REVIEW: INTELLIGENT, IMAGINATIVE WORK FROM AUSSIES AT 56TH VENICE BIENNALE
In the best of all possible worlds one would hope to find works of art that are both visually engaging and layered with meaning. Of 136 artists or groups of artists featured in the International exhibitions, very few made me pause. One of them was Russia’s Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya Gluklya, who contributed a suite of clothes and placards for an anti-Putin demonstration, with many surreal, startling touches. Considering the treatment dished out to the band, Pussy Riot, Gluklya’s work was as politically edgy as anything in the show, but also witty and inventive.
All the World’s Futures
It fills us with pride to say that Okwui Enwezor’s exhibition All the World’s Futures, currently at the Venice Biennale and displaying the work of Gluklya, is appreciated as being “frighteningly necessary.”
Artspace writes the following: In this show, Enwezor has tapped an impressive number of artists who ignore the market enough to speak truth to power—sometimes to the extent that it’s not obvious that what they’re doing is art. Their ethos may be best summarized by the Russian artist known as Gluklya, who co-wrote a 2002 manifesto declaring that “The place of the artist is by the side of the weak.” Her work, featured in the show, has been characterized by an exploration of the nature of public and private space in Putin’s Russia.
GLUKLYA / Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya, Clothes for the demonstration against false election of Vladimir Putin, 2011-2015, textile, hand writing, wood, Courtesy AKINCI Amsterdam, sponsored by V-A-C Foundation, Moscow.
Garden of Vigilant Clothes
Interview with Anna Battista, 2015
56th Venice Biennale, 19 May, 2015
Garments as Private Narration, Garments as Public Political Banners: Gluklya’s Clothes for the Demonstration Against False Election of Vladimir Putin
Clothes transform, describe and define us, revealing what we are and often sending out messages to the people surrounding us. But, if garments are a form of non-verbal communication, they can be used to silently tell the story of our lives, they help us explaining how we may feel on a day to day basis, and they could even be employed as political statements or banners to protest and make our voices heard. At least that’s what artist Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya – better known as Gluklya – suggests us. Born in Leningrad and dividing her time between Saint Petersburg and Amsterdam, Gluklya has developed quite a few projects moving from clothes and garments. Together with Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) she be-came a co-founder in 1995 of artist collective The Factory of Found Clothes (FFC; in 2012 Gluklya took over the leadership of the group, while becoming also an active member of the Chto Delat?—meaning “What is to be done?”—platform). The collective was mainly set to tackle, through installations, performances, videos and social re-search, modern issues such as the dichotomy between the private and the public sphere or the position of marginal and liminal groups of people in our society.
In Gluklya’s practice clothes transform therefore into tools, elements that link and connect art and everyday life. In her latest installation currently on display at Venice’s Arsenale during the 56th International Art Exhibition, the artist questions visitors about the legitimacy of Putin’s election. Derived from the FFC’s ongoing performance ‘Utopian Clothes Shop’ (2004-), “Clothes for the demonstration against false election of Vladimir Putin” (2011-2015) consists in a series of garments hung on wooden posts, like banners. Each garment is different from the other: there are white tutu-like tulle dresses and heavy coats in military green; partially burnt garments with slogans such as ‘Stop Slavery!’ and pieces decorated with prints or embroidered motifs; a dress with a large red rose appliqued around the chest area tragically evokes blood, while black cones of fabric conceptually erupt from one simple white dress and a random valenki boot provides a temporary and surreal head for one of these silent protesting banners.
Though different one from the next, all the vestments have the same purpose: they challenge the legitimacy of Vladimir Putin’s re-election to president. In this way the garments cross the private and personal sphere, changing aim and objective, turning into public and political weapons, assuming new values and meanings, and becoming even more ominous when considering the recent reports by monitor organizations and Western diplomats, claiming that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is slowly continuing—even though Moscow says it’s sticking to a ceasefire agreement—and may lead to a summer offensive. “The place of the artist is on the side of the weak”, states the FFC manifesto that also considers the artist as “a friend” and “accomplice”. Gluklya’s new installation does exactly that, positioning the artist next to ordinary people and prompting them to stop being afraid and make their voices heard.
Your installation inside the Arsenale—entitled “Clothes for the demonstration against the false election of Vladimir Putin”—challenges the legitimacy of Putin’s re-election. In your opinion, how difficult it is for an artist -and in particular a woman artist and feminist -to be heard in Russia at the moment without incurring in problems such as censorship or repression?
Gluklya: I actually do not think there is much risk because people in power are not interested too much in art. Yet I do think that con-temporary art must have this risk-taking component in its concept. One of the pieces features a slogan by poet and literary theorist Pavel Arseniev, the representative voice of progressive forces, stating “Represent us? You can’t even imagine us!”
How many garments are there in your installation and what do they symbolize – fears, hopes or change?
Gluklya: The installation is part of the concept of Utopian realism, an idea I have been developing for the last 12 years. There are 43garments in this work and they symbolize the courage and internal beauty of oppressed people who decide to resist injustice. Fears, hope and change are also tackled. Through this work I also want to show people’s aggressiveness—and in particular the aggressiveness of victims—and anger, their bitterness and grief. People may be passive and patient for many years, but, eventually, a time will come when they rise and they rise with an axe. My work is about the aspect of “becoming human” and rising again after too many years spent sleeping and about the euphoria generated by being together. You could argue that the protest dramatically failed as people went again to sleep, that’s why there are some black pieces on the ground in the installation, to call to mind a graveyard, a cemetery. Yet the objects express also my tenderness and love to the people who found dignity and protested.
Did you take inspiration for the garments from any particular Russian artist such as Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova for what regards the shapes, colors and themes?
Gluklya: I do not actually call them “garments” as I conceive them as “speaking clothes”. I love Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova of course, but I did not take inspiration from them. The inspiration comes from the Russian avant-garde in general and that unique historical moment when art and politics were united together.
In your installation you use clothes almost as banners. Your coats, dresses or shirts include indeed slogans, pictures, or cones of fabric that protrude from them. Do you feel that at the moment in Russia it is important first to be seen in order to be heard?
Gluklya: If I were a a singer or a speaker, I would say that to be heard is the most important thing. But as a visual artist I think this is the most organic way to express my ideas.
Did you ever think about working with a Russian fashion designer and maybe develop a collection of clothes that may provide people with garments charged with political meanings?
Gluklya: That would be great, but I wouldn’t do it with a Russian designer or any other fashion designers, maybe I would do it with a clever producer. It would be great to know somebody in the UK for example who may be interested.
In this year’s Biennale quite a few artists responded to Okwui Enwezor’s brief ‘All the World’s Futures’ with works focusing on themes such as politics, immigration and social issues. In which ways can art be turned into a powerful weapon for the most disenfranchised people in the world in a context such as the Venice Biennale where there are many wealthy visitors, collectors and gallerists?
Gluklya: That is actually a sophisticated question for a PhD dissertation, a book or a film. I think you have to try your best to be honest with yourself and other people and doing good art which can move somebody and force them to think also in other directions, and ponder more about the world’s situation rather than just about finding a strategy to raise your own personal capital. Actually, at the beginning of my involvement in this year’s Biennale when it wasn’t clear yet what I was going to show, I proposed to let in for free all those people bringing with them some clothes that had a story. This idea came from my long-term project entitled the Museum of the Utopian Clothes.
Will you be taking part in any other events/exhibitions in the next few months?
Gluklya: My video ‘Wings of Migrants’ (which Okwui also wants to show at the Biennale) and other works were on display until last week at the Barbara Gross Gallery in Munich, as part of the event ‘Female Views on Russia’ that also features Anna Jermolaewa and Taisiya Krugovykh. I’m also working on the installation dedicated to Joseph Brodsky at the Achmatova Garden in Saint Petersburg and on a social opera with the TOK curatorial team about the struggle of local people against gentrification and other infringed human rights. I’m currently thinking of working with special fire resistant textiles, a discovery I made while I focused on the installation for the Biennale. I do also hope that I will find the necessary funds to make a new theatre performance—’Debates on Division N. 2’ (the first ‘Debates’ took place at Manifesta this year)—in Tbilisi, Georgia. Clothes for Demonstration against false election of Vladimir Putin 2011-2015 Installation overview ‘All the World’s Futures,’ 56th Venice Biennale, 2015
Her
[life / dreams / family / husband / work / love / children / relatives / priorities / opinions / feelings / hat / problems / concerns / happiness]
6 March – 30 August
On the eve of March 8, ZARYA Center for Contemporary Art will present an exhibition of women artists.
On March 6, the ZARYA Center for Contemporary Art will open an exhibition of women artists entitled “Her.” The exhibition formulates a portrait of the contemporary woman, focusing on her personal experiences of the surrounding world. Concurrent with the exhibition, which will remain on view through August 30, ZARYA will host a number of workshops and artist’s talks. All of these events will be free and open to the public.
Bound Together By One Thread
contemporary art action
Bound together by one thread
Gluklya and Tsaplya’s final performance
In the Moscow museum of modern art at Petrovka 25, Petersburg artists Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya) and Tsaplya (Olga Yegorova) presented a performance piece with the multilayered title “Final Cut”: it signifies simultaneously the final edit, the final wound, and a definitive separation, not to mention the title of a Pink Floyd album which in fact coincided with the beginning of the group’s dissolution. The performance symbolized the end of an artistic partnership of many years’ standing: henceforth the “Factory of found clothes” (FFC) will be Gluklya’s solo project, while Tsaplya will be a full-time participant in the work collective “Chto delat.”
By ANNA TOLSTOVA.
Debates On Division: When Private Becomes Public
Project portfolio [2011-2019]
‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’ is an ongoing, interactive performance created and directed by Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), curated and produced by Anna Bitkina in collaboration with institutions that hosted the project and many local collaborators. Conducted several times internationally (as a part of Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg (2014), in Amsterdam at SMBA – Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2016), as a part of Creative Time Summit in Washington DC (2016) and in Oslo (2017) the project formed into a nomadic, discursive and performative platform/network with an algorithmic structure that aims to identify and analyze political order in different geographies and its implications on private lives of individuals.
What begins as a fictional TV talk show with local actors and performers ends with a public demonstration. This way, Gluklya and Anna Bitkina want to create a public forum that spotlights different forms of human fragility and traumas caused by deviation in structures of power. In the center of the performance several stories that evolve around various pieces of clothing. Presented cloths play an intermediary role between private and public, exposing the conflict between the inner world of a person and the political system. The audience is invited to vote whether each presented piece of clothing enters the collection of the Museum of Utopian Clothes – a speculative public institution. To have a sharp articulation of local conditions a group of 5-6 experts that consists of representatives of different professional fields are invited to reflect on each story.
In March 2019 the performance was presented at The Center for Fine Arts BOZAR in Brussels and as a part of Performative Festival. Brussels’s version of ‘Debates on Division’ includes elements of criminal-conspiracy drama and deals with the subject of fear, suspicion, and distrust fueled by social segregation, financial insecurity and xenophobia in the context of growing degeneration of the political system in the EU and across the globe.
Debates on Division
Manifesta Biennale 10
St Petersburg, 2014
The first iteration of the performance was commissioned by Manifest 10 for its public program and took place at the New stage of Alexandrinsly Theater and Nevsky prospect. The project idea was a reaction on the annexation of Crimea and the escalation of Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2014. It was a time of radical turn in the national political agenda that has changed position of Russia on the geopolitical arena and forced a major social division in the Russian society based on opposing political views. It became apparent that a new language is needed to articulate the complexity of current political conflicts, cross border relations and global economical and military interdependency. In the focus of the performance were other internal and urgent socio -political issues of contemporary Russia among which a suppression of minorities, including representatives of LGBTG community and working migrants.
Follow the link to see video documentation:
http://factoryoffoundclothes.org/?cat=6
Review by art critic Valeriy Lednev ‘Non-healing Gap’ on aroundart.org (in Russian)
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), “Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public”,Manifesta 10, 2014, New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theater, St Petersburg.
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), “Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public”,Manifesta 10, 2014. Documentation of the silent procession along the Nevsky Prospect (part of theperformance), St Petersburg.
Debates on Division
SMBA – Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, 2016
At SMBA the performance was adapted to the local context and conducted around three stories by migrants and recent refugees. Currently based in Amsterdam they are struggling by awaiting for an asylum or a permit to be able to continue living and legally working in the country. During the performance questions on current migration policy in The Netherlands and in the EU were in the center of debates. Who decides on the status of current refuges and long term residents without a legal status? Based on what requirements they could stay in the Netherlands? When they have to leave the country and where should they go to?
Performance documentation:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-yF0halMSw
Text about the project:
http://www.smba.nl/en/events/play-smba-3-debates-on-division/index.html
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’, SMBA, Amsterdam, 2016
Debates on Division
Creative Time Summit in Washington DC, Lincoln Theater, 2016
The stories presented within ‘Debates on Division’ performance in Washington DC touched upon personal frustrations of individuals caused by the political crisis in the US. The event took place one month before the last presidential election in the United States in which Donald Trump was elected. The procession took place to the White House the next day of the performance and included participants of the workshop that was a part of the Creative Time Summit program.
Documentation of the performance:
http://creativetime.org/summit/2016/10/25/gluklya-anna-bitkina/
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’, Creative Time Summit, Lincoln Theater, Washington DC, 2016
Debates on Division
Deichmanske Bibliotek in Grünerløkka, RAM Gallery, Oslo, 2017
In the third edition of the performance project initiators are engaged in a search for a visual and performative language to create a critical discussion around the ‘deviant use of democracy’, the future of Europe, and the position and agency of the younger generation within current post-neoliberal conditions. The project also challenges the idea of a ‘perfect state’ of Norway. Black humor, exaggerated features of the characters, futuristic forms and looks are important artistic methods of the project. The performance evolves around personal stories of young people of 15-20 yo, who live, study and work in Oslo. Young individuals of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds bring into spotlight important issues related to their social and political positions, attitudes towards governmental structures, youth policy in Norway and visions for meaningful future. Important additional component of this edition is an exhibition at RAM Gallery which includes video of recorded stories and costumes designed by Gluklya.
Documentation of the project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MhPhUn1hqY
Curatorial text available here:
http://tok-spb.org/new/en/events/debates-on-division-oslo-2017
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), ‘Debates on Division: When Private BecomesPublic’, Deichmanske Bibliotek in Grünerløkka, Oslo, 2017
Debates on Division
The Center for Fine Arts BOZAR as a part of Performatik Festival, Brussels, 2019
Brussels’s version of ‘Debates on Division’ include elements of criminal-conspiracy drama and deals with the subject of fear, suspicion, and distrust fueled by social segregation, financial insecurity and xenophobia in the context of growing degeneration of the political system in the EU and across the globe.
In the focus of the show several stories that are carefully crafted from the parts of interviews and conversations with artists, human rights activists and representatives of LGBTQI communities, businessman, politicians, historians, social workers, sociologists, writers, media specialists and policymakers conducted by Gluklya and Anna Bitkina in Brussels since April 2018. The stories that are narrated by local artists and performers evolve around different elements of clothes. Presented as evidence of forensic investigation, the clothes play an intermediary role between the private and the public, exposing the conflict between the inner world of a person and the political system.
Performance participants, jury members and audience marched to the Parliament covered with blankets which served as a central element for the demonstration and a direct reference to the amount of homeless people in the EU capital that inhabit the premises of the EU headquarters at nights. Walking from BOZAR towards the European Parliament the demonstration manifests for the human and non-human rights and urgency for equal and inclusive politics, locally and globally in the pivotal moment before the European elections in May 2019.
Curatorial text available here:
http://tok-spb.org/new/en//debates-on-division-brussels-2019
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’, Center for Fine Arts BOZAR, Brussels, 2019
Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’, procession towards European Parliament (part of the performance), Brussels, 2019
The Moving Museum of Clothes – Multicilti 2014
How can participatory projects in the arts lead to the development of new creative methods and approaches to the local issues which at the same time have a global character?
In March of 2014 a new, unusual museum will open its doors in the Southeast of Amsterdam – The Moving Museum of Clothes. An international team of two curators and four artists together with the local citizens, will develop a special kind of (semi)public space where there is place for personal stories and secrets. It will be a museum of unexpected points of views, hopes, memories, disappointments, aspirations and a continuous search for a trustful environment.
Amsterdam Southeast (the Bijlmer) is known for its contradictory past and present. An embodiment of the belief in the coming Utopia, the perfectibility of human nature and the role of architecture as a weapon for social reform, the Bijlmer anno 2013 has to deal with the lack of sense of ownership of its residents in relation to their living environment and the lack of involvement in the life of the area and of the city. This is typical Bijlmer but also a typical suburb elsewhere: from Sao Paolo to Magadan.
Which possibilities can participatory projects in the arts create in order to engage citizens with their neighborhood and with each other? How can citizens of today become a meaningful and exciting part of a story of a contemporary city? The four participating artists work inter- and trans-disciplinary combining various media such as installation, performance, film, photography and text. Each of the artists has his own approach, strategies and tools which they apply in Amsterdam.
Gluklya (Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya) (NL/RF) sees clothing as a border between the interior world and the exterior social sphere. She is interested in clothing that performs an act of estrangement—in the sense explored by Brecht and Shklovsky. Through this act participants get a possibility to see things from a new and different perspective. Advocating that «The personal is political» the artist aims to conduct confidential conversation with citizens. Clothing in this situation is a veil that allows to construct a framework for the action; it’s much easier to talk about our clothes than about ourselves.
Olga Jitlina (RF) tries not only to describe or protest the tragic situations in which history, government and people’s own passivity put them but to make attempts to find the ways out with tools like humour, paradoxical interpretations and imagination. In the Bijlmer Jitlina plans to search for the new forms of being and working together which suppose to substitute the old forms which belong to the ‘fordisctic’ society.
The work of Jan Hoek (NL) is often about suppositions: how do people look at black and white, rich and poor, locals and foreigners. In the framework of The Moving Museum Hoek will collaborate with the citizens of the Bijlmer who are not always visible in the city, also not in their direct environment. Both the artist and the citizens will become makers while both parties have (and will continue having) different expectations of the involvement in the artistic process. The documentation of the process is in this case as important as the final result.
Masha Ru (NL/RF) researches various aspects of cultural backgrounds of contemporary citizens. For The Moving Museum Ru will put an emphasis on the interaction between the personal and national identity in relation to the choice of clothes by different participants for different situations in their lives. The stories and experiences of citizens will form a basis for the development of themes en techniques in Ru’s project.
The Moving Museum of Clothes is at this moment actively in development. In March of 2014 it will be possible to speak specifically about the research findings and project results. Which models of participatory practice give citizens a possibility to contribute to the project in a meaningful way? What kind of impact do participatory practices have on the territory of art, social work, politics and others in the neighborhood, in the city, nationally and internationally?
Irina Leifer, curator The Moving Museum of Clothes
Niki Lischow, curator The Moving Museum of Clothes
Irina Leifer is an initiator, researcher, producer, curator and regularly guest lecturer at the Reinwardt Academy (Amsterdam School of the Arts). Leifer conceptualizes, develops and realizes participatory projects in partnerships with cultural organisations such as museums and community centres, and in public space. Irina Leifer works in the Netherlands and internationally: functioning in a broader context she is able to experience and analyse how various participatory strategies work (or don’t work) in different cultural and social environments and to enrich projects in one country with the observations and conclusions made in another one. Examples of Leifer’s recent projects are collaborative Russian-Dutch project ‘Museums in New Towns: identity, image and participatory culture’ (Nakhodka-Zoetermeer) and ‘The Moving Museum of Clothes’ (Amsterdam).
Niki Lischow is an initiator, producer, curator and researcher. She is specialised in initiating and realising contemporary art projects in non-museum environments. The focus of her work is directed towards minority communities, often combined with Middle Eastern artists and audiences. Lischow works both in the Netherlands and internationally, where she uncovers relationships and builds new partnerships. Co-creation plays an important role in all her projects and her practical approach leads to long-lasting relationships with both artists and visitors. Niki Lischow’s projects include ‘Al Quds Underground Festival’(Jerusalem), ‘Live and work in Palestine’ (Berlin Biennale) and ‘The Moving Museum of Clothes’ (Amsterdam).
UNHEALED DIVISION 2014
performance “TNF” within 10 Manifesta
The material was published on the website Aroundart.ru 27.07.2014
On July 13, Gluklya (Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya)’s performance “Debates on Division” was presented as part of the parallel program of the 10th Manifestos on the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Art critic Valery Ledenyov was one of the participants in the project, and has decided to share some thoughts and ideas prompted by some of its plot twists.