The Dialectics of Hopelessness: Visions and Visibility Around the 2005 Moscow Biennale

In Russia, the last three years have passed under the banner of economic and political consolidation. This banner does not just symbolize “unity”, presented as an abstract concept of the consolidated, federalized State. Instead, it flies above all areas of socio-cultural production, heralding the artificial construction of a new (Russian) “way of life”, modelled on a fusion of bureacratic socialism and crypto-fascist hodge-podge life-style patriotism. Yet despite all of the comprehensive talk of security, administrative rationalization, controlled work conditions (offices rather than black- markets), and domestic comfort (“Mother knows best”), this “way of life”, this seemingly self-perpetuating stability, always looks artificial, much like a monkey in a suit of armor. All hell is breaking loose everywhere, Russia included, as the old infrastructure seems to be heading for a serious crisis. “Time is out of joint” on “The Planet of the Apes”, full of ruptures and breaks, taking on increasingly monstrous forms, and no amount of make-up can make a monkey into a man. Still, most politicians and business-people seem to believe that true reforms begin with cosmetics. This does not simply amount to an image-campaign but a redefinition of visibility […] Continue reading more ->