A bohemian uprising by Russian actvists in London began with a scandal. The organizers of the exhibition about the post-Soviet political avant-garde kicked out the Vesti film crew for their points of disagreement over whether the "Blue Noses" group is being pursued by the FSB. The activists themselves do not know anything about this. But accusations against the Russian special services already compete with the central art items of the exposition.
Alexander Khabarov found out who the author of this work is and what its trying to convey.
Today he had to personally take part in a shady performance. The prestigious London gallery Saatchi decided to show a modern Russian protest. A separate pavilion is dedicated to the girls from Pussy Riot. But they flat out refuse to communicate with Russian TV channels. Pyotr Pavlensky, another actionist, was credited with taking part, but he could not come because he's in a French prison, awaiting trial for arson of a bank building.
In general, they selected those who had any sort of problem at all with the authorities. They come off as overzealous.
The unsuspecting artists of the Blue Noses art group were depicted here as Siberian separatists and victims of persecution by FSB.
“The Russian FSB (the Federal Security Bureau, the successor of the KGB) has opened countless criminal investigations into the Siberian separatist movement. The artists are now under full-time surveillance”.
The artists themselves were sincerely surprised with Vesti's disbelief for their claims.
Vyacheslav Mizin, artist: "Of course the FSB has no other duties but pursuing us round-the-clock!"
The victims of the alleged persecution claim that they could not write such things to themselves. And they addressed our questions to the curators who obviously changed things around to fit a certain context.
Igor Tsukanov, organizer: "It's all made up by the artists, it's only their fantasies. It's written that all this..."
- No, it says that despite their tall tales, the artists believe they are pursued by the FSB, but it's absurd.
The organizer of the exhibition, businessman Igor Tsukanov, who lives in London, demanded that Vesti stop filming, and when we tried to ask Marat Gelman a question, he showed us the door altogether, ordering the gallery staff not to let us in anymore.
In general, it was in keeping with the spirit of the event. Dissent, at it almost always is with Liberals, was immediately banned. And this happened not in Russia, but in liberal England. The organizers of the exhibition cast themselves as the defenders of freedom of thought and speech, but, as we saw for ourselves, they only support freedom of speech for their thoughts and their speech.
Alexander Khabarov, Ilya Mordyukov for Vesti from London.
