War.
The killing of one person by another.
In February 2022, the country that I consider my home nation launched an armed invasion that resulted in the death of thousands of people.
Celebrating erudition, intelligence, multinationality, life, culture and beauty, this event took me by horror in my studio in Germany. I have always been motivated by emotional communication with the audience in my art-making. But after almost half a year of shock and taking sedatives, I thought, what can I, as an artist, do? And is art really necessary at such a moment? How this intelligence, culture and beauty can help now? Killing your own kind is what happens in any war. But for what? For an idea? For territory? For retribution? What actions are artists taking during this great evil time?
Since the beginning of human existence, art has reflected the events of the war.
Chaotic fighting scene on a painted box from the tomb of Tutankhamen in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo (New Kingdom). Photo: Dr. Amy Calvert Online. At: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/ancient-egypt-ap/a/egyptian-art (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Ramses II during the battle, shown slaying one enemy while trampling another (from relief inside his Abu Simbel temple). Late May 1274 BC Online. At: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt_Abou_Simbel6.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
In ancient states, artists worked for rulers who needed to depict a victory or capture the fact of an event. What is the task of an artist depicting the murder of a person in ancient times? If you show the strength of the one who does this, then this is propaganda. Since death is the only thing that opposes the essence of a human being - life. And the dissemination of images of force and murder is contrary to the principles of being alive and forms false opinions and begins to manipulate society. The relationship between artists and war has begun with the fact that the artist did not have their own voice and livelihood, therefore, so to speak, the artist was led by rich and powerful people.
Ping ding Kuoerke zhan tu, or Pictures of the Campaigns against the Gurkhas (i.e., Nepalese), China, ca. 1793. The Getty Research Institute, 2012.PR.33 Online. At: https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/rare-chinese-battle-prints-come-to-the-getty-research-institute/ (Accessed 25.10.2022)
A mosaic panel depicting scenes from the Trojan War is pictured in Al-Rastan city, Syria October 12, 2022. “the mosaic is thought to be 1,600 years old” Online. At: https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-719754 (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Advertising of violent scenes provokes, reports that this is the place to be in life. Evil gives birth to evil. In these poetic mosaics and frescoes, we see the exciting dynamics of lines, colours that are pleasing to the eye, and the triumph of one person over another. In Chinese drawings, warriors are inscribed in nature itself, which hints at the naturalness of the killing process.
In contrast, it immediately needs to be compared with other works of artists where, depicting death and murder, a completely different feeling is provoked in the viewer.
GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO DE This is what you were born for 1810 - 1814. Wash, Etching, Burin, Drypoint on wove paper. Online. At: https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/this-is-what-you-were-born-for/59150713-31f5-4a94-9be2-d9ec71eec924 (Accessed 26.10.2022)
The Face of War by Salvador Dalí, 1940. Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_of_War#/media/File:The_Face_of_War.jpg (Accessed 26.10.2022)
The Apotheosis of War 1871 Vasily Vereshchagin, Oil on canvas, 127 cm × 197 cm (50 in × 78 in) Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_War (Accessed 26.10.2022)
Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969) Der Krieg ["Trench Warfare"](1932) Tripytch with predella, mixed media on wood, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden Online. At: https://www.facebook.com/TheMuseumWithoutWalls/photos/a.504373186334722/504373196334721/?type=3 (Accessed 26.10.2022)
Afifa Aleiby, Gulf War, 1991. Aleiby was one of the artists who could not travel to PS1. Online. At: https://emergingcollective.org/stories/2020/1/20/artists-in-ps1-gulf-wars-exhibition-target-moma-trustees (Accessed 26.10.2022)
Pain, horror, death, the decomposition of corpses, the stench of decay ... these are the associations of war, not triumph.
After the period of the Roman Empire, when it would seem that free art was already being created, religion came to the territory of Europe. By free art, I mean art not ordered by the state or sovereign. Art is where an artist can create things for the sake of knowing the world around, learning about it, challenging the norms and not creating something for conceived ideas.
Mysteries Fresco; mid-1st century BC; fresco; height: 1.62 m; Villa of the Mysteries (Pompeii, Italy) Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_art#/media/File:Roman_fresco_Villa_dei_Misteri_Pompeii_005.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Church and religion became a kind of first ideology, which sat down in the goals of everyone. The initial idea was good, but at some point, something went wrong. Since the church became not only a place of education but also of power, they began to fight for this through the interpretation of the canons and commandments. And so the first noble idea to be kind, to help others, to turn the other cheek if you were hit - shattered into smithereens. A man began to kill another man for an idea brought by the church.
Pedro Berruguete, Saint Dominic Guzmán presiding over an Auto da fe (c. 1495).[39] Many artistic representations falsely depict torture and burning at the stake during the auto-da-fé (Portuguese for "Act of Faith"). Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition#/media/File:Pedro_Berruguete_Saint_Dominic_Presiding_over_an_Auto-da-fe_1495.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
And only in the period of the Renaissance begins at least somehow a free search. Albrecht Dürer and Hieronymus Bosch are representatives of this period, who began to think outside the artistic borders of that time. Dürer simply dared to paint his own portraits and not the motives of church epics or high-ranking persons close to the church. Moreover, he portrayed himself in the guise of a saint, and this is by those standards an out-of-the-ordinary act and courage.
Dürer's self-portrait at 28 (1500). Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer#/media/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_1500_self-portrait_(High_resolution_and_detail).jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Hell panel from The Garden of Earthly Delights. It is alleged that Bosch's self-portrait is in the upper centre at right under the "table". Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:Hieronymus_Bosch_-_The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_-_Hell.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
And Bosch just sharply asked a question about the reality of our world, about what awaits us after death and our creative potential. And all this in a period of dominance of the church and the political convictions.
In my opinion, this is truly one of the first artists who dared to challenge the foundations of stereotypes. To advance the development of thought further beyond the familiar.
The next stage that gave birth to a generation of free-thinking artists outlined Clement Greenberg. In the essay "Modernist Painting" the author highlights the peculiarity of pictorial art - its flatness.
Black suprematist square. 1915. State Tretyakov Gallery painting by Kazimir Malevich Online. At: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чёрный_квадрат (Accessed 25.10.2022)
What is interesting to note here, is that Malevich called the work quite abstractly -Black suprematist square, leaving room for the creative flight of the viewer, so to speak.
Alphonse Allais, The Battle of the Negroes in a Cave at Night, 1882 At: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Алле,_Альфонс#/media/Файл:Allais_Alphonse_1883_Carre_blanc.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
But the work painted thirty-three years earlier by Alphonse Allais with a very detailed title - The Battle of the Negroes in a Cave at Night, did not receive such attention as the work of Malevich. This is more in line with Greenberg's statement in the essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” that the viewer does not need to be directly shown what is good and what is bad.
“But the ultimate values which the cultivated spectator derives from ... [artwork] are derived at a second remove, as the result of reflection upon the immediate impression left by the plastic values.”
Unfortunately, Alphonse Allais gave an exhaustive, humorous picture of what is happening. Whereas Malevich only outlined the contours of the possible, thus making his Black Suprematist Square incredibly relevant at any time.
Nevertheless, on the face of a bold search for the limits of art the artists, regardless of theories, political and cultural characteristics, are looking for new ways of expression not through an exact indication of the fact, but through the delineation of the contours of possible scenarios.
But in the meantime, new large-scale wars begin.
One of the key reactions to World War I in art was the Dada movement. Blaming logic, and rationalism, they did everything, on the contrary, challenging the foundations of art. There was something significant for an art happening. The artist broke the boundaries of dependence on circumstances, society, religion or politics. The artist as a creator without limitations has become an influential reference point for many.
This is how radical things appeared in art, for example, the Duchamp Fountain, which broke norms and principles.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917; photograph by Alfred Stieglitz Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada#/media/File:Marcel_Duchamp,_1917,_Fountain,_photograph_by_Alfred_Stieglitz.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
But during World War II, the Nazis simply announced degenerate art and showed what was bad and what was good. This is exactly what Greenberg wrote in "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" - between art and life there is no discontinuity. In such "good" Nazis art, the viewer cannot come to the "reflected effect", so he will simply perceive what he is told.
Adolf Hitler and Adolf Ziegler inspect the installation by Willrich and Hansen of the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich, 1937 Online. At: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/german-art-between-the-wars/xdc974a79:nazi-fascist-visual-culture/a/art-in-nazi-germany (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Joseph Goebbels in the exhibition "Degenerate Art", 1938 Berlin. On the left two paintings by Emil Nolde: Christ and the sinner and the wise and foolish virgins, on the right a sculpture by Gerhard Marcks: Saint George Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_exhibition#/media/File:Ausstellung_entartete_kunst_1937.jpg (Accessed 25.10.2022)
The middle panel of a triptych by Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück is in possession of the American military in the U.S. The other two panels are in Spandau. The three canvases are among the thousands of works of Nazi art that have been hidden away from the public eye since World War II. Foto: Jeff Elkins/ Washingtonian Online. At: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/hidden-legacy-time-for-a-new-look-at-nazi-art-a-1281602.html#fotostrecke-2889a5aa-0001-0002-0000-000000170115 (Accessed 25.10.2022)
In modern 2022, we would call it propaganda or advertisement. It can be also illustrated by the works of the times of Stalin or Mao.
This Soviet propaganda poster was published during the second world war. It reads: 'Will give everything for the front!' Photograph: Leonard de Selva/Corbis Online. At: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/jun/09/soviet-propaganda-art-posters-in-pictures (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Mao Says the Hope is on Your Shoulders c. 1967 Designer Unknown. Image: courtesy Poster House Online. At: https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/coronavirus-communism-posters-history-chinese-propaganda/ (Accessed 25.10.2022)
Artists who swore allegiance to the cult of power, and sovereignty, opposing their nation, and race to others, adhering to conservative norms of history and inheriting unshakable principles, endowed with fear and hostility, began to create and distribute propaganda themselves. This is a choice of reason, conscience, soul and morality.
During the Second World War, the maximum evil in world modern history was reached. After that, the value of human life and, in general, after the creation of nuclear weapons, the value of the planet were, as it seemed, rethought. But it turned out that it wasn't. Today we are facing a new threat of global catastrophe and the death of all living things.
In Sebastian Haffner's book Defying Hitler: A Memoir [Geschichte eines Deutschen], the veil of the formation of a new ideology, which led to a world catastrophe, is slightly opened. It was a generation that grew up (this is around 1900) in poverty, hunger, instability, and, on top of that, the beginnings of terror. These people spent their childhood during the First World War. The parents of these children also did not have a positive life. Therefore, the involvement of the population in Nazism, aggression and murder became, as it were, a natural process. It is interesting to note that Haffner, as a child (he was about 10 years old), reacted to the First World War playfully and did not perceive these events dramatically. He received a good education and was defining himself as intellectual. He connected this with the fact that in 1933 he was in psychological horror. Haffner writes that society was divided into "smart" - the minority opposing terror and "stupid".
I want to use the same example and start with the "insignificant and ordinary person" - myself. I grew up in Moscow in a middle-class family. We lived in abundance but without frills. The amusement park only happened once a year on my birthday, and the grapes and kiwis were only there when the guests came. My parents seemed to earn enough at first, but all the time they complained about the state that it was killing small businesses. Meanwhile, I enjoyed Russian art, literature, theatre, and opera. In addition, I was especially inspired by the depth of compassion, the level of tolerance, the sincerity of the Russian people and the nature of this part of the world. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to study creative professions and I had to do law. At the age of twenty-nine, I was finally able to pay for myself and therefore began to study art professionally. In my works, I tried to reflect the colours and depth of these "Russian feelings and experiences" through the material.
Homeland (Родина), 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on canvas, 145 x 225 (75 x 75 x 75) x 7 cm.
It was like I lived in another world, I think now. In 2022, what I am experiencing is very similar to Haffner's description of 1933. Russian society seemed to be divided into "smart" and "stupid". All outstanding artists have emigrated. At the same time, many of my acquaintances went over to the side of the Z-ideology. Probably the general atmosphere that has prevailed in the country for 22 years (this is the period of irremovability of power in Russia) has now manifested itself. A low level of education, poor and expensive health care, underdevelopment of regions and the impossibility of building an independent business form a generally negative atmosphere in society. In such a situation, it is so easy to declare the culprit of all this - America and Europe. And now the whole society, oppressed and offended, is ready to go to fight in Ukraine against the "fictitious opponents" of Russian culture.
Living in Germany and seeing people's attitudes towards Nazism, war, politics and human life, I cannot but take into account the experience of this nation. Having survived two world wars and three years in a concentration camp, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl formulated the foundations that motivated people to survive at that time. This is the strength of the spirit and motivation for life. Although Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer in his book Civilization and Ethics 1923 pointed out that the decline of the culture of society is not generated by wars, but only intensified by them. Scientist Schweitzer, like Frankl, puts forward a humanistic approach to life and the need for a new universal ethic of "reverence for life." By the way, Adolf Hitler was also nominated in 1939 for the Nobel Prize.
Perhaps this “reverence for life” is the most important principle that opposes death and violence cultivated in Russian society. Therefore, my first reaction to the war was this work.
February 24, 2022, paint, spray colours, paper on canvas, 127 x 106 x 12 cm.
What motivated me? I needed to speak publicly. I posted this work on my public networks so that those who accuse me of betraying the country or those who have doubts will see another voice in support of peace. I couldn't work any further. The meaning of creating art was gone.
During the first three months of the war, it slowly began to dawn on me that the people, my friends, acquaintances and even my family, were someone else, not the one I knew. They suddenly began to use obscene language, saying that I do not understand what is happening. In just a few months, Russian society was divided into friends and enemies. And people like me became enemies - those who sincerely love their country and culture. At the same time, the "friends" of Russia got "their own" identification mark, patriotism was elevated to the level of religion, it became simply not safe to protest, the church began to support the war, and independent mass media were closed. For me, one thing was clear: killing someone is contrary to all the principles of humanity and morality.
One of my Ukrainian friends asked me - why am I not working? She explained that in this monstrous reality when the Russians are bombing her hometown, she would like to see hope and something positive from me. A ray of light in the darkness of stupidity and aggression!
What can I, as an artist, do? And is art really necessary at such a moment? How this intelligence, culture and beauty can help now? Give hope? Be a statement from a Russian?
In creating works, the Artist of the era of big change is guided by certain aspects that can be distinguished as the tasks of art.
1. Numerous studies and experiments of therapeutic effects prove the beneficial outcomes of art creation and art perception. The non-verbal way of conveying information through art helps those in need to realize their hidden problems and anxieties. When perceiving art, people simply switch from reality, which allows the brain to relax or change activities.
For example, Louise Bourgeois's sculpture of a spider became such a healing experience. As a child, Louise experienced the drama of her father's behaviour. The constant infidelity and his aggression remained in the mind of the artist, which was repeatedly manifested in the work of the Bourgeois.
Maman near the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica. National Gallery of Canada Online. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_(sculpture)#/media/File:Giant_spider_strikes_again!.jpg (Accessed 31.10.2022)
For me, the complex installation "Untitled" has become such a healing therapy.
Untitled, 2022.
After completing the project, it was as if I finally articulated my feelings about what was happening.
2. Any art is, by definition, subjective, as it is created from the perceptions of the artist. The viewer is a kind of the second participant in this process who has his own opinion of the situation and reality. On the face of the model - one reality and two types of views. Art provides an opportunity to get acquainted with a different approach to understanding. That makes you develop critical thinking about the subject.
On the surface, 2022, recycled wood, paper, cardboard, plastic rope; paint, building foam, golden leaf, plaster, 140 x 70 x 50 cm.
For example, I put such a critical search into the artwork "On the surface". In the beginning, the viewer must be willing to discard stereotypes about trash and recycled materials.
3. Through the preservation of history and its rethinking, the artist evokes empathy, and participation, which, by definition, stimulates moral development.
4. We need to pay tribute to the fact that art is also perceived as a spectacle, entertainment. The mere enjoyment of art cannot be compared to the enjoyment of food, sports, or anything else. And at the same time, intellectual satisfaction occurs, since a person who seeks gets pleasure from new experiences and play of context through the artwork.
5. Cinematic genius Andrey Tarkovsky called catharsis one of the most important tasks in art. A concept derived in ancient Greece, it is designed to carry out the hygiene of the soul. Through inner empathy and communion, the viewer lives a thorny path through art, where good eventually wins.
The director took the properties of painting - colour, light-shadow and form and supplemented them with the properties of cinema - movement, sound and cinematic montage. For contemporary art, I would only add material, and all other elements in our reality are already available in any kind of art, regardless of the fact that it is a dynamic movie or a static and flat painting. It turns out that it is possible to achieve catharsis in modern conditions through the drama of all the listed properties of art. Mark Rothko also declared that the only resource of any art is the tragedy of catharsis.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968, acrylic on paper mounted on panel. Credit: Artwork on paper by Mark Rothko Copyright © 2020 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko. Online. At: https://newexhibitions.com/e/57989 (Accessed 28.10.2022)
What if the Greeks were wrong and evil wins?
Bibliography and references
1. SEBASTIAN HAFFNER, GESCHICHTE EINES DEUTSCHEN. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart & München 2000. Ivan Limbach Publishing. St. Petersburg 2016 (Russian)
2. Karl Jaspersü Die Schuldfrageü Von der politischen Haftung Deutschlandsü Piper München, Zürich 1965. Moscow Progress Publishing Group (1999) Translated from German by S. Apt
3. Viktor Frankl. 1946 Man in search of meaning. Москва «Прогресс» 1990
4. Albert Schweitzer. CULTURE AND ETHICS Translated by N.A. Zakharchenko and G.V. Kolshansky General edition and foreword by prof. V.A. Karpushina. Moscow: "Progress", 1973 Albert Schweitzer. Culture and Ethik. Munich, 1960 Russian [online] At: https://psylib.org.ua/books/shvei01/index.htm (Accessed 2022)
5. Avant-Garde and Kitsch. Art and Culture. CRITICAL ESSAYS Clement Greenberg BEACON PRESS BOSTON First published by Beacon Press in 1961
6. Modernist Painting. Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism vol. 4, ed. John OʼBrian, 1993. From: http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/modernism.html (Last access 21 July 07)
7. WAR AND ART, A VISUAL HISTORY OF MODERN CONFLICT Edited by Joanna Bourke. REAKTION BOOKS online At: http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/pdfs/war-and-art-intro-V2.pdf (Accessed 28.10.2022)
8. How Art Can Heal BY GIRIJA KAIMAL Nonverbal therapy helps people work through trauma and build resilience. [online] At: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/how-art-can-heal (Accessed 27.10.2022)
9. The Art World. March 21, 2022 Issue Art in a Time of War By Peter Schjeldahl [online] At: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/21/art-in-a-time-of-war (Accessed 28.10.2022)
10. ANDREY TARKOVSKY. TIME RECORDED Texts. 12/17/19 Andrei Tarkovsky Rus. [online] At: https://kinoart.ru/texts/andrey-tarkovskiy-zapechatlennoe-vremya (Accessed 28.10.2022)
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