Everything is placed between the lines, they have a long-term calculation …
Vladimir Vysotsky
This year, Russia is showing a Fair of Ideas at the Venice Biennale (curated by the Strelka Institute: teacher Daria Paramonova, curator of the public program Anton Kalgaev and director of the institute Brendan McGetrick).
Fair Enough - this is the original name of the project that brought our pavilion a special mention (special mention) of the jury of the Biennale, and, strictly speaking, this phrase can be translated as “quite rightly”. Meanwhile, how
we have already told, the title contains a play on words, fair - fair, enough - enough. "Fair enough" is not quite a translation, but there is definitely a similar meaning in the title. The play on words is also embedded in the motto of the exposition (it is written in pink neon letters above the balcony against the background of the lagoon; the same bright pink form for the girls-consultants): “Russia`s past, our present” is also “The past of Russia is our present ", And" The past of Russia is our gift. " In other words, already at the level of the name, our pavilion hints: everything that you see in it is not as unambiguous as it seems at first glance. And it is with this understanding that it is best to go inside.
The interior space of the pavilion is cut into small stands, framed with characteristic aluminum frames with typical headings - these can be seen at any of the numerous EXPOs around the world. The solution of the stands, each of which is decorated in its own style, also has a recognizable "commercial" touch. This is an abundance of advertising printed materials, and catchy, if not flashy graphic design, and, of course, a broadly smiling representative of the "company", ready to tell about the products at the first call. True, the products here are Russian architectural ideas of the 20th (and early 21st) centuries, supposedly put on successful commercial rails, and the representatives are architects, critics and architectural historians. For each theme, a corporate identity, slogan and logo, a “salesperson's” uniform, and a humorous text designed to “sell products” were written - the work of a commercial exhibition was simulated in full and accompanied by an equally kitsch catalog with a colorful page design and different fonts.
By the way, the presence of "consultants" as part of the exposition performance is an important feature of the exhibition; during the opening day, it turned into a celebration of communication: the “representatives” were listened to willingly, and since people were included in the topic and able to support the conversation, the annoying external attributes of the “salespeople” contrasted pleasantly with the topic - in fact, they were not talking about goods, but about ideas (I must say that a similar format of “consulting” was also used in the Swiss pavilion, but the atmosphere there is rather archive-based, calm, and in the Russian pavilion, on the contrary, it is very noisy; however, the consultants have dispersed and now the exhibition works without its important opening part).
50 consultants helped Strelka to select the iconic themes of the century, including Anna Bronovitskaya, Vladimir Paperny, Grigory Revzin, Mark Khidekel, Marina Khrustaleva, Alexander Lozhkin, Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Mark Meerovich, Dmitry Fesenko and many others - their names are listed in a long list at the entrance to the pavilion.
Each idea is offered for "sale" and distribution around the world: moreover, if you go to the right (dacha, palaces of pioneers, VKHUTEMAS, Chernikhov), the proposal at first looks serious, but to the left of the entrance (new-made Voentorg, retrodevelopment), it is somehow easy to immediately understand that you participate in the drawing. However, the stands are mixed, there are more, there are less obvious ones.
The list of Russian ideas "sold at the fair" turned out to be quite variegated. A predictably important place, about a quarter, was taken by the avant-garde: Lissitzky's multimedia exhibition design ("Lissitzky's space does not describe the existing reality, it represents the desired future and organizes the masses in a collective effort to achieve it"); educational methods of VKHUTEMAS; ideas of Chernikhov (an imaginary interview with him is published in the catalog), the “self-sufficient” house of the People's Commissariat for Finance, “ramablok” made of garbage proposed during the war by the Suprematist artist Lazar Khidekel who was retrained as architects, and the round baths of the architect Nikolsky (one of which was recently saved from demolition in Tyumen).
The designs of the famous round baths by architect Nikolsky formed the basis of the “business idea” of Circularity, which proposes to build similar baths in countries lacking fresh water and lacking a developed culture of hygiene. The expressive and extremely ergonomic shape of the round bath allows you to kill two birds with one stone - explains the consultant Konstantin Budarin, - to erect a landmark structure and contribute to more economical water consumption. Numerous diagrams decorating the stand, firstly, agitate for going to the bathhouse (taking a shower, a person spends 3-4 times more water on the same cleaning), and secondly, they analyze in which countries of the world there are round terms would be especially appropriate. It is impossible not to appreciate the English slogan of the project Therms for good terms ("Baths for the sake of improving living conditions", but the "wingedness" of the phrase in translation, of course, is lost), as well as perfectly made models with removable roofs, allowing you to look inside Nikolsky's buildings.
The house of Narkomfin is called the “company” of the same name at its stand as a universal example of urban development, suitable for placing almost any function: it is proposed to make Narkomfin Wellness, the Narkomfin office complex and even a correctional colony from the project of Moisei Ginzburg. suggestive.
In the meantime, showing only "our great avant-garde" in the pavilion would probably be too academic, so that the other three quarters of the exhibition are occupied with completely different things.
At the pole opposite to the avant-garde - the idea of retrodevelopment of the "last utopian" Boris Eremin; it is presented at the Retroactive development stand - with burgundy walls, Biedermeier porcelain and watercolors of buildings that could be restored in their previous forms, critic and journalist Alexander Ostrogorsky. Examples are the HHS and the building of the Berlin Palace under construction. In the catalog you can find a map of the heritage destroyed all over the world (which is supposed to be restored), including not only the Afghani Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban, but also a monument to Stalin in Prague, for example.
Alongside is an even more acute theme - Financial Solutions with the motto “Same, only better” is presented by Voentorg and the Moscow Hotel, symbolizing the practice of creating new-builds with expanded underground areas.
The stand of Estetika Ltd. closes the circle of retro ideas. (he meets the visitor right at the entrance - in order, probably, to immediately and stronger dumbfounded) - the stand is dedicated to the Russian style and offers to decorate "anything" with pre-Petite carved ornaments. Opposite is the Shape inspirations stand, where the iconic forms of Russian buildings over 100 years are collected in the form of models (the forms are also intended for replication and sale). Estetika stand consultant Alexander, talking about his topic of national identity, applied a piece of carving to any volume at the neighboring stand, thus proving that ornament can transform absolutely everything. This pair of "form - ornament", flanking the entrance, looks amazing together and also, probably, denotes the two poles of the century: national ornament and avant-garde plastic (although not only it is represented among the models) oppose each other as two pillars of the Russian XX century.
The center of the main hall is occupied, - you cannot say otherwise, - "Shchusev's Mausoleum": this is a gray cube by Shchusev architects with a staircase, which you can climb and look at the bustling heads of visitors from above, like Brezhnev from the podium; everyone can feel a little bit in the role of a member of the Politburo. The association is no coincidence, Shchusev built both the Mausoleum and the Russian pavilion in Giardini - this year the pavilion celebrates its centenary.
Ideas of the post-war period are presented at the exhibition by the house on Tulskaya, the House of New Life by Nathan Osterman and the Prefab project, the latter, logically developing the ideas of panel housing construction, offers services for the industrial dismantling and processing of old Khrushchev houses; in the catalog, this topic is represented by a complete translation of Nikita Sergeevich's speech about excesses, now many foreigners can read it.
The "house-ship" on Tulskaya was given to the "Ark-Stroy company": Ark translates as "ark", and the house was once built (for employees of the Ministry of Atomic Energy) very solid, in fact it is a house-bunker, a symbol of the Cold War - the curators presented him as capable of surviving any catastrophe: earthquake, Kraken, and all sorts of wars.
New Byt Lab House example at the company's booth New Byt Lab sells Big Data analysis techniques for market planning of housing investments. The house, the construction of which was completed in 1969, was once called upon, no less than nothing, to bring the building of communism closer and develop new standards of socialist life: socialized, but equipped with modern conveniences. In the 1960s, more than 20 research institutes worked on the project, and then for two years more scientists observed life in the house - the stand tells us. The observation process is clearly demonstrated on the model: we can look into residential cells with the roof removed, and, feeling like a “big brother”, observe people living in apartments on mini-screens. Either irony, or a mistake in assembly makes people go in and out through walls, bypassing doors.
There are also themes that do not quite fit into the chronology, but represent the archetypes of Russian and Soviet thinking in general: dacha, palaces of pioneers, metro, VDNKh and "Tour of the Archipelago". The latter is dedicated to the buildings of Russian and Soviet architects abroad, here the main character is a pool for penguins, built in 1934 by the emigrant Berthold Lubetkin in the London Zoo. Therefore, the symbol of the imaginary "travel company" is a penguin, he also adorned the hat of the consultant girl and the traveler's invented passport drawn on the booklet. There were regrettably few foreign buildings, even with Afghanistan and Cuba; especially when compared with
American Pavilion, which this year shows the same thing, but in earnest.
The idea of the VDNKh stand, frankly, is not quite clear at first consideration - the survivability of the exhibition-park, which, in spite of everything, has been visited more and more in recent years.
The Moscow metro is presented as a powerful means of agitation (for example, the awakening of national pride: stained-glass windows referring to Novoslobodskaya show girls with hijabs in London;, the faces of the builders turned out to be recognizably Tajik). At the stand of Soviet pioneer palaces - represented by historian Anna Bronovitskaya with the motto “Enlightenment instead of entertainment” - Disneyland is severely crossed out and drawings of children from the architectural studio “Start” are shown (many visitors to the vernissage wanted to buy them).
The humor of the "summer cottage" stand (Dacha Co-op) lies in the fact that the cottage is interpreted as, first of all, a "storage place" (and not housing) - only more humane and flexible, in contrast to "cold and typical industrial storage." An analogue of the city boxes widespread in the world, and now in Moscow, in which there is a bonus! - you can still live. Many bring any rubbish to the dacha, so that the humor will be close … The typology of "summer cottages" has been developed thoroughly and includes all options from a barn to a "estate" of 2.5 thousand square meters. meters.
And also (according to rumors, not documented, and in general not confirmed in any way) there was a Gulag stand in the project, but the curators removed it (independently, without any instructions from above).
“Friends, and absolutely everyone with whom we consulted, said: what are you doing? You can't take such an exhibition to Venice! But we took a chance and were understood,”said the co-curator of the pavilion Daria Paramonova during the opening day. However, it follows from the co-curator's explanations that not only the parody-commercial style, but also many, very many details and meanings in the pavilion project were thought out and, therefore, completely conscious. In particular: the consultants "worked at the stands", creating a vain, but fascinating atmosphere of endless communication, only on the days of the opening day, the pavilion was already empty on July 8. “It was a calculated effect,” explains Daria Paramonova, “the same thing happens at commercial EXPOs, the hustle and bustle of the opening days is replaced by a light half-abandoned sweat, we wanted to catch this feeling too”.
One way or another, the authors of the pavilion showed themselves as subtle masters of encrypting meanings, conveying and rethinking them through parody and irony - the motley fabric of the exhibition is heterogeneous and illogical, which is justified by the image of a commercial EXPO, where the unification of topics occurs according to a random, market principle. The obvious market flair is followed by the ubiquitous and, probably, virtuoso play of English words (it is everywhere here, in the names, slogans of every stand, at least), which takes us somewhere to Alice in Wonderland: what kind of country is this? When will the “fairy tale burst”, when will Alice grow up and the wonderful land of ideas will become cramped for her?
The viewer is constantly in wait for something like a booth, a trick, a deception, a shape-shifter: brands and companies are invented, consultants are not businessmen and do not sell anything, it is impossible to sell it, and is it necessary to buy it? The European jury of the Biennale saw the top layer - an ironic reading of the "language of commercialization of architecture", but is there still another layer behind it?
For example, we are used to being proud of the great ideas that Russia presented to the world in the 20th century due to the lack of material achievements. Fair Enough, a fair that imposes these ideas as a commodity, is a great occasion to think: what kind of great thoughts have we gifted to the world? How beautiful are they and, in general, are they safe?
Behind the buffoonery in some places (even after the legendary Gulag stand was excluded) an image of an evil clown is visible: behind big data a big brother is hiding, Narkomfin is excellent for a colony, Nikolaev's bathhouse, a masterpiece and a jewel, is offered to third countries as a "washing machine" much inside out, and much should be understood the other way around (as, for example, on TV - what Russians are used to). Children crossed out Disneyland, and to educate them, without having fun, is now in the palace of pioneers. The fair of ideas turns into a celebration of ideology: avant-garde-revolutionary, Stalinist, retrospective Luzhkov - a set of ideological patterns that Russia, as it follows from the parody concept of the pavilion, is now "selling" to the whole world. Foreigners, judging by the reviews, are happy, they were offered a new nesting doll, and even with self-irony included. Will they buy? Will they take it to play? Or a frankly bright cover will scare away and the "fairy tale will burst" at last … Isn't the fair enough?
