What Is to Be Done?

Everyone I'd asked about "Chto delat?" (or "What is to be done?"...the collective of philosphers, visual artists, writers, etc. based in Moscow and St. Petersburg [their name is taken from the 1863 novel of the same title by Nicholai Chernyshevsky]) prefaced their description for me with a slightly condescending warning: "Oh-h-h-h, they're very intellectual."

This consistent response to my inquiries began to give me a complex...just how dumb do folks think I am? Seriously, it was said nearly everytime I asked, as if to imply "Why are you worrying your silly little head over what they're doing...just keep focusing on sheep's eyes and such."

But I had heard about them in New York, seen a few of their contributions to group exhibitions here, and was delighted to realize that one of their members would be participating in the same panel discussion we had been invited to in Bishkek...so I persisted. I wanted to learn more.

Before orchestrating an introduction, though, I stopped in to view their installation at the 3rd Bishkek Exhibition of Contemporary Art. Outside their room was pasted a page of newsprint with huge bold text reading: "Be the Change You Want to See in the World." Inside was projected a fascinating documentary film about the G8 protestors who were corralled into a stadium in St. Petersburg (rather than be permitted to protest where any of the world's leaders [or anyone else for that matter] might see or hear them). Lining the walls of the installation were other pages from the newspaper. On a low table were also stacks of the 14th Issue (September 2006) of the collective's regularly published platform newspaper. This issue focusses on the topic of how change can be brought about through self-education. It's very well written (and/or translated)---published in English and Russian---with several fascinating articles and interviews (although edited to reveal a few too many assumed shared definitions and assessments, and too heavy a reliance on name dropping, for my taste, but... ). The 14th issue isn't yet availble on their website. The excerpts from the opening editorial below were re-typed by me (any typos are most likely mine):

Today, education values are obviously in crisis all over the world. One of the symptoms can be found in the decline of both theories and practices based on the disciplinary, humanist ideal of education, which traditionally empowered their subjects not only a sense of civic rights and responsibilities, but also the means for changing and overturning the present state of affairs. Learning solidarity, dignity, historical subjectivity, and the ability to participate in political life is no longer an irreplaceable part of the eductional process. Moreover, disciplinary autonomy no longer shields this process from market encroachment, especially when its basis in state funding erodes. Education has effectively become an instrument or bargaining chip used in corporate market politics, which are only interested in producing a cost-efficient, obedient work force. The growing servility of education to market demands represents a serious threat to any creativity or vibrancy in a society's development.

OK, so at this point, I'm climbing up on furniture, stomping my feet, punching the air, draping myself in Red, and yelling "Viva La Revolution!!!"

But, alas, it gets a bit complicated after that:

We can resist by spreading and producing alternative forms of knowledge that continue and further develop the emancipatory traditions to be found in a variety of educational practices, thus unlocking the potentiality of a new constellation in society's forces of production.

Such tendencies find their reflection in contemporary art. We see them in the manifold refusals to engage in mythologization and commodity fetishism, the construction of non-hierarchial collectives, and the desire to found artistic practice on various methods of militant research. New "subjects of dissent" in art and culture seek to create "spaces for participation." Such projects in contemporary art have an inalienable self-educational value and might even provide a real alternative to the hegemony of schools and academies.

To their immense credit, "What is to be done?" ask for discourse, rather than just offer their solutions. The same editorial begins:

How do people shape their surroundings? Which points of reference guide their development? Which potentiality do self-organizing structures entail? How should they structure their relationships to existing institutions? Could they ever replace traditional forms of education? Or can they place enough pressure on institutions to make them get involved in the (auto)didactic process?

But there are a number of red flags in those questions for me--- again, a number of assumptions and/or ambiguities that I would prefer be clarified---so, I set off to ask questions.

Sergey Ogurtsov (who is a member, but not one of the initial 10 core members from what I can tell on their website) greeted me pleasantly enough. He's a tall, youngish, handsome man with a ponytail and beard. He said he'd be happy to tell me more about his collective if we could figure out what time made sense (we were at the exhibition's opening). I indicated that I would be looking forward to his lecture the following day as well.

But then things got awkward.

Sergey asked the curator and organizer, Muratbek Djumaliev (who had just introduced us), what time his (Sergey's) lecture would be the next day. Muratbek said the panel discussion began at 10:00 am and that Sergey was scheduled to speak first. Sergey made it very clear to a surprised Muratbek that this simply would not do. No one would attend a lecture so early in Russia, Sergey said. Muratbek charmingly, but firmly, noted that Bishkek was not Russia (a statement that appears to takes on much greater significance in this context the more I think about it). They went a few rounds, with Sergey showing little sign of relenting, making me somewhat uncomfortable (and I assumed also making Eva, a curator from Armenia with us, who was also scheduled to lecture, uncomfortable), so I announced that I would be very happy to go first. This seemed to settle the matter and should have let the awkward moment whither, had Sergey not continued (as if to justify this new order of speakers), "People always expect the most interesting lecture to be last." I looked to Eva, who's actually a friend of Sergey's I believe, to see if she also felt dissed, but saw no indications of such. OK, I'm thinking, he's either socially inept or tossing down a gauntlet. Either way, this was not the place to engage in a duel, so I let it pass.

Later at the reception dinner, feeling relaxed after a few shots of really good vodka, I sat down next to Sergey to see if we couldn't try again. I mentioned how the collective was very highly regarded in the States, how I blogged on politics, and again how I looked forward to his lecture. The exchange went more smoothly this time (he can be very engaging, he's super smart, and we were at a party after all). Still, through a series of comments, he made it clear that as a commercial gallerist I more or less epitomized the essence of the one of the problems his collective sought to solve, at least that's how I interpreted his comments with regards to contemporary art. I tried to highlight the less commercial projects we exhibit, wanting him to at least let his guard down long enough to see I wasn't a raging uber-capitalist with dollar-green ink for blood, but I'm now somewhat certain that's a distinction without a signficance to him.

I had actually anticipated a bit of this response to my participation in the panel discussion, and had asked my friend, the incredibly smart himself artist and curator Christopher Ho, how to craft my lecture to acknowledge or compensate for my symbolism in this series of lectures from otherwise very uncommercial points of view. Chris suggested I go with the "Greed is Good" approach and hit the issue head on, not apologizing. Not that Chris is in that mold of artist or curator himself mind you, just that he understood what my role in the overall panel was and that it was appropriate for me to do it justice. I'm glad I asked. (By the way, before I arrived in Bishkek I realized that what I had thought my lecture was supposed to be on wasn't in fact correct. So all that research I had done on spaces around the world [which many of you so graciously helped me with] ended up being unapplied in that setting. In fact at least two of the spaces folks had recommended were represented at the panel discussion, so it would have been odd for me to have introduced them to the audience. Thanks for the great info, all the same though, I'm still putting it to great use.)

As I had anticipated, Sergey took advantage of the Question and Answer section of my lecture to pontificate on the lack of difference between what I described as more "conceptual" versus more "commercial" art in the presentation I made (insulting two extraordinarily good artists in the room in doing so). He did so with an introduction long enough to qualify as its own lecture, which was more than unfair to the other audience members who may have wanted to ask questions, given he had time reserved later to enlighten them on a topic of his choosing, but his translation of his statements and eventual question for me was much shorter than his original in Russian, so I suspect I have even more reason to be insulted than I knew at the time.

Anyway, we exchanged sharply phrased opinions, with him eventually asking the very question I most dreaded: why would I present the side of a commercial art gallery within the context of the exhibition we had all just seen (it's a very smart, not at all commercial, but not entirely "anti-commercial," exhibition that I'll write more about later). Thanks to Chris's suggestions, though, I was ready. Having laid the groundwork in my lecture for what the role of a commercial gallery is, it was easy enough to respond: "I agree with you that the part of the art world I represent stands in stark contrast to the essence of the exhibition we're all here to experience, but I was invited to represent just one part of a spectrum of places in which artists can exhibit their work and thereby communicate with the public, something you and I seem to agree is important. Beyond that, however, you and I are having a conversation here that's largely leaving out a big part of the audience and perhaps its better if we have it another time." Sergey agreed, and it ended there.

After two excellent presentations on art from Tajikistan and Armenia, I listened to Sergey's lecture (with Bambino translating). There's no taking away from him how compelling his message is, but I couldn't help but wish for a better (less boorish) messenger. He began by belittling the exhibition (titled "Zone of Risk"), suggesting that none of the work in it was at all "risky"...(yes, it took a great deal of restraint not to ask if he realized that he had just insulted his own installation).

I began to suspect his antagonistic opening was calculated, if not his modus operandi, to keep the audience (which was comprised mostly of artists in the exhibition) just angry enough that they listened extra carefully to his lecture, hoping to hear him trip up so they could retaliate. Indeed the Q&A segment was spirited, but Sergey held his own.

I'll confess to having done just that, waiting for an opening to return the favor he had bestowed upon me. There were several opportunities, but in the end, I realized how petty I was being and asked a question I really was curious about: was the question in the paper's editorial "Could they [self-education models] ever replace traditional forms of education?" meant to suggest that "What is to be done?" sought to end the academies? Sergey responded with a very solid and well-considered answer that impressed me, essentially noting that nothing that dramatic was either desired or needed. His answer did underline the one criticism of the collective that strikes me as most valid: they're just ambiguous enough in answering "what is to be done?" themselves, that they're not risking all that much by asking it of others.

Realizing a tit-for-tat style attack question would be petty, though, didn't stop me from asking Bambino to get a photo of Sergey with our logo behind him...just for fun:



Seriously, though, I very much like the subjects "What is to be done?" are exploring, how thoughtfully they're exploring them (you really should read their newspaper online [link above]...it's wonderfully edited), and I'm impressed with the rigor of their project. Sergey may not represent the best social skills the group has to show for itself overall (he did not miss an opportunity to insult me it seemed, responding sharply when I later quite casually asked at a small gathering if all 14 issues of the newspaper were still available: "Not now, and not from me," he said quickly. (OK, dude...don't worry...no one's asking you to rush back to St. Petersburg and round them up.) And yes, normally, I'd consider whether it was not simply that something was getting lost in translation, but Sergey's English is excellent (he lived in Australia a number of years).

Still, we parted ways by me extending a sincere and open invitation to visit us in New York. I hope he does. At the very least so I can get him drunk and finally get him to relax enough to recognize a compliment when it's repeatedly offered.