Moscow. Never before has there been a Prigov retrospective of this magnitude, although Dmitrij Aleksandrovic Prigov, alias Dmitrij Aleksanyc ¹, who died in 2007, was definitely omnipresent on Moscow’s art scene during his last decades. It must have been his dazzling artistic personality that during his lifetime blocked a more focused and comprehensive view of his very extensive oeuvre. But it is worth taking a look – as the exhibition, curated by Ekaterina Degot at Moscow’s Museum for Contemporary Art (MMSI), proves. The exhibition is merely the preamble to a veritable Prigov revival. Parallel to this showing, Moscow’s State Center for Contemporary Art (GCSI) is staging a festival in commemoration of the artist. And for 2009, renowned Moscow curator Andrej Erofeev is planning another exhibition, although this is subject to an acquittal in the current criminal proceedings in which he’s involved ². In 2010, the state showcase institutions the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg) plan to present yet another large-scale retrospective for what would have been the artist’s 70th birthday. For this, there has been mention of US curator Robert Storr.

But curator Ekaterina Degot has already provided a clear standard – although her large-scale exhibition practically only shows works from the estate and those that belong to the family. All the same, Degot has filled three large floors at the MMSI – along with the staircase, a central and linking element, which is wallpapered with texts from the 1986 performance »To the Citizens!« Back then, Prigov had posted hundreds of short lyrical, ironic, intellectual poems in the public space – without permission. For instance, »Citizens! Don’t forget! Please!« – the title of the current exhibition, or »Citizens! How often does the people’s hero turn into the people’s enemy, and vice versa! Dmitrij Aleksanyc«. Although those were the early days of perestroika, the authorities were not amused. And Prigov, a member of the USSR’s state artists’ union since 1975 and thus officially an artist, soon found himself in a psychiatric clinic. Friends were able to free him.

It was inevitable that »To the Citizens!« would not be Prigov’s only work heavy on text, seeing as he wrote and composed poems daily. He himself often linked this almost Protestant work ethic, unusual for Russia, to his family’s German ancestors. By 2006, Prigov had, according to his own reckoning, written 36,000 poems – less than a one tenth of a percent made its way to the top floor of the current exhibition. By no means as literature – the curators are convincing in their position – but as illustrations of a production in which the boundaries of verbal, visual and performative art are consistently overstepped and even dissolved. Dozens of brochures are on display with poems in which Prigov wrote about anything that occurred to him, for instance the sound of the word »Kabakov.« Short, witty texts can be found written on and in cans, to which Prigov dedicated topics like »biblical names,« »Russian« or the »unity and friendship of all peoples.«

But Prigov was also extremely productive in non-verbal forms of expression; he was, for instance, forever drawing – with a particular penchant for large-scale hatching. In the best sense of the word, he constantly came up with things off his restless cuff. In many of these works, he commented on or added to visual found footage, at times classically postmodern in the sense of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of the »dangerous supplement.« One example is the »Drawings on Reproductions« (1994) series on display, where he selectively hatched pictures of Russian landscapes or magnificent classicistic interiors. Sometimes, he would add recurring details: red tears, black eyes, an explanatory word or two like »corner« (above the corner of a room in a picture). »Citizens! Don’t Forget! Please« gives a comprehensive overview over his early works from the 1970s, most of them absurdly modernistic graphics that lead us to presume a double entendre. »Phantoms of Installations,« drawings that for the most part sketch minimalist installations in White Cubes, are likewise presented in detail. Some of these fanciful and playful ideas were realized for the first time for this retrospective, for instance an installation that shows a menhir suspended in a room, underneath it a black surface with a glass filled with a red liquid. Nor does the exhibition by any means neglect performance-artist Prigov’s performances; several monitors show three decades worth of historic videos with him declaiming poetry in his inimitable way.

In view of the variety presented, there is only one thing that is bothersome: central political conceptual works are missing, like the series where he portrayed the Soviet party leadership as lyrical monsters. Also for the most part missing are the well-know pages from »Pravda« or »Izvestija« where Prigov hatched mostly bluntly-put terms. At least the curator had the name »Prigov« sketched on a current Russian tabloid as an homage. We are bound to hear that name more often in the future.

 

Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

 

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