For more than a year, large-scale restoration work has been carried out at the Polytechnic Museum, and the facade of the building has "disappeared" from city life, hiding behind the scaffolding. The artist Anna Krivtsova proposed to consider the construction process from different points of view, using a vertical landscaping design for the facade of the oldest Moscow museum in the format of “art in an urban environment”, or public art.
Curators Olga Vad (Polytechnic Museum) and Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation) told Archi.ru about the Forest installation, the history and context of its appearance.
Archi.ru:
The project of the installation "Forests" by artist Anna Krivtsova won in 2015 in the public art competition within the framework of the program "Expanding Space. Artistic Practices in the Urban Environment”. Please tell us about this competition
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Anna is one of seven winners. They were selected by a jury, where we wanted to invite public art specialists, but in the end, we invited to judge the competition not only people from the field of contemporary art, but also urbanists, sociologists, gardeners, and other specialists - all of them were united by their interest in the urban environment. 21 works were included in the "long list", later they were shown at the exhibition
"Expansion of space" at HPP-2. After the exhibition, a short list of seven projects was compiled, and we decided to try to implement them in the city.
[Archi.ru in March 2015 published a detailed interview about this competition with Katerina Chuchalina, Program Director of the V-A-C Foundation].
Why did you start implementation with the Forest project?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- This is an unpredictable process. It so happened that the work on Anna Krivtsova's project went faster, and therefore it was implemented first.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- The work on this project went faster, since the Polytechnic Museum became interested in this particular work. I learned about the project while the preparatory work for the exhibition at HPP-2 was underway. We have long wanted to make an artistic intervention in our historical building, while reconstruction is underway there, we looked closely at the projects - and when I saw the Forest project, everything worked out. But not immediately, of course: a long process of negotiations began, the project was adapted for the Polytechnic building, the development of the constructive part, approval, and so on.
What is so unusual about the Forest project? Its pros and cons?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- For me personally, this is a project about a construction site. And construction is an ambivalent phenomenon. On the one hand, there are inconveniences for city residents, their dissatisfaction, etc., and on the other hand, construction is associated with renewal, the introduction of something new - this is a positive process. At the same time, construction is a characteristic feature of the city, because it is constantly growing. It seems to me that the project is commenting on this situation. The human eye is quickly blurred, we do not pay attention to the constant construction, but the "Forest" project, as it were, is pulling this process to the surface. In the future, the installation of plants will move around the city, located on building structures that are temporarily not used due to a pause in work. And depending on the context, this installation will change its meaning. The very meaning of the construction will be presented in different ways. We did not have the task of criticizing the construction process, our interest was in the study of the construction phenomenon as such. But, of course, everything depends on the person, on his perception. The artist herself was interested in the practice of vertical gardening of buildings, which is very important for the city.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- When the Polytech opens in 2018 after reconstruction by the architect Junya Ishigami, it will become a museum-park: the ground floor will be exposed, a garden will be laid out, which will connect with the square on Lubyanskaya Square and the square at the Ilyinsky Gate. And the project with vertical gardening of the construction site rhymed with our plans. In addition, it's really cool that such a seemingly simple gesture can affect how a point is perceived on a city map. The building of the museum has only been under reconstruction for a couple of years, but during the installation we talked a lot with passers-by - and it turned out that the installation took the building out of the blind zone, made it visible again.
As far as the complexities of the project are concerned, these are “sustainable” landscaping systems. Initially, it was assumed that the selected planting system and a set of unpretentious plants - these were exclusively bushes of the middle lane - would allow the installation to stand for a month without additional intervention, feeding exclusively on rainwater. In our cultural production, unfortunately, usually there is no, or very little, time and resources for research, and we often have to rush into battle and experiment on the spot. As part of the exhibition at GES-2, the installation model stood outside all winter, but it turned out that in the Moscow summer, when it is 35-degree heat outside, the stability of the system may fluctuate slightly. So I had to take additional measures to restore it, which, of course, turned out empirically.
I think I understand where the author got such an interest in "green" architecture. It is known that Anna Krivtsova is a student at the Graduate School of Art, Design and Architecture at Aalto University in Helsinki. What is her specialty? Did this affect the visual design of the project?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Her specialty is product design and space design. I think the place of study could not but influence the artist's interest in ecological architecture. By design, the installation should not “work its way out” and simply disappear. Plants are able to survive during the course of the project, and they will not be disposed of in the final: they have a future even after the installation is completed. As for "sustainability", we have already experimented at the last exhibition, where 21 projects from the long list were shown. On it we had no desire to just exhibit drawings and layouts - it's boring. With Anna we tried to make a fragment of the future installation. Last September we planted the plants, and they stood safely until April, just before the close of the exhibition. In fact, according to many landscapers, it was a slight insanity, most of them said that plants - even in the middle lane - would not survive the winter. But it turned out that they were wrong. We found one landscaper - Lelia Zhvirblis, who agreed to do this and was able to successfully implement her plan.
The installation "Lesa" reminded of the projects of "green", ecological construction, where living trees are planted on balconies, roofs of buildings
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Anna is interested in ecological architecture. She said she was inspired by European green architecture and the practice of vertical landscaping in urban environments.
“Nevertheless, such“green”high-rise buildings in European cities represent a full-fledged ecosystem. They are able to influence the ecological situation in the city. Did Anna have an idea to develop this practice through installations in Russia?
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- I believe that changes in the environmental situation in Moscow require a more comprehensive approach. With this project, we wanted to provoke a conversation - as much as possible - about a construction site, which should not necessarily be traumatic for a city dweller, about where the boundaries between private and public space lie, about what are the prospects for “partisan” gardening in a metropolis. If the V-A-C fund succeeds in further developing this project, which I really hope for, then here it will probably be possible to talk about some kind of dynamics.
Returning to associations. The Forest installation is very similar to New York artist Rashid Johnson's In Our Yard, a tall lattice structure with a living ecosystem, now on display at Garage
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- I think visually we just hit the trend! But jokes aside, in fact, plants are the only thing that makes these works alike. They are not similar in content and in the intention of their authors. And, perhaps, it is generally wrong to compare an installation that exists in a museum with a public art project, which, on the contrary, works outside the institutional walls.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- Yes, when we were preparing the project, my acquaintances sent me, it seems, in some panic, a screenshot from the press conference in the Garage, which took place against the background of Rashid Johnson's installation. They had fears that the interest of the press and the public in us would not be so strong, since another large installation, where live plants were used, would open before ours. I had to explain that we are not promoting plants by themselves, but a project in which, along with scaffolding and the facade of the Polytechnic University, greening is involved. For example, at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, where I am currently doing a curatorial training, for the second year in the space of PostCity - the former center for sorting mail and parcels, on the main site of the festival, vegetation is used on a very large scale. But nothing but greenery and visual persuasiveness unites these projects. The setting of the problem is different everywhere.
Did you know in advance that your project and Johnson's work will be shown in Moscow at the same time?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Did not know. We originally planned to implement the project in May. Also, we did not know that this summer in Moscow there will be a planned greening of the city.
- For some observers, the project turned out to be
disappointing: "anemic", causing "a feeling of modesty, understatement." What would you say to this?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- I do not think that being modest is bad. We did not want to make a decorative story out of the work, there was a desire to get closer to naturalness, to make it "damp" from an aesthetic point of view. The English word raw is better here - unprocessed. It also seemed to us that the cleaned, raw façade of the Polytechnic Museum was beautiful in itself. I have often heard comments that plants could be more "fluffy", that they are not green enough. The idea was to make the plants look less combed, perhaps resembling a wild forest. In addition, if you pay attention, in the evening the illumination is not as bright as in the surrounding houses - this is also a completely deliberate step. Basically, we wanted our idea to be smooth and natural.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- It turned out quite funny that all the urban greening projects in the city center I personally saw all this time only in social networks and - deliberately or not - avoided them in my routes. By a funny coincidence, after the opening of the installation, we went with our entire working group to celebrate in the Heiniken bar - just along the route from the Polytechnic building. Then I finally understood why our plants seemed modest to someone. But what to do: it was not our task to demonstrate the abundance of central Russia.
What is the Forest project anyway - is it public art or an installation? Public art, as a rule, is designed for the viewer unprepared for contemporary art, and also involves a dialogue between the artist and society. But the "Forests" seem too modest and invisible to enter into a dialogue with the city dweller. It is also important that a person does not contemplate a "classical" installation, like a picture, from the outside, but finds himself inside it
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- For me, this is public art due to the fact that it enters into a dialogue with a specific place, naturally fits into it and can change its meaning depending on it - on some other building the work will look different and, possibly, allow new ones interpretation. Also, in my opinion, the project provides food for the mind simply because the involuntary viewer pays attention to what he did not notice before - the scaffolding and the object they closed. Here are two defining stories that I see here. But I don’t think public art should be intrusive, and it seems to me wrong to impose my vision of this work on people. Someone may perceive the "Forests", while others may not notice or understand them at all, and this is normal. As for me personally, I am much less interested in public art, which is an intervention that is discordant with the surrounding space, objects that greatly distract attention to themselves and ignore the context. The Forest project, from my point of view, is a more organic way of presenting public art, which attracts attention, but does not impose itself on you.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- There is no contradiction here. Yes, this is an installation - and it says that the project is physically. And yes, this is public art, which suggests that the installation does not exist in a gallery space, but in a space where thousands of contexts intersect. And the audience of public art is not at all reduced to some viewers unprepared for a meeting with art. The agenda of public art is to be a universal language, a universal art that has several levels of perception, which are read by people with different cultural, social, psychological backgrounds. And through this accessibility, public art should act as a catalyst for certain processes.
How much has the project changed during the implementation process?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- The artist was finalizing the installation together with the architect Levan Davlianidze and the gardener Lelei Zhvirblis, they clarified the technical and practical details. This is an experimental project in which it was necessary to take into account many factors: the environment, wind speed, weather conditions, which affect the visual solution. The embodiment of the project corresponds to the final sketch that Anna and her colleagues developed taking into account all these features.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
“It was important for us that the landscaping pattern would interact with the architecture of the building. It even seems to us that the final version of the project better depicts the structure of the facade of the museum. So we moved towards this goal - from a universal project that can exist on any facade.
How did Lesa perceive the state structures responsible for the approval of such objects?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- We had no problems with officials, the idea of the project was very well received in the Department of Cultural Heritage, in the Department of Culture and in the Moskomarkhitektura. “Forests” is a precedent, because no one in Moscow put plants on facades in this way. We received permission from all authorities, and everywhere reacted positively to the installation. Since the Polytech building is located on Lubyanka, we needed to coordinate the project with the Federal Security Service: they also gave us permission, but it came to us later than the announced dates, and because of this, we had to postpone the opening for the summer.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- However, it was difficult to understand how and with whom to coordinate the project at the very beginning; it also took quite a lot of time and human resources to prepare all the accompanying documentation. But here the fact that we are still one of the largest Russian museums with weight in the professional community played into our hands.
How did the Polytechnic Museum, one of the oldest museums in Moscow, react to the proposal to place an object of contemporary art on its facade?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Employees of the Polytechnic Museum themselves came to the exhibition "Expanding Space", where we showed projects, and they liked "Forests". Naturally, when we did the exhibition, we were already looking for partners, and we were very happy with the Polytech's proposal.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- As I said above, the implementation of the "Forests" project on the facade of the Polytechnic was our initiative. We came with this proposal to the V-A-C fund. Indeed, we are one of the oldest museums in Moscow, but at the moment we are moving towards the goal of becoming one of the most modern science museums in the world, and this is impossible without an interdisciplinary approach. In general, we work with contemporary art quite intensively. Initially, we wanted to implement the project as part of the Polytech festival of science, art and technology, which takes place every year at the end of May, and I am one of the co-curators of which. But due to the protracted approval of the project, it had to be postponed for several months.
What was the project budget? This is an acute question for young artists and architects - how realistic is it from a financial point of view
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- The project was funded from two sides - the Polytechnic Museum and the V-A-C Foundation. But I would not like to switch to discussing financial issues - this usually distracts from the artistic, semantic content of the project. Moreover, the Forest project is just a very inspiring example for young artists. Anna Krivtsova took part in an open competition, reached the final, her project was implemented, despite the fact that this is her first project in Moscow, especially of this scale. To implement projects at the intersection of architecture and contemporary art in our city, you need, first of all, to stock up on time and patience. Of course, institutional support is also very important here.
Tell us about the collaboration between an artist, an architect and a gardener: I'm interested in the technical side of the matter
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
“The plants were selected with the expectation that they could exist without additional watering. In principle, this works, although, since in July there was an abnormal heat and a long hiatus in precipitation, we decided not to risk it and organized additional watering. But now, in August, there is enough rain for all the plants to feel good.
The architect, Levan Davlianidze, came up with a system for fixing these plants. He had a lot of security issues to solve. A balance had to be found: the structure had to be neither too heavy nor too light. He considered factors such as the potential for strong winds and the load that the scaffolding can withstand. The plants are planted in cloth bags, each of which is placed in a metal shell - an open cylindrical structure fixed to the scaffolding with special construction belts. Landscaper, Lelya Zhvirblis, selected the plant species suitable for our case, she also supervised the planting process. The architect and the landscaper constantly had to consult with each other to achieve balance.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- One of the features of the project was that most of the time the artist and other authors of the project were in different cities during the work. As a matter of fact, for the first time with the full staff we met either at the final part of the editing, a couple of days before the opening of the installation, or on the day of the press conference. And it's an amazing experience. Moreover, the joint work consisted, of course, not only in communication between the artist, architect, gardener and curators: about 50 people took part in the project.
Installation "Lesa" is the first completed project out of seven included in the program. Are you happy with this first experience?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Yes!
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- We - yes. And we will closely follow the projects of the Expansion of Space program. Since in a couple of years the museum will move from its temporary shelter to VDNKh, a recreational zone, to the very center of city life, the agenda and problems of this program are relevant for us.
How will the Expansion of Space develop further?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
“Expanding Space” is a long-term program. Now we are working on the implementation of the next projects, but we are not yet ready to tell you what kind of work will be next. At the end of this year, a catalog with the entire history of work on seven projects from 2015-2016 will be released.
What did the implementation of the Forest project give you professionally?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- I learned a lot about the construction site from the inside! When we started this program, none of us said that we were the main specialists in public art. We just agreed that this issue is important - here and now. The experience of cooperation with people from different spheres during the creation of the project was especially interesting for me. We tried to come to an agreement with each other, we were consulted by various specialists. All this allowed me to look at the process from completely new points of view for me, and I consider this a very important experience.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- I really love projects related to construction, I like to work on a large scale, I like that such projects are always associated with a large number of attracted specialists, with whom there is constant communication - and after each such project you grow professionally. Moreover, it was an incredible experience to work with the Polytech building, to include its architecture in the context of the work. It was a new experience for me to implement the project not in an exhibition space, not in some specially designated area, like parks and squares, but in the very center of the city, in a place not intended for this. The focus was immediately on the safety of people, as well as the care that the plants during the month of operation of the installation were not injured by such extreme conditions. In general, both people and plants had to be taken care of - and this opened up a new dimension for me. I began to think more about ecology and about the mechanics of human interaction with the environment in which he is. It seems that my civic responsibility has increased. In general, the project prompted me to think about these topics.
What can you wish an aspiring artist, designer, architect who plans to work in the field of public art, with urban space?
Olga Stebleva (V-A-C Foundation):
- Perhaps this will sound trite and will affect not only those who work in the field of public art, but it seems to me that the most difficult and most important thing is to start, and right now, and not postpone the implementation of your creative plans for an abstract "later" … And, of course, don't let the skepticism take over - if you have cool ideas that you want to work on, but don't yet understand how to turn them into reality, this shouldn't stop you. If you are confident in what you are doing, then almost any difficulty can be overcome.
Olga Wad (Polytechnic Museum):
- I completely agree with Olya. And from myself I want to add that all the time you need to look for like-minded people. Of course, public art can be different, not necessarily large-scale, but very local and specific, but in order to achieve cool results, and so that the process of working on a project brings no less pleasure, there must be a cool team nearby.
