Monthly Archive: April 2010

Visual Tactics at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, September 2009-January 2010 (Exhib. Review)

Blickmaschinen oder wie Bilder entstehen. Zeitgenössische Künstler schauen auf die Sammlung Werner Nekes, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, September 2009-January 2010.

The curators of the Blickmaschinen exhibition attempt to answer the question of how the image of the world appears, how it manifests itself, and how it is received and interpreted. The issue of the ontological status of representation was virtually absent in the discourse of art history until the late 20th century. With the emergence of post- structuralism, however, a lively process of re-negotiating the status of representation began. James Elkins lists a few of the starting points … Read more

The “Vremena” Show: Russian Television Between Extremism and Moderation (Film & Screen Media)

The Russian TV show Vremena [Times] represents a synthesis of Western and Soviet models. The show, recently discontinued, was moderated by the Western-trained Vladimir Pozner.(Vladimir Pozner’s biography:  http://www.russiaproject.org/part2/titans/pozner.html (accessed October 14, 2010).)  Pozner rose to prominence during the early perestroika years by co-hosting several US-Russia video–links and by acting as a critical political observer. His persona is important for an understanding of Vremena’s format. Vremena was what is known in Russian as an authorial [avtorskaya] program, organized around the personality and concerns of a charismatic broadcaster who adopts the stance of a leading intellectual. As … Read more

A Path of No Return: Goran Rušinović’s “Buick Riviera” (Film Review)

Buick Riviera, directed by Goran Rušinovi?, 2008.  Written by Goran Rušinovi? and Miljenko Jergovi?, 86 minutes, Propeler Film, Croatian Television, Tradewind Pictures (Germany), Refresh Production (BiH), Platform Pictures (USA), Film and Music Entertainment (UK).

Goran Rušinovi?’s Buick Riviera is one of many films dealing with violence in the Slavic part ofthe Balkans during the last fifteen years. What sets it apart from the rest is the fact that it transposes the war both temporally (through the continuation of the war on a psychological level in the post-war period) and geographically (through re-location to another continent). Despite its specific Balkan … Read more

Vladimir Paperny, “Mos-Angeles Two” (Book Review)

Mos-Angeles Two. Vladimir Paperny. Moscow: NLO, 2009. 216 pp.

Vladimir Paperny’s new book Mos-Angeles Two is a retrospective, nostalgic compilation of writings from the author’s recent and distant past. Revealing personal and professional motivations, describing spaces and feelings both imaginary and real, the introspective approach of his book makes for a highly personal project. Paperny was raised and educated in Moscow and then settled in the U.S. with the “third wave.”  A skilled art historian and designer, he emigrated during the political epoch ironically called “the flourishing of the sundown” (rastsvet zakata), with its closed artistic dissident … Read more

Blue Noses at Guelman, Moscow (Exhib. Review)

Blue Noses (Viacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburov), Proletarian Conceptualism, Guelman Gallery, Moscow, December 22, 2009 – January 21, 2010.

Russian art provocateurs Blue Noses continue to trick the audience by a mixture of satire, humor, and provocation in the new series of photographic prints, Proletarian Conceptualism, at the Gelman gallery, Moscow.

The duo’s photograph of two kissing policemen (An Epoch of Clemency, 2004)


banned by Russia’s culture minister from traveling to a scheduled show in Paris in 2007–pushed all the right buttons, revealing the hypocrisy of military morals and state censorship. In the new show, Blue Noses … Read more

The 4th International Baku Art Festival (Exhib. Review)

The 4th International Biennale of Contemporary Art “Alüminium,” Shirvanshah Palace, Baku, Azerbaijan, December 11-17, 2009.

The 4th International Baku Art festival opened among the vaults and minarets of the event’s main venue, the Shirvanshah Palace, one of a handful examples of fifteenth-century Islamic architecture.

Housed at multiple venues around the city, including the hulking former Museum of Lenin (now State Carpet Museum),the festival showcased works by 65 contemporary artists from Central Asia, Russia, Europe, and the United States.

Around the city of Baku, a battle has unfolded between desires to update past glory, or to enter the globalized world and … Read more