika began in Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe still couldn't understand whether freedom had arrived or not. They were afraid, because last time it all ended with tanks. And as a reminder of these tanks, a monument to a Soviet soldier stood in the center of Prague—an actual tank on a pedestal. Perestroika was already happening in Russia, freedom was there, but they were still afraid in Prague. And then, overnight, David Černý and his assistants repainted this tank pink. And instead of a menacing weapon, it became an airy toy. When this tank stood for two days and nothing happened—nobody was punished, and the tank was not repainted back—society understood that it was permitted, and that marked the beginning of the Second Prague Spring.
So, in reality, an artist sometimes sees very keenly. And today we can say that Kulik made this work four years ago perhaps specifically so that—he didn't know, but it happened this way—it would blow the minds of these officials today. So, frankly speaking, I very much count on Russian artists playing an important role in the dismantling of the current regime and perhaps even rehabilitating Russian society in some way. Because they are, of course, part of society.
Izumskaya: Do you know how many artists have left Russia since the start of the war?
Guelman: I don't know, of course, it's difficult to track. A great many famous artists left long before this.
Izumskaya: Did they leave in 2014 in protest?
Guelman: On the whole, many left. Some, like me, used to leave, return, and then simply stopped returning. But I don't have any figures. The thing is, artists are generally not wealthy people; this must be kept in mind. Living in a foreign land is not easy. Ukrainian artists are understandably being helped now; Russian artists are not being helped. We established a small haven in Montenegro, a residency, but it cannot solve the broader problems. Therefore, of course, a great many artists are looking for a way to leave today, to secure a residency or an invitation to work, but I think it is not a mass phenomenon.
Izumskaya: What awaits those artists who remained in Russia and couldn't leave?
Guelman: Well, I’ll say this: I hope that these events currently unfolding will conclude. Relatively soon. An artist doesn't work for the public all the time; he can spend a whole year working on a single exhibition, shutting himself away in his studio during this time and letting no one in, so nobody sees what he is doing—just as a writer can write a novel for a year or two. In this sense, the first thing is undercurrent work, meticulous artistic labor that nobody sees. And for those artists who do not see in their creativity the possibility to react to events—and there are many such artists—I think this is the main thing they can do right now.
Izumskaya: Which of the contemporary Russian artists expresses the nerve, the pain, and the horror of this time the most?
Guelman: You know, we don't have a Picasso who created Guernica to state this. But we have Andrei Kuzkin, who literally before the war created a masterpiece that resonates completely differently now. He sculpted several thousand different human figures out of bread and placed them in niches, in catacombs. He conveys a sensation of horror, an inhuman horror. There are, I think, several groups of artists who are active now. I know them, but I will refrain from naming them. They are currently on the front lines, they are being hunted, they work mostly on the street or on computers. We will examine these names together later, but right now, it is probably these anonymous artists painting on the streets. They are likely the main actors today. When I spoke about the power of the weak, it’s the same thing here.
An unknown artist who is not being watched can accomplish more today than a famous one upon whom the spotlights are directed and whom officials like Khinshtein are watching.
Izumskaya: And if we talk about Ukrainian art—I know you collect contemporary Ukrainian artists—was there a premonition of this war there?
Guelman: It’s difficult to say. The thing is, prior to this war, there were certain events: there was the Maidan. The first Maidan generated one generation of artists, the second generated another. Of course, everything is probably simpler there in a sense—first and foremost, it is a young country and the young contemporary art of a new European nation. Second, it is a distancing from the Russian imperial discourse. And third, what was interesting in Ukraine, there was a kind of cultural federalization. The Kharkiv school of photography was highly successful worldwide, there was Kyiv painting (Arsen Savadov and a whole range of artists), and there was Odesa Conceptualism—those were three such centers, one could say. And recently the West emerged—Lviv, Transcarpathia—with its own language, its own topics. But certainly, there are Ukrainian artists who reacted to the agenda itself. There was no premonition of war, but this agenda—meaning a defense against the greedy imperial gaze of Russia, what is called the Ukrainianization of art—that was present.
Today, by the way, an excellent project by Zhanna Kadyrova opens in Venice; she is a Ukrainian artist from Kyiv, and she is in the official pavilion. Pavlo Makov from Kharkiv held his very first exhibition at my gallery back in 1991. In fact, for them, this is a very important moment. It must be said that all Ukrainian artists today work for their country. Two years ago, we created a special platform there that helps young artists sell their works; over this time, it has already sold more than ten thousand works. Recently, all artists donate all their proceeds—some to humanitarian aid, some to the Ukrainian army. Meaning, as part of society, I would say there isn't a single artist to be ashamed of, who would say that this doesn't concern them.
Izumskaya: And are you ashamed for your Russian colleagues?
Guelman: You know, the thing is, even before the war, I had an endless conversation with my colleagues. Starting even from when I established the museum in Perm, which is known worldwide—when I was fired from there, solidarity was absent. Later, in 2014 in Moscow, Masha Alyokhina asked for help—they had been kicked out from somewhere, and they organize an annual auction to benefit political prisoners. This isn't politics; it's simply an auction to benefit political prisoners, providing aid to people sitting in prison. We hosted it, and the owner of the Winzavod art center kicked us out within three days, and not a single one of my colleagues raised their voice back then. Despite the fact that I lived my whole life with them, I know them and generally regard them well, this conformism buried the quite vivid, interesting prospects that Russian art possessed, which everyone in the world was highly interested in starting from 1991.
So on the whole, conformism is the disease of our entire society. It is a childish infantilism, this relationship toward power as a parent—meaning it depends on the parent whether you will have an iPad, it depends on them whether you will be punished. It is not submissiveness like in North Korea; it is a childlike, undeveloped civic relationship toward oneself. And first and foremost, this applies to institutions, to my colleagues, rather than to the artists. The artists simply fell into dependency. When the market that made the artist free closed and collapsed, they became dependent on institutions. This process didn't happen in one day; it was unfolding for 8 years since 2014. When people talk about corruption, imagine that an entire environment was corrupted. The regime bought an entire community. Look at GES-2, which recently opened in Moscow with Leonid Mikhelson's money—it’s such a gift—or Garage. The regime buys the art community and effectively transforms it into a decorative appendage.
Izumskaya: It seems to me you didn't answer my question. Let me remind you, it was: are you ashamed for Russian artists?
Guelman: For me, it is slightly different: since I am part of all this, I grieve. I am very sad that this situation exists. If you speak to each one individually, you understand his life circumstances, but when you look at the situation collectively, it is very sad. I cannot separate myself; I am part of it. Moreover, as soon as I see a gesture in the right direction from anyone, I rejoice and help. In this sense, especially now in connection with that employee from Channel One stepping out with that slogan—I don't recall her last name—I want to say that Christ has a parable about the Prodigal Son: the prodigal son is no less dear, and perhaps even more dear, than the one who was always nearby. In this sense, I will rejoice for every artist who takes a step away from this power—previously I could call it a corrupt power, but now it is simply a killer power. We shouldn't berate them today for the fact that all this time they were pushing and corrupting the regime with their conformism, making it feel that it can do anything and everything will be forgiven. Instead, we must tell them that a moment has arrived when it is no longer permissible.
Now one must say no, now one must raise their voice and thereby bring closer the end of this regime.
I want to say that I have a feeling that Putin has launched the wheel of history very rapidly. Previously, if we estimated that this would last for ten years, now I understand that it will last until 2024 at most. Therefore, it makes sense for all artists and everyone else to understand that this is fast-moving. And one must make a contribution so that it concludes much faster.
