Hacking Monuments

Having finished her series of sculptural additions for MANIFESTA 10, Alexandra Pirici wrote some thoughts on her experience and on the context and the controversy around the Biennial taking place in Russia:

On the subject of calls for a more radical program that specifically addresses the Ukraine situation she comments that: “There are, of course, limits to what it can be done in Russia today with state funding - there was a commission that had to approve the exhibition in the Hermitage and authorisations that needed to be given for all works in public space (as is the case in most places, when concerning the “public” space). Could Manifesta have played a card to avoid this? No, I don’t think there was a card to play as the benefits of having a contemporary art biennial here are hard to emphasise and stress to a majority that strongly disapproves and feels offended by contemporary art and its proximity to the Hermitage (even the taxi driver picking me up from the airport at 2 in the morning had to explain, two minutes into the trip, how disgraceful he finds the whole situation and how everybody thinks Piotrovsky is crazy for letting this happen).

Alexandra Pirici’s Soft Power. 2014. Sculptural additions to Petersburg monuments at the Bronze Horseman, St.Petersburg, June 28,2014. Commissioned for the Public Program of MANIFESTA 10 With the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

My last intervention at the Bronze Horseman (as minimal as it might have been) – for entangled reasons, was not given permission anymore by a governmental committee two hours before the scheduled start of the performance and then re-approved by a phone call. Whomever thinks it’s not a big deal to sunbathe near the statue I would invite there (not to Berlin), and suggest to protest against a law that apparently puts people in jail for 15 days for it (as we were told by a policeman checking our authorization) and that forbids people to even sit on the grass.

Agreeing to do the action, even in adapted form (as we weren’t allowed to climb on the stone as I initially intended) is not self-censorship but my evaluation of the situation as still being enough to produce something.  I do believe that given the context of the artwork, exposing the performers and pushing it into a scandal or outrage - which would make the whole thing stop in 5 minutes, also with consequences for the other people and projects involved - would not have produced a more interesting or significant change.  

Even the contradictory reports from the opening – The Calvert writing that my work made a solid point about the interaction of the human and the monumental but failed to attract enough attention - at the same time as Der Standard writing that a passer-by had already insulted and yelled at the performers – both represent a situation in which people also see what they want to see and emphasise what they want to emphasise.  

(The previous photos) Alexandra Pirici. Soft Power. 2014. Sculptural additions to Petersburg monuments at the Bronze Horseman, St. Petersburg, July 31, 2014. Commissioned for the Public Program of MANIFESTA 10 With the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

To prove that there is censorship and a very brutal propaganda machine at work in Russia today is obsolete. Everybody knows it is there – except for a lot of Russian people who only access information from the media. But the huge support for Putin and Russia’s actions in Ukraine might have multiple and deeper rooted causes that might have to be addressed less abruptly and less directly. This support might be related to a more general fascination with grandiose enterprises and strong leaders, an idea of beauty that is related to greatness and big size (hence the ever-present longing for recovering the empire), my intension was to ‘impress upon or soften’ the strong, unquestionable, unmovable, brave characters and personas and their grand gestures.

Alexandra Pirici. Soft Power. 2014. Sculptural additions to Petersburg monuments at the Lenin Monument (Finland Railway Station), 3 July, St. Petersburg, 2014. Commissioned for the Public Program of MANIFESTA 10 with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

And what we find beautiful and ugly, right or wrong has, of course, a crucial role in determining how we act and what we support. When we are still fascinated by the neo-classical and the baroque, when we still have a taste for the monumental (be it in the Winter Palace or for Voina’s bridge/phallus work), when you think of less loud gestures as weak and of the minimal and the low-key as ugly, you might also have a taste for corresponding political actions. So aesthetics is political and exposure to different dynamics, different aesthetics and a different discourse might make sense, even if this enterprise is a drop in the ocean considering the level of exposure to the other toxic discourses and the danger of being appropriated and misinterpreted. But who can really quantify the impact and consequences? Given the general audience’s conservatory discontent with the whole event (the Biennial), even if this reaction would be all that Manifesta could produce, I still think it’s more than nothing as it’s also an exercise in tolerance: allowing something to exist even if you do not like it and you do not understand it.

The Biennial, with all its problems and limitations, might be the only politically progressive gesture forced out of Russia in these times of radical conservative backlash. So it might also be a gesture that allows for progressive ideas to be alongside each other and recognise themselves across borders and within different contexts.

Of course, one has to accept this will not save, neither revolutionize the context here. On the symbolic level, an art biennial in Russia might have too little of an impact on both high and low politics. But just as Voina’s phallic critique against the regime turned into support and “masculinity” and patriarchy overcame less important differences and turned old enemies into friends, maybe we should also start looking for allies and similarities rather than agonizing over aestheticizing the political. I respect and understand boycott positions but I honestly think the very little steps and attempts that can be made within Manifesta (and not even those would be possible otherwise) were worth the try and maybe they are more important than the damage we are afraid it might have done. And the appropriation battle is one that we fight everywhere, on all levels, and one that we cannot stay out, even if we wanted to, without risking becoming completely paralysed. 

Alexandra Pirici. Soft Power. 2014. Sculptural additions to Petersburg monuments at the Monument to Catherine the Great, Ostrovsky Square, St. Petersburg, June 28, 2014. Commissioned for the Public Program of MANIFESTA 10 with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Last but not least: prescriptive ideas about political art – turning art into propaganda, in order to be more “efficient”, specific and un-ambiguous, might have helped winning some battles but it didn’t help end the war. 

A big thanks to everybody involved.”