The expression “window to Europe” was present even in the very first press release issued by the Manifesta Foundation in which St. Petersburg and the state-run Hermitage Museum were announced as the venue for Manifesta 10 in 2014. It was, of course, impossible to do this without this splendid metaphor, which is intended to link the European biennial with the city that is seen as the most “European” in Russia.
The metaphor had become a central topos of Russian cultural history thanks to Alexander Pushkin's poem “The Bronze Horseman”. Pushkin quoted the Italian philosopher of the Enlightenment, Franceso Algarotti, who had described Petersburg as the window through which Russia looks at Europe. But the reverse is also true: Petersburg is the display window in which Russia presents itself to Europe to prove its European character.
The Manifesta 10, however, has become a hostage to this metaphor. For Petersburg, it could have become both the window through which the city looks at Europe and a window front in which the city proves its Western orientation to Europe. But in the current situation, it runs the risk of becoming a distorting mirror reflecting the most unfriendly aspects of Russia's current cultural policies and politics in general.
The decision by the Manifesta Foundation to hold the event in St. Petersburg was met with some scepticism by the international art world. But the location was ideally chosen with regard to the spirit of the Manifesta: after the Soviets renamed the city Leningrad, the former capital of the Russian empire led a miserable existence as a provincial city. Hopes that arose during the Perestroika for a renaissance were not fulfilled. In the past ten years, the provincialisation of cultural life in the city has taken on dimensions that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times: the emigration of the cultural elites, intellectuals, artists and scientists is much stronger today than during the USSR era. Back then, Leningradians moved to Moscow; now, the whole world is open to Petersburgians. As a result, cabaret artists perform in the legendary Petersburg Philharmonia, the theatre scene has died out and there are barely any exhibitions of noteworthy dimensions. Under the current city leader, this “most European city in Russia” has more or less turned into the country's most conservative city. The present Petersburg Governor Poltavchenko was a KGB officer, and is seen as representing a strict version of Russian orthodoxy. For example, a homophobic law that provides for legal penalties for “homosexual propaganda” among minors offers many possibilities for censorship in the cultural field because of its vague wording. After this law was at first introduced in St. Petersburg, an analogous law was adopted for the whole Russian Federation. It could even been asserted that a war for traditional values is currently being waged in the city – with, on the front line, alleged Cossacks: soldier peasants from the south of the Russian empire and Russian Orthodox fundamentalists.
This “war” did not spare the Hermitage, either: around a year ago, a group of believers felt insulted by a purportedly “fascist” exhibition by Jake and Dinos Chapman that was on display in the Hermitage's General Staff Building. The state prosecutors investigated the exhibition for extremism, but finally shelved the probe.
Unfortunately, the Hermitage also possesses a silver shrine to Alexander Nevsky. After the October Revolution, museum staff had saved this outstanding monument of the Russian Baroque from being melted down. Now, the Russian Orthodox Church is calling for that which was “stolen” to be returned, meaning not just the shrine, but also two private chapels in the Hermitage that were used exclusively by the Tsar, his family and court before 1917. As a result, things turned into a kind of Orthodox Occupy event: religious activists organised regular prayers in the museum. The museum directors did not turn to security authorities, however, but adopted a form of position warfare: a male choir called “Slavs” sings regularly in front of the Nevsky Shrine, taking up the space that could be occupied by the praying demonstrators. This small story illustrates how the Hermitage (like other Russian cultural institutions) is dealing with a difficult situation: as the national governing authorities are on the side of the conservative forces (as has been seen in the past ten years in court cases against curators, artists and even Pussy Riot), it is not expedient to address the public through media. And, at the same time, one does not speak of censorship in the museum: the curators of many large art institutions in Russia, however, admit in confidential conversations that art works are removed from exhibitions either as a result of self-censorship or of anonymous complaints. The Hermitage perhaps hopes that the Manifesta, and especially the department in charge of the latest art trends, could act as a kind of writ of protection. But is the museum willing to exhibit art works that deal with politics, religion, gender, sexism, xenophobia or nationalism – themes constantly addressed by contemporary art?
When the Manifesta foundation chose St. Petersburg, it was immediately accused of having economic motives and a bureaucratic predilection for wanting to stick to the beaten track: after all, the side doing the inviting has to pay the lion's share of the expenses. The municipal budget of Petersburg makes available 142 million rubles, and the Hermitage has sponsors, contacts and big possibilities. But not everything has to do with money; bureaucrats have other joys too, such as the celebration of anniversaries – the Manifesta is taking place for the 10th time; the Hermitage is celebrating its 250th birthday. In was in 1764 that Catherine the Great purchased the first pictures that formed the basis of the Hermitage, and she was extremely proud that her quickly assembled art collection was the equal of those established by other European monarchs. The present-day Hermitage, whose collections were massively enlarged during the Soviet era, is now one of the five biggest art museums in the world. And the Manifesta would have been able to put together an impressive exhibition here in which the traditional museum could be criticised as eurocentric, colonialistic, racist and sexist.
However, the appointment of Kasper König as curator of the Manifesta 10 was a disappointment to many: no radical who would have made a splash with particularly innovative curatorial ideas had been invited after all. König is an experienced museum professional of the older generation who has been involved with contemporary art for a long time, is known for his reverence towards prestigious venues and does not tend towards provocations. He immediately explained that the main exhibition of Manifesta 10 would be shown in the General Staff building and spoke about planning smaller artistic interventions in the permanent exhibitions in the Hermitage's main building as well. This is by no means radical even for conservative Petersburg: since 2000, the PRO ARTE fund has been organising the festival Contemporary Art in the traditional museum, in 2003 the Hermitage took part in it as well, and in 2011 the Hermitage curator Dmitri Ozerkov showed works by the British sculptor Antony Gormley in the museum's collection of antiquities.
A complete list of the participants in the main project at the Manifesta 10 was not published until the end of March. König, however, had explained prior to this that works by the two deceased artists Timur Novikov and Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe would be on display. In other words, representatives of the renaissance that took place in the Perestroika era, who are now already seen as classics, were selected as if nothing had happened in the city since then.
König was, however, received joyfully in the Hermitage: the museum's directorship could assume that the curator is both sufficiently experienced and cautious, and that the walls of the museum are so thick that a public scandal can be kept away. However, things didn't go completely without some uproar: artists repeatedly reminded the curators of the Manifesta 10 that money still always comes with strings attached, and that agreeing to be financed by a certain state means agreeing with the policies of that state.
The first significant international campaign against the Manifesta 10 began last summer. On the internet site change.org, a petition appeared in which, with reference to the homophobic legal situation, the demand was made not to hold the biennial in St. Petersburg. Local LGBT activists advocated the opposite position – they spoke of the fact that international isolation did not help and that the biennial itself could become a place for discussing problems of homophobia. The Manifesta itself latched onto the latter idea and reminded everyone of its focus on dialogue between different cultures. It declared its intention to support the LGBT movement with a broad-based social discussion. How this support is to be manifested is still unknown, however. The fact that the deceased Novikov and Mamyshev-Monroe are among the Russian artists does not mean anything in itself, either. In Russia, an artist's “non-traditional sexual orientation” does not automatically turn his or her art into an instrument that can be used to fight for sexual equality.
The current protest campaign that erupted in connection with events in Ukraine, however, makes a much more earnest impression. At first, the Odessa-born Yuri Leiderman, who had taken part in the first Manifesta in Rotterdam in 1996, called on the international art scene to boycott the event. Then, signatures began to be collected on change.org to support the demand to postpone the biennial for as long as Russian troops remained in Ukraine. In response to the question of whether one should take money from a state without sharing the political responsibility of that state, the initiators unequivocally said: “We feel that participating in cultural events in Russia at the present time constitutes a legitimation and approval of the Russian aggression against democratic Ukraine. We ask all participating artists, curators, organisers and subsidy providers who are involved in Manifesta 10 to support this petition in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”
Along with the idea of postponing Manifesta 10, there were other proposals: Maria Alyokhina from Pussy Riot suggested holding Manifesta 10 in Ukraine. But in Ukraine, the Kiev Biennial, called Arsenale, had already been postponed to 2014 – not because of calls by Ukrainian artists to boycott the organiser, Mystetskyi Arsenal, after a censorship scandal in 2013, but owing to the political situation in the country. Olga Tobreluts from Timur Novikov's New Academy, in her turn, recommended having the main project at the Manifesta 10 carried out by Ukrainian artists. However, these latter increasingly said they would not take part in exhibitions in Russia. That included Manifest 10. The curator Marina Shtsherbenko, along with the artists she had invited, Daniil Galkin and Maria Kulikovskaya, were among those to cancel their participation in the Manifesta parallel programme.
The Manifesta reacted to all the boycotts and protests with a short communiqué: “We feel that an end to the preparations for the biennial would be perceived as a continuation of Cold War rhetoric and not represent a worthy response to the difficulties of the current geo-political situation.” In addition, a long commentary by Kasper König was published in which the following can be found among many general and true words: “I do not think that holding the biennial in St. Petersburg has anything to do with supporting political decisions that are currently being taken by the Russian government. [...] It goes without saying that the current political situation is not simple and in many regards very unpleasant, and that we must avoid self-censorship. My contract allows for artistic freedom to any extent that does not go against the laws of the Russian Federation. Despite this, we do not want to exhibit anything that could be reduced to cheap provocation. At the same time, however, we understand that Manifesta 10 could be misused by political players as a platform for self-righteous self-representation.”
The “freedom of art that does not go against the laws of the Russian Federation,” and “cheap provocation” – König's rhetoric recalls that of the Russian bureaucrats to an amazing extent. It is, incidentally, only natural that for curators of König's generation, a protest like that carried out by Pussy Riot is seen solely as a form of political activism without any connection to art. This suspicion cannot, however, attach to the younger associates of König, such as Joanna Warsza, who was in charge of the “public programme” of the Manifesta. She previously co-curated the 7th Berlin Biennale with Artur Żmijewski, to which Occupy activists were also invited. When asked whether protests against war would be included in the “public programme” of Manifesta 10, Warsza initally gave the kind of bureaucratic answers that Russian officials customarily use to communicate with journalists. Only afterwards, after reports about it appeared on Colta.ru, one of the very last remnants of freedom of opinion in Russia, did Warsza answer in a manner that is more redolent of a progressive curator: “In this tense situation, in which there are calls for a boycott, we are caught up in an old political dilemma in our work with artists: Engagement or no engagement? While we are, without a doubt, opposed to the Russian military intervention in Crimea and do not share the view of the Russian government, we at the same time make a stand against an attitude of West-centred superiority and the many 'double standards' in Europe, which entail a moral conflict of values. We are indeed confronted by one of those moments where art is particularly necessary to engage critically with the complexities and conflicts of our time. Our projects will clearly not represent the stance of the Russian government. I think that provided we as curators, artists and team work and react to the context in a sufficiently complex manner, we will not be exposed to self-censorship and will not be intimidated or limited in our scope of action. At this difficult time, we should be particularly careful not to equate the population, our audience, with the government or display any schadenfreude. Up to the present day (something which can, of course, change with the political situation), we have not given up our critical attitude, and we will respond with projects that engage reactively and performatively with the situation.” Here, one senses a certain doubt whether work can be carried out freely and without self-censorship, particularly at a time when a “people's control group” counts every swastika in the Chapman exhibit in the name of orthodoxy and Cossackness and meticulously studies a crucifixion scene to ascertain any “extremism”. Even if Manifesta 10 does, in some miraculous way, become a platform for absolutely free artistic discussion, questions remain: Is it ethically correct to take part in artistic discussions in one of the greatest museums in the world in a country in which the parliamentary president declares that parliament is no place fo political discussions? Doesn't a European biennial thus become a display window in which liberal values and freedom are showcased – things that are trampled underfoot in Russia? At any rate, the artists' group “What is to be done?” (Chto delat?) has stated that it will not cooperation with Manifesta 10. Instead, it is working on its own project, a solidarity exhibition put together by Ukrainian and Russian artists, authors, intellectuals and cultural activists. While the civil-war-like situation on Kiev's Maidan reached its climax, the Petersburg performance artist Petr Pavlensky set up barricades made of burning tyres not far from the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in the museum district of Petersburg to show solidarity with the Ukrainian revolutionaries. It was here that Tsar Alexander II was once murdered in a terror attack. It was announced a few days ago that Petr Pavlensky was under investigated. He was detained, at least temporarily.
Translated by Timothy Jones