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Kristina Norman: "The issue of boycotting is the most characteristic theme of this biennale."

Andreas Trossek (3/2014)

Andreas Trossek interviews Kristina Norman, the artist invited to represent Estonia at the contemporary art biennale "Manifesta".


20. VII–3. VIII 2014
Palace square, St Petersburg

 

Founded at the beginning of the 1990s as a reaction to the fall of the Berlin wall, the travelling biennale "Manifesta" has set out to explore the cultural borders of a changing Europe over recent years, and in 2014 it is taking place in St Petersburg. You were invited to participate in the main programme by the Polish curator Joanna Warzsa, who started putting together a programme for the public space of the city at the beginning of this year, and so you presented a project that featured a sculptural installation and a video. I would therefore like to start the conversation with a general question that's also a question of principle: are art and politics linked, and how? When it comes to politics, this time "Manifesta" has seen a fair amount of playing cat and mouse. The German curator of the main exhibition, taking place in the Hermitage and the General Staff Building, Kasper König, has said that even though this time the biennale has no slogan, he still considers "Manifesta" 10 to be a political show.

The fact that "Manifesta" is currently taking place in Russia already makes it political. I think that even a completely apolitical exhibition in Russia in the current situation would be a political statement. When looking at the show Kaspar König has curated, it is clear that he has chosen to address themes that are considered taboos in Russia. St Petersburg is thought to be the most conservative city in Russia and most of the audience is shocked that an event like "Manifesta" even came to the Hermitage, it is like a sacrilege. It could be said that at König's exhibition, the artworks placed among the permanent exhibition at the Hermitage are positively discriminated against, in a way, because they are seen by a sizeable audience that is, as it were, unprepared. The recently opened General Staff Building only sees a marginal number of visitors, mostly people who have specifically come to see "Manifesta". The strategy chosen by König – to subtly sneak into the territory of the official power and set up something so-to-say unsuitable there – illustrates well the potential for an artist or a curator to work with political themes in Russia. The public programme, curated by Joanna Warzsa, was also realised only by going through several levels of power that all had the potential to cut short the opportunity to discuss certain themes through art in the public space. These conditions require artists and curators to be resourceful in terms of how to present the projects and to push them through the bureaucratic machinery. My project obtained the necessary approval from the city because Warzsa presented my Maidan fir tree as a "winter themed sculpture in front of the Winter Palace".

I wonder why there has been so many accusations in the art world from the start that this time "Manifesta" lacked political depth? Maybe it's because the most well known art group from St Petersburg Chto Delat announced in the spring they would not participate, so what choices did the others have, but to criticise and boycott? Although ultimately they did not actually boycott the event.

The Chto Delat case is interesting. I would even say that they did actually participate in "Manifesta" by going back and forth at length between taking part, boycotting and not participating. In the end, by not participating as they claimed, they still managed to cover both positions – they even used "Manifesta" events to advertise events they were holding at the same time as "Manifesta" and some of them were actually carried out in the same spaces as "Manifesta".

Do you not think that there was a certain division of labour between Kasper König and Joanna Warzsa – I mean the main exhibition of the biennale could not probably have been more political, yet the public programme you took part in was obviously more current, political and critical of power?

I believe the ambitions of these two curators were just different. I got the impression that König's motto could be expressed in a Russian proverb: Тише едешь – дальше будешь; "slow but steady wins the race". The process of working did seem to provoke confrontation between Köning and Warzsa, but I believe this was also helpful for the biennale as a whole because they both learnt something from each other. Sometimes it felt like Köning was like a litmus paper for Warzsa, like a testing ground for her ideas and articulations to see if they have enough force. When König said to Warzsa she does not have to be so provocative, it meant that she had succeeded. At the same time, however, as a curator Warzsa prefers complicated and multi-levelled art, just like König; Godardian and politically made art, not explicitly political art, which was carelessly labelled "cheap provocation" by König.

How did you address the calls for boycott as an artist who had decided to participate? Would boycotting "Manifesta" had been the same as boycotting Vladimir Putin's administration? The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovski had even once openly and indifferently said to the journalists that Putin does not need "Manifesta": "It is not the Olympic Games".

Before I went to St Petersburg for the first time, I did consider not participating. I was not at all familiar with the art community of the city, except for some of the members of Chto Delat I had encountered at exhibitions in Europe. I felt taking part was like jumping off a cliff – an unfamiliar culture, hostile political climate, calls for boycott and so on. However, the first person I met in St Petersburg was my old Moldavian friend Pavel Braila, who was extremely positive about the exhibition and I really liked his idea of working with snow from Sochi. Later on, I met other very interesting artists – Olga Zhitlina, Ilya Orlov and many others who had been invited to the biennale by Joanna Warzsa, and I understood that together it is possible to create something in this hopelessly conservative city, where the most interesting art events take place in basements like the Old School Bar or the gallery Borej. At some point it became clear to me that boycotting all of these artists and their fascinating projects would be like building a wall between me and the people in Russia who share similar values.

Nevertheless, we have all heard the news of what is going on in Ukraine, what Russia is doing there, etc. Inevitably it raises the question if it would have been better for an Estonian artist to boycott "Manifesta".

Actually the issue of boycotting is really interesting and I believe it is the most characteristic theme of this biennale. Probably the most useful experience that will be stored in the archives of "Manifesta" 10 is the discussion that the biennale initiated over the nature of the boycott, both east and west of the Russian boarder, and over what the aims of the boycott should be and how they could be achieved. For her programme, Joanna Warzsa commissioned new works from all the artists, and so, the works were born in a constantly changing political situation. This meant that you had to always redefine your project. For example, the events in Crimea or the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine on 17 July, which was three days before my event. The new waves of boycott caused by those events while I was preparing my project helped me to better articulate the message, both for myself and others.

So, how does the current global political situation define your Maidan-themed work?

My work directly addresses the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It was important to me to find a way to talk about it in manner that would not cut all possibilities for a dialogue between my work and a potentially hostile audience. The aim was to try to break the dominant thought patterns about Maidan created in the propaganda war. The Russian propaganda machine depicts the Maidan events as the cause of the civil war in Ukraine. No one talks about the social issues behind Maidan. In my work I use the idea or overlapping the topographies of the two cities – by creating visual analogies, by adding a missing element (that is, the Christmas tree) I construct an imaginary Maidan in the Palace square. The work is made up of two parts – a sculpture titled "Souvenir" (2014) and a video titled "Iron Arch" (2014) that provides the context. "Souvenir" is a typical metal Christmas tree structure used by the city of St Petersburg, and functions as a reference to the 45 metre structure set up by the city of Kiev in Maidan square in November last year that still stands there – and it is mid-August right now! The story of the Christmas tree turned out to be quite revolutionary – it was appropriated by the protesters and plastered with political posters, slogans and flags. The Christmas decorations from the tree were used to build the first barricade on Maidan. The video "Iron Arch" features the artist Alevtina Kakhidze from Kiev who takes the viewer on a tour of Maidan, while physically being on the Palace square, and ties her memories of Kiev to visually similar objects on the square in St Petersburg. The title "Iron Arch" refers to the arch-shaped monument near Maidan, built in 1982 to symbolise the friendship between the people of Russia and Ukraine. The equivalent of the arch of friendship on the Palace square is the triumphal arch that glorifies the victorious Russian army. The current political situation had stripped the monument of friendship between the two nations of its meaning, leaving only a physical form – the iron arch.

 

Kristina Norman Souvenir

Kristina Norman
Souvenir
installation
2014
Courtesy of the artist
Photo by Meelis Muhu

 

 

So the trick is that the layers of memory linked to the main squares of the two cities have been semiotically projected onto one another?

Yes, because the Palace square has also seen revolutions and blood baths organised by the state. The idea of overlapping the topographies activates the square as a territory of power struggles and revolutions. With my work I sort of draw a big question mark – would it be possible to have a revolution in Russia at the moment? Protests under Christmas trees are not unheard of in contemporary Russia either – the falsification of the election result in 2011 brought hundreds of thousands of people to protest against Putin in main squares all over Russia. And this, too, was done under Christmas trees, as the winter holidays were approaching. So, it does make you curious, where are all those people now, when Putin is waging war in Ukraine. I set up my tree in the middle of the summer, which is an unusual time to see Christmas trees, to get the message out to the people that the current political situation is not okay. A tree that is usually associated with the peaceful time of Christmas tries to make people think about establishing peace again.

Every propaganda war is basically a clash of the "big" narratives, so your work could also be seen as displaying the small narratives. By just saying "no" or "Putin is bad" it would also reduce the artist's work to mere propaganda.

Exactly. I decided to work with Alevtina Kakhidze because as an artist I find that the only way to connect to an audience in the context of a propaganda war is to do it by presenting narratives from a grass roots level. The aim is to make the audience doubt even a little that the information that the media feeds them is a facade that hides a completely different world experienced by individuals on the subjective level. Some of the more liberal artists in Russia have expressed their disappointment that "Manifesta", which is usually expected to express strong political views, came to Russia and no revolution followed. I do not think the aim of an art event should be organising revolutions. If there is no potential for revolution in the society, no artist or biennale can instigate it. Art does not have to produce visible results in five minutes. It is enough when art creates some kind of shift in people's consciousness.

 

Andreas Trossek is the editor-in-chief of KUNST.EE.

 

CV
Kristina Norman (1979) is an artist and documentary maker, living and working in Tallinn. In her work, she mostly explores the issues of collective memory. So far, she is the youngest artist to have represented Estonia at the international Venice biennale – in 2009 she exhibited her project "After-War" addressing the issue of the Bronze Solider in Tallinn. Her latest projects include documentaries about the Liberty Monument ("A Monument to Please Everyone", 2011) and the Republic of Transnistria ("PMR", 2014, in collaboration with Meelis Muhu).

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