Jilted artists seek solace in ugliness
bab...@netscape.net
"nikst" <ni...@glasnet.ru> wrote:
> The Guardian
> 12 March 1999
>
> Jilted artists seek solace in ugliness
>
.....cut.....
> Attempts to create a truly contemporary culture have led down blind alleys or
> towards dangerous extremes. The latest generation of Moscow artists, such as
> Alexander Brener, best known for daubing a painting by Kazimir Malevich with a
> lurid, green dollar sign, and Oleg Kulik, who has photographed himself having
> sex with dogs, are on a crusade to outmanoeuvre the ugliness of society by
> being even more ugly and brutal.
>
> Popular heavy metal band Metal Corrosion are openly fascist. Timur Novikov's
> Neo-Academic movement is engaged in a battle against "Western" modernism. And
> the works of state-sponsored artist Ilya Glazunov
what a swine...after causing his poor suffering wife to throw herself
out of a building...
> depict thick-lipped black
> youths carrying off naked white women and bearded Hasidic Jews sipping Russian
> blood.
at least he's not prostituting her image anymore...
> "Russia is not in a good state of cultural health right now," says novelist
> Viktor Yerofeyev. "Theatre is dead. Music is terrible. Of course Russian
> culture is in better health than President Yeltsin, but even so, this is not
> its finest moment."
>
As R. May pointed out, artists (as well as neurotics) have a predictive
quality...they anticipate their culture's later scientific and
intellectual experience.
Sir Herbert Read noted how "The water reeds and ibis legs painted in
triangular designs on neolithic vases in ancient Egypt were the prediction of
the later development of geometry and mathematics by which the Egyptians read
the stars and measured the Nile."
The sense of proportion of the Greek Parthenon, the powerful dome of
Roman architecture, and the medieval cathedral all had precedents in
their cultures' art. "The arts anticipate the future social and
technological development by a generation when the change is more
superficial, or by centuries when the change, as the discovery of
mathematics, is profound".
The artist, the "antennae of the race" as Ezra Pound described,
anticipates his culture's future development.
As an example, Cezanne's "schizoid" (in the words of Merleau-Ponty)
depiction of stones and trees, before his time in the well-rooted world
of the 19th century, anticipated the impersonal free-floating
twentieth.
So now in Russia we have a society with vulgar racism, sex with animals,
and vandalism in its future...a complete cultural breakdown.
And certain elements in Ukraine wish to join their country with Russia
on this ride into decay.
Which is not to say that Ukraine should blindly fall for the West.
The Poles are being quite reasonable seeking NATO's protection.
But they should not forget Ukraine...
"So still," wrote the Sisters of Mercy,
"so dark all over Europe.
And I ride down the highway 101.
By the side of the ocean heading
for sunset..."
Indeed, because as Spengler predicted Europe is in its dark winter,
comfortable certainly but no longer relevant, and the American sunset
is also at hand (my father, an Oxford-trained executive, believes this
strongly himself - one reason why he has diligently taught his children
the Ukrainian language). The future of Europe and, indeed of "Faustian"
civilization, is with the Slavs - and by this I mean not Russia.
Like the Vandals and Visigoths in another time, Russia stirred some sh*t
up but it is now leaving the stage (its artists point the way toward
their nation's future oblivion!), ushering in the way for Poles,
Ukrainians and others. Just as, long ago, the Franks, Anglo-Saxons,
and Germans took the place of the Visigoths and Vandals.
Anyone who has been to Poland recently has felt the energy and vitality
of a culture enjoying a new spring, in contrast to France, England or
especially old 15th century powers like Portugal.
It is my hope that Poland will not allow itself to be weighed down by the
West, but instead will help bring in young Ukraine and thus (because
without Ukraine's millions the Poles and Czechs may not be so
significant), will bring about the beginning of the "Slavic" stage of
European history, following the "Romance" and "Germanic" phases.
The future of Europe is in the East.
And I'm glad that Kwasniewski sees that, and insists on not allowing
a wall to develop between eastern and western Europe. I wish him
luck.
The future of European civilization depends upon it.
Babai
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