Russian rebel art in Montenegrin film

Montenegrin director Danilo Marunović will participate with his film under the working title "Artist and investigator" in the large exhibition "Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism" which will be opened in London's Sači Gallery on November 16. The film was made in collaboration with the famous Russian artist and rebel Pyotr Pavlensky, based on three transcripts of his conversations with a police investigator.

The exhibition, sponsored by the Tsukanov Family Foundation, is dedicated to Russian rebel art over the past 25 years and is being held in the year that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. It raises important questions about the freedom of creation, explores what it means to be an artist in the post-Soviet era and today. Although the exhibition will have no direct connection to the important historical event, many of the problems facing artists in post-communist Russia are comparable to those of 1917 - threatened individual and artistic freedom in the shadow of political ideology and religion. The exhibition will present artists such as Oleg Kulik, feminist punk group Pussy Riot, Blue Noses Art Group, Arsen Savadov, AES + F, Vasilij Slonov. Me and some others, and show different genres and types of protest art - from posters and slogans to video art, photography, installations and various performances. This type of expression is a response to a crisis, a moment when artists face the denial of freedom and at the same time gain an even greater need for expression.

Simultaneously with the exhibition, the well-known theater group "Les Enfant Terribles" will present "Inside Pussy Riot", an exciting innovative performance with the participation of the founder of the group "Pussy Riot", Nadezhda Tolokonikova. The performance tells the story of the arrest and imprisonment of Pussy Riot after their performance in 2012 at the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Two members of the group, Masha Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonikova, were sentenced for violence to two years in a labor prison, after which they became famous throughout the world and became a symbol of disobedience.

The curator of this exhibition is Marat Geljman, a Russian gallerist and collector, publicist and art manager, the first man of the Dukley European Art Community (DEAC) in Budva.

"It's about artists who are also socially engaged: Arsen Savalov, who comes from Ukraine, has a work about Donbass, which is very current now. Damir Muratov and Blue Noses deal with the so-called Siberian separatism, which is an art game, and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) takes and treats it seriously. Kulik, whom the Montenegrin audience remembers from the Biennale of Art in Cetinje, Muratov and the 'Pusy Riot Theater' project were prepared for two months in our art residence", said Geljman to "Vijesta" announcing the event in London, which the British media considers one of the most important exhibitions in the world this year and for which they show great interest.

He pointed out that the exhibition in London will show both heroes and themes.

"Artists are heroes and clowns at the same time; take for example Kulik, who is a well-known and recognized artist, but he is also a dog man. There is also the group Pusy Riot with their appearance, performances... They are engaged, point out important problems and talk about them, but in their own way, that's not why they are politicians, nor do they engage in politics. Self-irony is very important for Russian art. This exhibition will show that there is no separation, that everything is together, in one person: a politician, an artist and a clown. That will also be the message of the Art Riot exhibition, that's why I hope that we will be able to present their stories in the right way", said Marat Geljman.

He says that it is difficult to create freely in a country like Russia, where there is actually only one party and almost no free media, and that is why artists are especially important.

"We are a society that has become fatalistic and apathetic, we have the feeling that nothing can be changed or done. Pavlenski and Pusy Riot persistently show that something can still be done, that a group of free people can change something.

Take, for example, Pusy Riot and Putin - he is gray, they are colorful, he is serious, they are playful, they are simply anti-Putin. Today, in the world media, Russia is either Putin or Pusy Riot," Geljman points out. The exhibition "Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism" is the fourth one organized by Marat Geljman, presented by the Tsukanov Family Foundation, together with the Sači Gallery, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the Dukley European Art Community.

Film story about a conversation between a subversive artist and an interrogator

Transcripts of Piotr Pavlenski's conversation with a police inspector, who is slowly turning into an admirer of the artist's work, served as the basis for Danilo Marunović's film, which will be part of the exhibition at the Sača Gallery. Pavlensky is known for his extreme actionism, an art form that has a rich history in Russia. OOn calls his activity "political art", and since appearing before the public in 2012, he has had a series of impressive performances. Pavlenski sewed up his mouth as a sign of support for Pussy Riot, as a symbol of the authorities' actions against freedom of speech ("Stitch"); he rolled naked wrapped in barbed wire, to show that every free movement of Russian citizens causes pain ("Wire"); sat, also naked, in Red Square and nailed his testicles to the cobblestones, as a metaphor for the "apathy, apoliticism and fatalism" of contemporary Russian society ("Fixation"); he set fire to the door of the building on Lubjanka square, where the headquarters of the FSB ("Opasnost") is located. He is currently in France, in custody, because in mid-October he set fire to the bank of France, which is located on the site of the former infamous Bastille.

"Photographs of subversive art by Pavlenski, his art terrorism, will be displayed on two walls of the gallery. On the third wall, between these two, there will be a permanent projection of a film, a video work, which is a testimony of the conflict with the authorities", Marunović told "Vijesta".

The film with the working title "Artist and investigator", according to him, is a very interesting testimony about the communication between an artist and an unusually educated policeman. Also, Marunović believes, it is a testimony to how far an artist, like Pavlenski, can be connected.

"It's about an epic collision of two worldviews - a liberal artist and a traditional, patriarchal man of the system, which ultimately results in some kind of understanding. The entire work is in silhouettes, in the style of a noir film, and it was a special challenge for the entire local team, especially for the actors Petar Novaković and Miloš Pejović," explains Marunović, stating that this work of his has the ambition to "actively confront the mentality".​​

Damir Muratov, Siberian separatism and the understanding of the FSB

Geljman singles out "United States of Siberia" as a very interesting project by the conceptual artist from Omsk, Damir Muratov. Siberian separatism, where the artist plays with mass culture figures and national myths. Muratov made the flag "United States of Siberia", a variation on the theme and a tribute to the project of the American artist Jasper Jones, only that on Muratov's flag, instead of stars, there are snowflakes, there is also the supposed money of the new state...

"Muratov and the artistic group Blue Noses are playing with the supposed theory that Siberians are not Russians, but indigenous people, like Indians, changing the data in their passports... It's all a big game, but the FSB doesn't see it and takes it seriously. From Peter the Great onwards, everything in Russia was centralized, even super-centralized and directed to Moscow. Such is the situation with art and it rebels against it and places other regions on its map. They (Muratov and Blue Noses) are translators of that feeling," explains Geljman.

"There are no virtuous myths about Siberia, only clichés and stereotypes," Muratov once said. about the cliché. You have to find your own way of perception. My Siberia is in my head, it starts there and ends there too".