2017 year. I hold an illegal exhibition of black and white prints in the Japanese style at small apartment in Moscow. Why?
March 31, 2017. In the walls of one of the Moscow apartments was a partisan exhibition. In the process of preparing and conducting it, I gained invaluable experience. A number of new and interesting questions also arose about why the exhibition is partisan in nature, what did the author want to say. Reflecting on them, this report was born.
We call House Shows “Kvartirniki”. In the Soviet Union, this was a popular format for conducting concerts of forbidden music. So Soviet rock was born. Kvartirniki as a phenomenon are not new. They were when I was not born, they are and now, I suppose, will be in the future. Let more competent people deal with this phenomenon, I’m talking about something else. In its current form, art is created for me for the sake of art. In order to observe works filled with life instead of bare walls. This is the simplest desire that still supports the fire of creativity in me. It’s a paradox, but with all the abundance of visual information on the Internet in real life it flows in a very thin stream. There is a better copy of us on the net, and we get used to the real world, often stepping over its existence. An alternative is that which allows you to become aware of yourself at the moment of a rapidly disappearing present. The desire to demonstrate this alternative is my second motive.
As usual with everything alternative, incomprehensible, unusual, allies are not immediately found, especially if this does not bring commercial success. And since my art cannot be called commercially successful from the word at all, then there are few allies. Anyone can hold a good event for money, and you try to do it with a budget tending to zero. Who is to blame and what to do? I don’t know, from the bottom depths you can’t see, but definitely the bottom can and must be pierced! What I did.
The budget of my exhibition amounted to no more than 1000 rubles (15$), 150(2$) of which went to masking tape, the rest went back and forth. Walls cannot be damaged. My art is perishable, and people will still there. That's all. Doubts about this whole undertaking by the landlord, persuasion of a friend-curator, masking tape, more than 200 works could not but lead to success. Before the opening of the exhibition, lovingly hung the day before, the prints peeled off, collapsing to the floor. Fiasco? NO! We take the tape, repeat it all over again, and at the same time we understand that the exhibition needs to hold out for only 3 hours. Then all prints will fall again.
Together with friends we managed to restore the exhibition to the opening. The exposition has again acquired a new format. From the statistics. There were ten visitors in total, of which almost half were completely new faces, and even one was not a photographer at all. They brought juice and drinks with them. I was praised. They jointly discussed the fate of domestic photography, art in general, and, of course, cameras. They took prints with them, good memories. And that is great. I have less to carry home, and people will remember this moment. Let art live with others, it makes no sense to keep everything at home!
Of course, I could not avoid questions about “what was going on here?”. This is the misfortune of our time, the misfortune of all modern art, which requires explanation and the presence of some higher idea or meaning. I never had the desire to turn photography into a tool for expressing my own views. I do not like the creation of such illusions. I want to show how the camera sees the world through the prism of their own emotions and attitudes towards it. Wild, clean photo. The absence of any kind of directing information first knocks down the table, is alarming, maybe even disappointing, but then I enjoy watching how the viewer builds his own relationship with the photograph. If you don’t like it - this is absolutely normal.
I express gratitude to Anton Kiyvilyanin for the photographs provided, to Dmitry for the provided apartment, to Andrey for the supervision of this disgrace and to everyone who came that day.
Please watch the video!
Exhibition "IT HAPPENS" by Georgiy Romanov