Sergei Uvarov
Alexander Sokurov and Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai entered into a dialogue with classical painting.
The art Biennale has started in Venice – one of the main events in the sphere of contemporary art. Russia also traditionally takes part. This year the commissioner of our pavilion, Semyon Mikhailovsky, offered the curatorship not to a specific individual, but to a whole institution – the State Hermitage. The result was the appearance of a multi-genre reflection on the role of the museum, art and kindred feelings in a world torn apart by conflicts.
The creators of the works on show are Alexander Sokurov and Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai. And while the involvement of the latter is entirely logical – the artist has long been well known in Russia’s art community, the recruitment to the project of a film director who has never before ventured onto the territory of contemporary art is a completely unexpected experiment.
Sokurov is no stranger to the city on the water, though. In 2001 his film Faust took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. And more generally people in Italy are fond of Alexander Nikolayevich: a while ago a major Italian TV channel digitized and showed the director’s first cinematic works made even before he studied at VGIK. It was in Italy, too, that his book In the Centre of the Ocean was first published (and only then did it appear in Russia). Finally, it was in that country that Sokurov recently debuted as the director of a dramatic production (Go. Go. Go based on texts by Joseph Brodsky).
Even more important is his connection to the Hermitage. The film The Russian Ark, made in the Winter Palace in a single shot, is widely known, but it was preceded by another, less grand, project – the documentary Hubert Robert. A Fortunate Life devoted to a picture in the Hermitage painted by Robert. In that work Sokurov literally entered the picture space, inviting the viewers to follow. In the Venetian exhibition he does something similar, although by completely different means and with a different sense.
The initial impulse was provided by Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Return of the Prodigal Son, as is indicated by the title of the project: “Lc. 15:11-32” (a reference to the passage in St Luke’s Gospel that contains the parable). Sokurov does not, however, limit himself to the reproduction of painted images. Yes, there are sculptures depicting that same father and son, and even an installation – a large canvas on an easel, supposedly left unfinished by Rembrandt (these works are by students of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts). The director adds to that, though, a huge reproduction of the Hermitage’s Portrait of an Old Woman, who in this instance is cast as the unfortunate mother, and two of his own pieces of video art.
In the first there is a depiction of Christ in the wilderness (an image from Kramskoi’s painting), with present-day soldiers wielding flame-throwers in front of Him. The second video shows a city destroyed by war: the inhabitants shoot, fight and lead some sort of everyday life, despite the raging fires. The principle of the huge architectural construction and tiny little people placed on its various tiers and forming independent scenes is reminiscent of Brueghel’s Tower of Babel. In the corner of the composition, the observant viewer will spot a miniature Jesus – the same one as in the neighbouring video. Warring humanity has forgotten about him.
How is the motif of war connected with the Gospel parable?
It is raised by “the time, European history. Yes, and Rembrandt too. We do not know, from where this prodigal son actually returned,” the director explained to Izvestiya.
After grave reflections on a world mired in conflicts that has rejected God and is destroying ties of kinship, Shishkin-Hokusai’s works presented on the lower floor come across as unexpectedly joyful. Allusions to painting from the Low Countries are present here as well, and due to the semidarkness and the red neon tubes emerging from plywood constructions it looks a bit eerie. However, the actual “cartoon” aesthetic and naïve movements of the little figures (“The Mechanical Ballet begins every five minutes” an inscription proclaims) evokes a good-natured smile.
Art nonetheless saves the world and the museum preserving great images of the past is the ark (or in Venice probably a gondola) in which humanity can sail across the ocean of history. It is with an idea of that sort, compatible with Sokurov’s most important film, that the visitor emerges from the darkness of the pavilion into the sun-filled paradise of the Giardini gardens, like Noah onto the long-awaited dry land.
The opening aroused tremendous interest among visitors and was among those most discussed in the media. For example, the influential British newspaper The Financial Times numbered it among the five best pavilions at the Biennale.
The exhibition was also visited by Russia’s deputy prime minister Olga Golodets. After the viewing, she stated that the creators had “done the impossible” and spoke about the strong impression that the Russian works had made on the Swiss Minister of Culture who joined her on the tour.
Importantly, people in Russia will also be able to see Sokurov and Shishkin-Hokusai’s project, and not only in the two capitals, but also in the regions. Izvestiya was informed of that by Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky.
“We shall definitely be showing it in the Hermitage itself [and in the] Multimedia Art Museum… And then we will be taking it, in one form or another, to all the Hermitage centres in Russia – Kazan, Omsk, Vladivostok…” Piotrovsky promised
Moreover, according to him, Sokurov intends to do more work on his part, so there is a likelihood that in its homeland “Lc. 15:11-32” will be shown in an even fuller and more complete version.
