LIDIA VITKOVSKAYANeverending Story

FROM THIS TIME I REALIZE THAT ANY PIECE OF ART FROM THE BOOK TO THE MOVIE SHOULD TELL A STORY TO BE REALLY INTERESTING.

A technological component is very important in the works by Lidia Vitkovskaya. That was my first impression – while standing before one of her objects I thought: it certainly reminds me of EAT. Of course there was no direct links with Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), the famous New York group (despite today’s relevance of the 60-ies). Simply the spectacular, thoroughly realized techno responds to the creative nature of the artist. The word “control” is frequent in the titles of her works, and it is not an accident. It is important to Vitkovskaya to retain control over the quality. But it concerns not only the perfectionism of the technological realization of the work – or rather, not in the first place. In the first place it concerns her own consciousness. Vitkovskaya is a modern artist: her mode of life is not the permanent self-expression, a continuous outburst. Her consciousness is ‘projective’: it’s a special processuality – direction of the artist’s consciousness towards a ‘project’, existing through a project, from one project to another. The pulsing character of creation of the works as a controllable process. One more observation concerning the idea of control: the artist needs to direct spectators’ reactions, to synchronize the mode of perception with the time mode of the narrative realization. Yes, despite all technological gimmicks (touch screen, transparent screen, other interactive techniques) Vitkovskaya isa narrative artist. She likes good old craft of telling stories. Another thing is an absolutely contemporary understanding of what she means when she says ‘narrative’. But first of all – some moments in the artist’s biography. Lidia graduated with a diploma from Moscow State University, she was major in sociology. The width of her interests was evident even in her student years: she eagerly attended ‘non-professional’ lectures, sometimes in other schools. As a result one year later she enrolled in Higher courses 5

Neverending StoryAlexander Borovsky.Head of the Department of Contemporary Art, State Russian Museum.

film writers and film directors, the directors department headed by a famous director Alexander Mitta. After that - New-York Academy of Film with a producer’s diploma. In Russia she found time to work as a journalist. As I understand, it all went into a piggy-bank of story-telling. It’s so interesting – this feeling of sophisticated ‘techno’ that I mentioned in the beginning, and this ‘screen-writeness’, this emanation of the narrative. Lidia really found herself at the very edge of the most interesting phenomena of today. The ‘animism’ theory is popular now in the West as a new way to ponder over things: as though beyond their materialism, their object side, their thingness. Of course, such “return of the object” takes part in the context of “the power of the commodity in capitalism, alongside capitalism ‘s tendency to reduce human subjects to the status of objects” (1). But if one steps back from the leftist phraseology, one sees the meaning of this: the animism is the archaic, totem ‘living part’ of the material world, not connected with its primal function and the consumer’s resource. Of course, today’s ideas of animism are not so new (sufficient is to remember the “wooden postcard” by J.Beuys), but in our case very timely especially in the connection with the narrative. (“The narrative discourse can exist as long as it tells a certain story,”- G.Genette). I think, Vitkovskaya in some of her works happened to be at the crossroads of these two trends – animism and narrative. I don’t want judge – was it a reflective decision in the context of today’s tendencies in art. Or – a sensuous impulse brought out by her soul’s movement. But she is there. Let’s discuss her work that seems to be quite simple from the outside, all the more so, as its unsophisticated, “postcardish” title «Wish you were here» seems to bring us down to earth. It’s a suitcase as a ready-made. Authenticity and use of the object is ascertained by stickers. There is a transparent screen built in the suitcase with an image of an airplane. Unsteady, shown as if through a fogged-up airplane window – representing itself – an image of a moving airplane. That’s where the story-telling begins. The use of an old suitcase is not something rare in art. Contemporary art having to deal with things conceptual and indirect, just adores used suicases, old shoes, used clothes etc – as a resource of something “human, too human” (Let’s recall for example “Black Market” by Rauschenberg (1961): the artist demands the spectators to take out “personal effects” out of a suitcase and replace them with others). Understandable is the compulsory appellation to inexhaustible

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literary narrative connected to all these used things: Marshak, Nabokov, Salinger – each and every reader has his own story to tell ‘about the suitcase”… But an image of an airplane on a screen – no matter what media – is not very difficult either. So, the associations are predetermined, the plot is clear from the very starting point. So why does the object work in its own way? Why all the things that are well known find their place, begin to exist in a new dimension? In short, what is interesting in this story with its foretold development? I’ll try to find out. If we talk about the plot, about the story-telling we must at least in passing touch upon the “narrative turn” that colous today the humanitarian way of thinking. After structuralism distrust towards “big stories” this way of thinking turned to a short story as a form of organization of the existing reality, or rather narrative has become that organizing and structure-forming instance that helps to examine the “outer” reality. I’ll quote only two more or less conventional meanings of the term “narrative” which are used in academic circles. The first one, the broad one implies an “altered state of consciousness”. The second one takes into account not only the “altered state” but also the transfer of this altering by way of some narrative instance” (Wolf Shmid. Narratologie). So, the “narrative instance” is an object, a symbiosis of the retro-industrial ready-made and of the modern technological ready-made (an old suitcase and a screen). (In another work – “Katarinka”, this instance-object is an vintage movable barrel organ, no matter authentic or recreated, but the one that incorporates its own “techno” – a screen. The object is a messener and a message in itself. The broadcast of a very expected message – that of a sentimental and old-fashioned kind. But the event of the story, an image on the screen behind a hanging curtain, should exactly erase the expected and propose something different. Its components broadcast their trivial stories: the suitcase, one may presume, tells “about itself”, the image of the airplane does exactly the same thing: something like “all systems of the aircraft are functioning properly”. Of course, here lies a potential possibility of any suspense (even of the Lockberry type: a suitcase with a bomb inside in a belly of an airplane, etc). But the potential of the external plot is not (or in this case) in demand. Here is another story. The image of the plane (as if in flight, in the state of flight – that’s why all these gimmicks with then transparent screen) – in the belly of the suitcase. The

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customary narrative of an object when in use by a person, with all its plot-creating circumstances is replaced by another. The image of an airplane in its own time mode (I’d call it ‘pulsating’) incorporated in the object, animates it. I’d rather not use the word ‘heart’ which is too binding, but there is no doubt that this ‘transpantated’ image serves as a sort of some life-giving organ. And maybe, abstracting from compulsory (“repressive”) associative circumstances linked to both ready-mades, we are becoming witnesses of the process of the new symbolization: the screen plays an archaic symbolic role of – maybe of home, of fore-place? In any case, the ‘altered state’ appears, a sure sign of the narrative. What is the narrative “about”? If such a question is possible, I’d answer: some new plots of techno-atavism are being narrated. The media-installation “Kill Einstein” has the starting point that is also easy to read: culture and barbarism, creation and destruction. On the screens we see two video series: computerized portraits, embodiments of civilization values, “protected by law”, by tradition and centuries-old ethics. They are talent, knowledge, science represented by the ‘face’ of Einstein as well as other values, non-personified but provoking reactions of respect and/or protection: childhood (computerized image of a girl-child), race equality (an image of an Afro-American), etc. The spectator is given a joystick which can be used either for breaking the image (computer technologies allow to get very plausible effects) or reconstruct it. The counter automatically registers how many there were destructors and how many reconstructors. I used the word ‘embodiments’ before, but there are no bodies, the image is like an empty shell, it’s computerized. This virtuality, like the virtuality of the protagonists in a video game shooter takes away all the responsibility – it’s just a game! But the player is of flesh and blood. It is the player who interests the story-teller: who is he, what is he, how will he hold his ‘weapon’, how will he act – decisively or hesitatingly, will he gamble or will he be doubting?.. There was this classic socialist realism painting by V.Svarog “Comrades Voroshilov and Gorky at a shooting range at the Central Red Army House”. The depths of the Soviet life could be seen “through” the plot of the shooting, even if it was not real, maybe against the artist’s will… Of course, it is difficult to achieve such vivid, red-blooded substance

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outside the graphic context. But Vitkovskaya is not aiming for the mimetic: the shooting man (the man moving the joystick) is not present in flesh and blood in her work. Or rather his presence is expected – nature abhors the vacuum. That’s the plot of the story – in the creation of the situation by means of a computer installation. The plot grows through the storyline – it construct the person and the behavior of the player. There exists a behaviorist pattern defined by the deep ethics and social and cultural dressage: don’t try to tarnish the sacred, that is civilization values. And there exists asocial behavior of those who carry, as the sociologists say, some latent “counter-consciousness”, a certain reaction to norms and values, that bursts out in a wide variety of reactions – from acts of vandalism to street graffiti. Both these two kinds of behavior are partially defined by the consumer industry (or by the struggle with it). But much more often the foundation is even simpler and even more inertial: it’s just a game, that’s all. Maybe the artist “gives the joystick” to a potential spectator who is free of ritualistic behavioral modes? To a new “Candide: or, The Optimist”? To a player with a direct, that is archaic experience? Lidia calls the idea of this work almost sociological. I don’t think that it’s the most important thing – to count good guys and bad guys. The main thing is the ‘changing’ – the main event of the plot: attempts to reach the direct, zero (elementary) or archaic, experience. This provides the story with a deep, non-inertial meaning. In short, I would call the plot of “Kill Einstein” media-installation also techno-atavistic. Lidia also finds a sociological resource in the “Compromise Controller” installation that was shown during the 4th Moscow Biennale. A counter registers the number of persons who switched on the light in a dark room, and of those who didn’t switch it on. I think, here again the plot of the installation is rather spiritual than sociological. Everyday routine of the ‘click’ of the switch carries the archaic symbolism: light and dark, insights, enlightment… The “Prohibited” video installation – six screen opposite one another. On the screens we see six identical hand guns aimed at the spectator. Such composition (this old term is quite applicable to the configuration of the installation) has been several times tried out by B.Nauman: we recall his faces screaming at each other in “Antropo”. But in his case the effect was the dialog, if one can call that a really

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“anthropological”, mutually self-directed, non-culturized scream. There is no dialog in “Prohibited” whatsoever. The spectator is supposed to stand between the screen, between the guns aimed at him. It is he, and not the digital shooters who is that storytelling instance that – according to the theory – is necessary for comprehensive dialog. And the spectator who finds him – or herself “in the line of fire” has a lot to tell about his feelings. It is customary to expect certain results – social, informative, educational, didactic, recreational (the game itself) and other, from the participative art (the art of involvement, of participating). Vitkovskaya does not betray these expectations. In “Digital Suprematism” and in “Classic hop-scotch” she poses the tasks that are educational and at the same time vitalizing the creative thinking. But the propaedeutics in this case is combined with the direct creation: The level of appellation to the original sources is very high, this “growing into the alien matter” could itself be a summary of the piece of work. The project “Voting with our feet” poses different problems. (Who said that the participative art must always use the most new technologies? Here we deal with traditional painting “on molds of feet of famous artists”, I don’t know if that is true or it’s all part of the game). The process of group painting of these molds creates micro-teams and at the same time – a penetrating dialogism, a situation of operative rapprochements and repulsions. Everyone in a group motivates his – or her – choice, creative and educational (an attempt to show their attitude towards an artist by way of drawings on their legs and feet), politicized (the slogan’s original meaning was linked to the elections), aesthetic and independent, linked to games, etc. And again, the most important for the artist in the context of participativeness is the resource of story-telling. As I have already said, Vitkovskaya does not always rely on “techno”. The main thing is she always perfectly calculates the result, the outcome. Even if the result is the absence of outcome. The “Toad a la Russe” sculpture is an image of a two-bodied toad, and the bodies grown together are of different color. The witty object brings forth a directional stream of associations. Of course, there is a theme of ambivalence of the image of a toad in the Russian folklore and literature: the conversion of a toad into a princess and vice versa. And also political, even heraldic associations:

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two-heads-ness, etc. The artist does not elaborate on her position, the mission of the image is to last, constantly broadcast the associative array and the very possibility of spectators’ choice. Vitkovskaya told me that she likes her work «Woman.net 2011». A woman’s figure in bondages. Nothing digital – a traditional sculpture with arms and legs tangled up in ropes. Bondages – everything that ties a modern woman up: family, routine, social, gender, career commitments and who knows what else. Today’s life adds to them social networks: virtual bondages are no less strong than those of everyday life. The contents of the meaning every spectator will find for himself, I don’t want to barge in. I’ll just point to the realization of the project. In her complex technological works Vitkovskaya often turned to, let’s say, the virtual for the animation, animization of the material. Here the rough material, the tactile (rope, epoxy resin, etc) appeals to the virtual. The artist broadens her abilities. New stories “after Vitkovskaya” are in store for us.

*1. The typological example of the introspection on this matter – cf. J.Charlesworth and J.Heartfeld. Subjecrs v Objects.- Art Monthly. March 2014. № 374

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TO CREATE A WORLD IN SEVERAL MINUTES IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN TO CREATE A WORLD IN THREE HOURS.

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“Lidia Vitkovskaya was born in Moscow in the family of a well-known cinema critic, and from the early childhood she was surrounded by people of arts…”That’s a possible beginning of an introductory article to a catalogue of this well-known artist. But considering the fact that we’re talking about a today’s artist, and even more – a contemporary artist, it would be more correct and more customary to complicate the terminology right from the beginning and talk about the experiments with the valence links of the space optics. Or about a complex system of interlinked symbols, about the search for a discourse message, in sentences preferably half a page long.

Probably, any of these approaches has a certain right to live, but when you get acquainted with the works by Lidia Vitkovskaya it becomes clear that any attempt to structure them or, even worse, to analyze them using specific terminology that certain curators like so much – is doomed. The thing is, every work of hers is not a pile-up of symbols, formed in a certain way, and certainly not an attempt to shock the spectator. Rather it is a reason to share the perception of life, a gift of a particle of light that fills the artist, an invitation to peek into the worlds that she creates as if playing.

It is not altogether clear, how and what’s more important – what for, try to explain the process of birth of new worlds – doing so the interpreter only stands in the way of the creator, unwillingly destroying the magic of creation, the magic that Lidia Vitkovskaya has mastered perfectly and now shares generously with her spectators. What is this magic? As the artist says any phenomenon, any living being, any object can serve as a certain starting point, that allows to think of a story and tell it. And it doesn’t matter

Practical Magic of Lidia Vitkovskaya Armen Apresyan.

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how this story will be told: with the help of words or visual images, with traditional or with ultra-modern means.

Generally speaking, the word ‘story’ is a key word for Lidia Vitkovskaya. The stories surrounded her in her childhood – the stories told by her parents and their friends: famous writers and poets, artists and actors. Somebody else could dissolve in other people’s stories, forever staying in the worlds invented by others. At some moment Lidia understood that it is interesting not only to read or listen to another person’s story but also to understand how it is created, what laws rule it, find certain regulations and then, having understood all that, to begin creating her own stories.

Studies at the Department of Sociology of the Moscow State University and at the directors department of the Higher Courses for screenwriters and directors headed by Alexander Mitta, gave her the knack to understand how to find laws and patterns, the study at the New York Film Academy helped to find the most suitable format for these stories. This format turned to be video art.

MY LOVE TOWARDS STORIES DROVE ME TO READ A GREAT LOT. EVEN NOW IF I HAVEN’T GOT A GOOD BOOK IN MY HAND I FEEL A CERTAIN INFORMATION HUNGER – AND OFTEN IT IS WORSE THAN ORDINARY HUNGER. WE HAD ALWAYS A LOT OF BOOKS AT HOME, AND NOT JUST A LOT BUT A GREAT LOT – EVERY SPACE ON THE WALLS FREE OF PAINTINGS, CDS, RECORD ALBUMS WAS IMMEDIATELY OCCUPIED BY BOOK SHELVES. MY PARENTS HELPED ME NOT TO GET LOST IN THIS TREASURY: I READ BULGAKOV, NABOKOV, SOLZHENITSYN, AS EVERY DECENT YOUNG LADY SHOULD, AT THE AGE OF 16.

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Lidia Vitkovskaya is a person moving at a breakneck speed, she seems to be able to think of a dozen of projects, do a hundred things and even be in a thousand of places – all at the same time. It is likely that it was this tempo of life that influenced the style and format of her creative work: in her interpretation the history of the whole world can be squeezed in several minutes.

Depth and laconism – that’s what makes a story ideal, pure and beautiful. It is not easy to give an adequate definition to the notion of video art. Well, officially it is a “trend in media art, that uses the possibilities of video technique, computer and TV imaging for the expression of a creative concept”. Lydia Vitkovskaia suggests her own definition: video art for her is a short summary of a story.

Unlike the authors of sculptures, or easel paintings, Lidia Vitkovskaya doesn’t invite her spectator to an indifferent (or on the contrary, a thoughtful) contemplation. Each story is born in the studio but its life and development continue in exhibition halls, and

FROM THAT MOMENT ON IT WAS CLEAR TO ME THAT EVERYTHING – ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING – EVERY WORK OF ART, FROM BOOKS TO VIDEO ART, FROM PAINTINGS TO SCULPTURE – MUST HAVE A STORY INSIDE TO BE INTERESTING. THAT’S HOW I FOUND MY “FORM” AND “CONTENTS”: THE STORY BECAME A FORM FOR ME, AND THE LAWS AND PATTERNS – CONTENTS.

TO CREATE A WORLD IN SEVERAL MINUTES IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN TO CREATE A WORLD IN THREE HOURS’ TIME. TO TELL A STORY WITH AN INTRODUCTION, PROTAGONISTS, A CLIMAX IN TREE MINUTES’ TIME IN A WAY THAT IT WILL BE UNDERSTOOD BY A SPECTATOR – FOR ME THAT’S THE HIGHEST MAGIC IN ART.

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spectator – willingly or not – becomes a co-author of the artist. One of characteristic traits of the video art is that a spectator is not always able to see the video from the beginning – he can walk up to the work any minute of the action on the screen. The task of the artist is to make him understand what’s happening on the screen or at least get him interested. In fact the artist has to think of a story where anybody could orientate oneself at any given moment of the plot. It’s not an easy task, but the more difficult it is, the more interesting it is to look for a solution. If the solution is found, then magic is born right there, in the exhibition hall: the spectator becomes a participant of the action. Modern technologies make it possible for this interaction to become full-fledged and, strange as it may seem, almost imperceptible. A person comes up to an object – he still is just a spectator. He touches an interactive screen, the image changes – he is already involved in the act of co-creation.

Some artists trying to get celebrity take part in different competitions, seek help of specially trained experts who could take upon themselves the task of their promotion. Others – simply go on working, exhibit their works and the fame comes to them by itself. Often, while talking about themselves artists say that their works “are in private and museum collections” and they took part in dozens – if not hundreds – of

I DON’T WANT TO AND I CAN NOT MAKE ANY PROGNOSIS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE ART AS A WHOLE, BUT I CAN ASSUME THAT IN THE AGE WHEN INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES HAVE BECOME OMNIPRESENT WHICH MAKES POSSIBLE INTERESTING AND EXTRAORDINARY JUXTAPOSITIONS – FOR EXAMPLE, INCLUDE CONTEMPORARY FIGURES INTO CLASSICAL PAINTINGS – THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART WILL BE DIRECTED TOWARDS THE INCLUSION OF THE SPECTATOR. AND THE INVOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION OF THE SPECTATOR IS OFTEN MORE INTERESTING THAN A DELIBERATE ONE.

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exhibitions. Lidia Vitkovskaya can say the same about herself. But very few of young artists can boast that their works are in the collection of the Russian Museum, and that the works were chosen by one of the most respected Russian art-critics, the head of the Department of newest trends of the Russian Museum Alexander Borovsky personally.

The works by Lidia Vitkovskaya were highly appreciated not only by Russian experts: her name is among the participants of the major world art-fairs of the modern art: Art Miami, Art San Francisco, The Kolner Liste, she got the “Special Excellence” Prize at London Bienalle. At the same time Lidia Vitkovskaya doesn’t deliberately shock the public, does not create myth around herself and her art, isn’t carried away by quoting successful Western artists and borrowing from them. Unlike conceptualists of the 70-80-ies who became popular in the West thanks to the use of symbols of the Soviet life, Lidia works with images that could be called international: mythological beings, world-famous persons like Albert Einstein… At the same time she calls upon the works of the Russian avangarde: her interactive performance “Digital Suprematism” is built on the de-construction of classical works by Kazimir Malevich and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

The birth of the idea of a work of art is always a mystery, every artist explains the process of creation in his own way. Salvador Dali said that he just saw things that others could not. This “special look” – is the highest gift that could have a creative person. And if the capability to see and feel something extraordinary in most ordinary things is complemented by the skill to transform emotions into a work of art – no matter if it’s a sculpture, a painting, an installation, or an object, - then a real miracle happens.

IN ART VERY INTERESTING IS THE AUTHENTIC APPROACH, THE ATTEMPT OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD THROUGH THE PRISM OF YOUR OWN CULTURAL PERCEPTION, AND NOT THE ATTEMPT TO IMITATE ANOTHER PERSON’S ONE.

THAT’S HOW I FOUND MY “FORM” AND “CONTENTS”: THE STORY BECAME A FORM FOR ME AND THE LAWS AND PATTERNS – CONTENTS.

Frog a-la Rus.2012.acrylic, epoxide.70 x 60 x 45 cm.

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Digital Suprematism.2011.Mix media, video art.220 x 89 x 38 cm.

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Woman.net.2013.acrylic, epoxide.170 cm in diametre.

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Wish you were here.2012.Mix media.70 x 61 x 29 cm.

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Golden Ratio of the Spider.2013.acrylic, epoxide.130 cm in diametre.

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Gamble with Classics.2011.Mix media, video art.75 x 60 x 45 cm.

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Prohibited.2010.Video art.

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Lidia Vitkovskaya (born in 1977) “Special Excellence” PRIZE London Bienalle 2015. Works are in collections of The State Russian Museum (St-Peterburg, Russia) and in private collections

Graduated from Moscow State University, ph.D in sociologyNew York Academy of Film. ProducerMember of Journalist's Union from 1999.Member of Literator's Union from 1997. 2014 – CONCEPT ART FAIR (Miami, USA) - Gallery Marcoux (Malta)2014 – ART RIGA FAIR (Riga, Latvia) - Every Thing is Art Gallery2014 – KÖLNER LISTE (Cologne, Germany) - Every Thing is Art Gallery2014 – SOLO exhibition in Zverev Centre of Contemprorary Art (Moscow)2013 – AQUA Art Miami (Miami, USA) - Every Thing is Art Gallery2013 – "BORN TO FLY... AND CRAWL" - Russian State Museum (St. Peterburg, RUSSIA)2013 - "THE CONTROLLER COMPROMISES" - SPECIAL PROJECT of 5 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia)2012 – CONTEXT Art Miami (Miami, USA) – Dmitriy Semenov Gallery2012 – SOLO EXHIBITION. Digital installation “ME”, Central House of Artists (Moscow, Russia).2012 – ART MOSCOW INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR (Moscow, Russia) – Dmitriy Semenov Gallery2011 – ART MOSCOW INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR (Moscow, Russia) – Dmitriy Semenov Gallery2011 – CYBERFEST – digital art festival in The State Hermitage Museum (St-Peterburg, Russia).SPECIAL PROJECT "Personal Transfokator"2011 – «Kill Einshtein» - SPECIAL PROJECT of The 4th Moscow Bienalle (Moscow, Russia)2011 – SOLO EXHIBITION «Moth». Central House of Artists (Moscow, Russia)2010 – «Not allowed». SPECIAL PROJECT of Art Moscow International Art fair (Moscow, Russia)2009 – UNIVERSAM ART FAIR. Parallel program of Moscow Bienalle.SPECIAL PROJECT «To be dead» (Moscow, Russia)2008 – SOLO EXHIBITION. Centre of Contemprorary Art Wynzavod (Moscow, Russia). Multimedia project «Digital suprematism»

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Denis Mikhaylov (for designing)Andrei Gavrilov (for translating)Alexandre Daviduk (for making pictures)Liza Mikhaylova (for everything)Alexandr Borovsky and Armen Apresyan (for supporting)

lav-artist.comlav@wpoint.ru+79255026305