This is the name of a collection of eight mattresses created by Kherson artist Stas Volyazlovsky specifically for the largest American art fair Armory Show-2011, held in New York. We decided to find out if our fellow countryman managed to impress the local art consumer there.
– Why did you show this particular project at the Armory Show?
– I saw what is usually exhibited at such fairs (Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze Art Fair in London). I wanted to stand out, to surprise the Americans. In a way, I played into the Americans’ perceptions of the post-Soviet space as a giant prison. Surprisingly, Europeans showed more interest in my works. And a Chinese person photographed all the works using macro photography, and Sergey Bratkov (a famous Russian artist and photographer) joked that in a month there would be T-shirts with my “pictures” in China.
– And did it attract attention?
– Definitely. There was an abundance of glamorous pop art there. And suddenly, a dirty spot. My mattresses are “aged” by both time and technique – using strong tea, the drawing is applied with a ballpoint pen. A striking contrast to rhinestones, gloss, and neon.
– You once said that prison themes do not interest you. What changed?
– It was just time for it. I am now a big specialist in tattoos. I had to study the topic thoroughly: God forbid to make a mistake in the “concepts.” I consulted with experienced people. They understood the artistic task and willingly shared their knowledge. This information is quite specific. Like life in prison. Tough, in one word. Nevertheless, I was inspired and made the collection in a month.
– So no one can criticize your tattoos?
– There are no literal reproductions of tattoos in my works. I transformed them. By the way, I compared American prison tattoos with ours. Ours are much “richer” – both in the number of images and in meaning. And theirs have flowers, Mickey Mouses… Some kind of childhood. There is one mystical moment in this whole story. Sergey Bratkov and I went to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), and in the bookstore, I saw a two-volume set “Russian Criminal Tattoo,” compiled by Russian policeman Dantsik Baldaev. A wonderful collection of drawings, many of which were copied from prisoners’ bodies, “clients” of homeless shelters and morgues. You had to come to New York to come across this opus!
– And politicians? Did you really avoid them this time?
– I didn’t offend politicians either: on one of the mattresses, Putin and Khodorkovsky met. However, we did not show this piece in New York. I want to say separately about the nuances of the exhibition. This is still not an exhibition in the traditional sense, where you are given space and you decorate it. For example, we wanted to recreate the “interior” of a prison cell and place the mattresses on stylized bunks. Unfortunately, we could not implement this idea. Besides me, “Regina” exhibited works by Odessa artist Sergey Zarva, St. Petersburg’s Vlad Kulkov, German artists Jonathan Meese and Daniel Richter, Austrian Erwin Wurm, and the French collective Claire Fontaine. In such a heterogeneous “environment,” the installation was not very appropriate. “Politics” clearly stood out from the overall concept of the exhibition. Moreover, the works must be placed against a white wall – so that the buyer can imagine them in their interior (whether a private residence or a gallery).
– What else was abundant at the Armory Show?
– Painting, and very good painting, photo works, art videos. But in web reviews, you more often see photos of some whimsical works that look spectacular but do not qualify as something significant or fresh. I don’t know if I shocked the American consumer, but he definitely shocked me. Americans are very close to pop art, which, according to someone’s apt expression, is no different from advertising art. Gaudy things cause a stir, not even on the edge, but beyond the edge of kitsch. The overall impression of the exhibitions is a bunch of costume jewelry spilled out of a drawer. I am used to our artists making such things, “mocking” them. There is always a subtext that is easy to read. But for them, everything is completely serious. Zero irony. Here is a crown – almost like a real one, only of some hypertrophied size. You need to allocate a whole hall for it. I can’t imagine such a thing in an interior or a private collection. Or a herd of stuffed sheep. Complete nonsense. That’s what killed it – the lack of any meaning in such works. And also, looking at these “masterpieces,” you think: “Aren’t you thinking too much?” And here the main thing is not to get caught up in all this, not to be poisoned by the venom of total commercialization. There were cases when some of our artists, having been to art fairs, tried to adjust and make “sure bets” – things doomed to sell. They turned out to be bad fakes. As a result, the artist ceased to be interesting to collectors who valued him for what he represented before. I think pop art in its current form is a grand mystification. If people are willing to pay money for it, they deserve nothing else.Link
