"The cultural consensus" / action

“The time of the scattering of stones of the Soviet past — the destruction and adoption of Western art movements that were new at that time — was at the beginning of the collection of something“ holistic ”. Naturally, what was available was used: books, magazines, music, often brought from Moscow. And although Ukraine was already an independent independent state, everything remained the same in the life of communication. The inertia and centripetal tendency towards Moscow subsided, but the “station art” still continued, which did not concern us.

Anatoly Varvarov and I continued the strategy of "cultural intervention" within my country. At the previous Rehearsal exhibition, we met with the editors of Terra incognita magazine, the artist Gleb Vysheslavsky, the critic Katya Stukalova and the collector-patron Vladimir Kashirsky. Thus began our friendships. There are circumstances when they flock to one assembly point: books, music, place, relationship and time of the action. I want to note that in those days I wanted to work purely at night. The night chamber aura of the workshop, the contemplation of the reproduction of the Trinity icon by A. Rublev and the reading of Philosophy of the Common Affair by N. Fedorov helped to escape from a miserable everyday life and discomfort into a space abyss. The desire to concentrate close-minded people resulted in the idea of ​​an action in the workshop of G. Vysheslavsky “Cultural Consensus”.

We liked then for the first time to see reproductions of works of art in a “negative” color version, which seemed to us even more mysterious, intangible images. Then, in the 90s, I didn’t want to portray anything in realistic colors - they looked for any foggy distortion. For a more impressive experience, we chose the maximum size of the picture - from floor to ceiling - 2.85 by 3.66 meters.

Since the semi-basement workshops on Olegovskaya Street were with low ceilings, we had to split the big picture into several fragments. Each one wrote separately, but without a cup, which we materialized (or rented) at a round table near the painting. Wine was poured into the “bowl of unity” and the communion rite was performed by interplaying the artist — the owner of the workshop — the audience — for honesty of communication, while the authors themselves performed only the role of intermediaries. In general, everything looked as if the action took place on the reverse side of the image of the “Trinity” - non-canonical. 

To be continued ... >>>

Igor Konovalov