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Group exhibition:
ID: E13.6


Title:

Manifest in the Presence of the Viewer




Date:
September 20 — 27, 2013

Place:
Azgur Museum, Minsk, Belarus

Curator:
Ales Kudrashou

Artists:
A. R. Ch., Zhanna Gladko, Polina Kanis, Anish Kapoor, Sergey Kiriushcenko, group «Lena Krasit», Maxim Samosevich, Sergey Shabohin, Anna Sokolova, Roma Svechnikov, Ruslan Vashkevich
Works:
Series Every Day I Talk to the Dead and Alive Artists;
video Art Terrorism


Sergey Shabohin:
fragment from the series
Every Day I Talk to the Dead
and Alive Artists
,
Ader,
2009





Explication:
Today's world of information abundance and intense rhythm of life under the dictatorship of capitalism did not pass the art field: male and female artists have for a long time been spared from their prophetic burden, but it led to the other extreme. The view of the audience often flies by, works are read superficially, formally, clearly, in an investment-oriented manner, while the exhibition itself is often but a good setting for a cocktail reception or a photo set.

Artists inevitably cause a reaction from the viewer, who already at the exhibition often has one of the maxims "for" or "against" (but they rarely look so emotionally civilized). Voicing their bitingly trenchant "estimates" or formalist analysis using stereotype rhetoric, the audience quickly gets rid of a long reflection on the work, neglecting its heuristic potential, followed by "excited recognition of oneself in a strange thing" (M. Zhbankov) and the pleasure of catharsis.

For this reason the objective of the project is to concentrate on the figure of the art addressee, to reveal with a gesture the fact that empathy and the exhibition thinking of the viewer are a continuation of the artist’s statements. Exposure is the total Environment with manifestos 13 artists (both literal manifestos and implicit). The purpose of the curator of the exhibition is to reveal the fact that the works are just references to the reality itself. The second purpose is to illustrate  consumption of art. That all prompted the choice of a metaphor of the familiar web-link as the product of the artist. The composition and selection of the artists should pose questions, but such polyphony of art practices reveals that no matter what form art could take replying, saying, creating of meaning are a priority for the artist. Also, "ferocious" requirement pretentious and inquisitive viewer influenced the choice of participants.

Как часто хотелось уйти с выставки? Насколько скучны выставки современного искусства? Смыслообразование и спектакулярность в работах художников? Зрительские мотивы и ожидания? Может ли зритель быть соавтором?

Эти вопросы тематизирует выставка «Манифест в присутствии зрителя». Главная задача выставки – сконцентрировать внимание зрителя именно на роли зрителя в творческом процессе, выявить его присутствие. Экспозиция представляет собой общий энвайронмент с манифестами разных лет (как буквальных манифестов, так и неявных) 13 художников. Среди участников выставки выступают не только именитые и молодые белорусские авторы, но также и зарубежные авторы. Выставка является одним из участников программы «На пути к современному музею 2013», которая проходит в рамках Недели современного искусства в Минске.


Text from the exhibition:
Living is like tearing through a museum.
Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw,
thinking about it, looking it up in a book,
and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once.
Audrey Hepburn
Prologue

Her mood in the morning was not just equal to zero, it was absent, no sign of it, it was gone. She would like to think that it disappeared the previous night, but it was gone many nights ago. She was not compelling again, for it became commonplace for Her that at Her work She was surrounded by mirrors that gave Her no opportunity to make a mistake. She again today is in search of a look, any non-primitive look, any non-lustful 8 seconds. He did not fall out of her hopes, either.

As usual, He is obsessed with the same desire of Dance, only the Dance did not meet all their expectations and requirements. Already familiar headache caused by a working day is for Him a bigger reason for another bout of exaltation. He is irresistible. He has His own manners, and even the basics of etiquette. The sense of style is abundant: the tie and the starched shirt, not a cheap suit, and a myriad of spots of light on His shoes. He is all turned-out, no crumpled folds, no silly little things. He was invulnerable.


Guidelines

There is music in the room. It’s Annie Lennox’s “Money Can't Buy It”.
Enters She.

1. Her slender beautiful hands glide over the knees, rising higher upon the dress, slightly rolling it slowly higher and higher.
He always likes the beginning. This slight affectedness always awakens something in Him, awakening Him from His usual condition.

2. She bends slightly, only just hinting at something more; Her hair falls from Her shoulders, shooting at the audience with a bright wave. Without touching Her breast, She sharply raises Her hands, weaving Her fingers through Her hair, shaking Her head, letting the shock-head out. She puts forward Her fragile and naked shoulder, forcing a look at the dress, and there is not so much of it there.
He really looks at the dress.

… Money can’t buy it, baby...

3. Her deceptive calmness suddenly falls apart and She finally opens Her eyes.
He notices Her moving towards Him, passing gracefully and a little too fast. Stopping a few steps away (this is not an inch away, so why are His fingertips burning so hard?).
He feels the blood coming down from somewhere above, from the head, moving towards the center of His body.

… Sex can’t buy it, baby...

4. Stopping a few steps away from Him, she lifts the corner of Her lips – quickly, almost imperceptibly.
He watched and absorbed, clinging to the armchair, as She slowly raised Her hand, as She draws a circle with Her wrist; silver bracelets capture His attention.

5. A bend of the wrist, of the elbow, of the shoulder...
It begins to enchant, to subdue, to weave Him.

… Drugs can’t buy it, baby...

6. She feels Her body, again slightly arches her back, sliding Her long fingers on Her left shoulder, long the same naked collarbone, neck, where little blue veins are struggling helplessly and almost imperceptibly. She moves Her hip, writing a circle.
He sighs and swallows.

7. Lowering Her hands, She quickly, not allowing to follow the line of Her body, touched the tip of Her dress, ending above the knee. Touches the fabric smoothly with two finger and starts to move it up following a strange and mysterious path. Right and left. Right and left. Right and left. Draws a figure of eight with Her hips, exposing Her legs higher and higher.
A sigh comes out of His throat – He already sees the end of the stocking. In a second His body is hit by fast ripples, making His muscles stiff, and now He could feel His body.

… You can’t buy it, baby...

8. With Her right hand She slides up to the hip and above. Touches slightly Her belly and moves a hand behind Her back, arching, placing Her feet slightly apart. Letting go the other end of Her dress with Her fingers (which did not fall, but stayed in its place – in the middle, at the edge of the stockings), She sighs, causing a break away from the spectacle and a gaze at the face.

9. She glides Her right foot on the floor. She begins to raise Her dress, bending. Brittle bones in the hips.
He grits His teeth and His fist.

…I believe in love alone
yeah, yeah…

10. She throws her head back. The fabric, starting to slide up again, slightly clings to the piercings on Her belly.
He cannot look away, for a long time nothing has fascinated Him so much.

11. Her fingertips slightly touch the opening skin, leaving the body trembling. A beautiful – lace-trimmed, certainly expensive, by a strange coincidence, in Her style – bra, a pendant on the breast. Hands slowing down, eyes shutting, and a bra strap falls off Her shoulder by chance.
He is enthusiastic about the chance! Even more about that it (the chance) has provoked more and more increasing activity in his pants.

...throw away the key...

12. She is watching Him closely, and she knows it’s not a damn thing by chance – it’s a long-rehearsed trick.

13. She turns Her back to Him, easily undoing the hooks – the bra rests on the floor. With Her foot She sends it to the far end, which He watched, leaning slightly forward.
He hears the music, He has an intense pulse, excited light blows to the temples and an increasing activity in the groin area. And He could not make out the music. For Him, all was mixed into a single audio stream, all the sounds turned into a vegetative tingling of only one thought in His head.

… I believe in the good vibration…

14. She continues. Starting from the feet – light swinging, but just to the music – hips, buttocks, slightly faster, as if to emphasize something to be remembered – beautiful stockings on slender, maddening legs. She turns around to face him, leans forward, gently moves Her neck so that Her hair falls on Her breast. Gently raises Her shoulders, throws Her hair with a gesture, touching with Her thin, always cold fingers on Her nipples, which begin to harden, and descends to the navel, encircles the loop with a slight movement, touches an earring and slowly puts Her hand to the belt of Her stockings.
But some thought made Her stop, the one that kidnapped Her mood in the morning. She walks forward, not gently, even violently, freezes there, for a moment...

…Won't somebody tell me what we're coming to…


Epilogue

- My name is Lily.
- Yes, yes, yes, f..k it, take off your clothes. Here’s five hundred...
From a text by Katerina Shamarina

Within project:
On the Way to the Contemporary Museum