russALBARUSSIA: LOGIC OF THE NOMOSOLGA KOPENKINA
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russALBARUSSIA: LOGIC OF THE NOMOSOLGA KOPENKINA
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If the Belorussian post-communist experience has brought anything at all, it is the feeling of the legitimization of its borders - a factor, which induced an neurosis of isolation (or the end of this connection with the Other) and distance, perceived by the local artistic circles rather as a loss than as an acquisition. This experience is compensated by art projects, connected with the feeling of a threshold, zero space, stop point, from which a new communicative movement can start and create the required field of interpretation in order to help constructing new forms of relationships with the West. From this point of view, understanding of the solidity and precise character of the borders corresponds to the statement by the Russian writer Daniil Harms about one unit to register the world. "We are our most comfortable shape. Now when we have become totally independent, let us clean our facets to clarify where our presence ends" (Daniil Harms).
At the present the main image for the Belorussian art consciousness is the image of an absolute periphery, when the whole world, Moscow and the West, turn into something external compare to Belarus. The center seems to be elsewhere. We feel as if having a house on the North Pole, in which all windows face the South; at the same time we feel at a safe distance from contemporary world. In his "Treatise on Nomadology" G. Deleuze set off a nomad against a migrant in relation to the space: the continuously perceived "space of individual events" of a nomad, which changes its structure reacting to the frontier's migration; and the space of a migrant - closed, exhaustive, centered. The image of a nomad, described by Deleuze, is close to the identity of a partisan, existing in the Belorussian art consciousness. The contemporary Belorussian art is trying to develop a psychology of a nomad-partisan and a migrant (as defined by Deleuze) simultaneously, e.g. to apply self-determination strategy through the context and to separate from it. In 1994-1997 everybody's attention was drawn by two exhibitions held in Minsk and Vitebsk, which were engendered by the context and turned the real available being into their own material. The most interesting was the "Partisan Galleries" project by Igor Tishin, in which the exposition, consisting of various stuff, pictures and photos seemed absolutely naturally raised from the environment. The being was chosen in the shape of a private house transformed into a storage of partisan folklore. The disposition of things was interesting. Things were dissipated in the space, they conquered the space, appearing in one or another place. The house as a nomos, the intermittent space, expressed the essence of the artistic experience of the Belorussian territory, based on the partisan movement strategy. Tishin suggests this strategy as the only way of "territorialization and deterritorialization" (as defined by Deleuze), disturbing the enemy from reading and acquiring the area. Tishin's projects define the role of an artist as of a link between an artist's territory and the external evident world. He moves his territory's frontiers, expands the spring-board, changes the location of centers and totally annihilates them, rejecting the polis and approving of the nomos. That might be the cause why contemporary art institutions with serious programs have not yet appeared in Minsk, that local artistic environment prefers pure strategy without rear or concrete battlefields. It is dissipated like sand in a desert, and realizes itself through personal actions. In order to get acquainted with this strategy one has to study the territory. That is sometimes called partisan nomadism, which is the main feature of the Belorussian art situation. In the Western structured and dismembered universe, where a Belorussian artist appears to be a migrant and where traditional and new, technological and hand-made coexist without conflicts, where everything seems legitimized, partisan requisite is becoming a communicative code, which helps an artist to establish him- or herself in the external international world. Everything, which used to be the depth, becomes the width and the surface, where all events are seen as if through a looking glass. That is an explanation of the exhibition called "The Kingdom of Belarus", presently touring through Poland, where the republic is presented as some East Slavic dissident zone (in contradiction with the empty ideological zone status). Here we find that the coarse material objects and installations with an unclear metaphorical meaning really depict the territory's psychology more precisely than any picture with some Belorussian landscape on it. The meaning appears where the event "leaves the premises", appears at the surface. It is important not to slide down from this surface back into the depth: into the false depth of the underground and discussions of national, territorial and other types of identity.
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However the lack of symbols, the impossibility to decipher visually of the Belorussian territory has become one of the main experiences of the local artistic circles. Photo projects presented by Igor Savchenko, small, with inexpressive spatial motives, intended for the most banal exhibiting, reflected the character of the area, impossible to be defined by its surface. The lack of a symbol, which could be used for the area identification is the main feature of the border territory, which can determine cultural and territorial identity.For any outer world representative such projects match the "between" category: between stable meanings, concepts and myths. Once the border criterion still exists, the communicative space can appear only between the territories bearing the experience of being distanced. It is like recently, when artists from Eastern Europe created images of mobile periphery within European cultural space. It seems that Belorussian art can use the Western desire to expand its cultural horizon, and to establish itself in the Western consciousness as some metaphysical frontier zone, meaning some additional, but necessary articulation of the contemporary world picture. |
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Olga Kopenkina Born in Minsk (Belorussia). Critic and curator. Works in the National Art Museum of Belorussia. From 1994 works as a curator of the gallery "The Sixth Line". Lives in Minsk. |
The main criterion to identify the Republic of Belarus among other East-European cultural zones is related to the quality of its borders. The development of culture within the territories of the former state of Rzech Pospolita (Belorussian lands used to constitute one of its parts) was determined by the permanent migration, transparency and looseness of borders between the internal ethnic territories. It was only clear that Germany lies to the West, while Russia is in the East. The frontier zone was involved into a continuous process of "values migration" that withdrew all issues related to the cultural identification with an ethnic factor and shaped almost tactile perception of the Other and his determination in oneself. The joke about a Polish man and a Russian woman having children, who are obviously Ukrainians or Lithuanians, illustrates the continuity of ethnic composition, which was the main factor determining culture in the frontier zone. Perhaps that is why Belarus is not still recognized at the international art scene, and it continues to attach itself to some "supolnost'" (e.g. community) existing in our historical memory. Presently the artistic situation in Belarus is determined by two generations. One was formed in the 70-s and 80-s and is based upon the ideas and aesthetics of underground. The other one, which had not revealed itself till few years ago, is that of the 90-s. Its main characters stake on their own biography, not binding themselves to any traditions, successions or identities. It is paradoxical that when appearing on the international scene both generations avoid or are scared of public presentations and therefore subscribe to joint projects (ones, uniting artists from different countries, who vary by their level and quality), which serves to the restoration of the West-Russian brotherhood, which once existed in Rzech Pospolita, and to the legitimizing of their choice to be with somebody (and with whom exactly) or to remain with themselves.
However the features of the Belorussian artistic consciousness are best seen in the international projects and abroad. One of such project was a joint German-Belorussian exhibition project called "Texts", organized by the Goethe-Institut and shown in Minsk and several German cities. The art matter of the Belorussian part of the exhibition consisted of text fragments, image symbols, which most likely appear in the moment of removing the language from its experience and not from the desire of its textualization. A Belorussian artist at an international rendez-vous is seemingly breaking the rules by not bringing in any clear statement, neither discarding nor approving of anything. The artist subconsciously opposes any form of determination, breaking the links within symbols and codes, ruining the symbol, which has not yet emerged, and registering these ruins. Something of this kind is demonstrated in the work by Igor Kashkurevich (in the framework of "Texts"). It is a text in German written on a vertical panel and accompanied by arrows pointing at several bins, which seem to be torn away from the Soviet urban context. We are as if living within the circle of permanent reminiscence of discourses, which have never started, of unpronounced statements and unclear meanings. Hence the verbal shortage and the impossibility of putting together a Belorussian artist and the language matter and presenting this artist as a consumer or a source of information.