The Art Ravine Festival is changing. If in 2011 it was more of a provocative intervention of contemporary art in a rather conservative, albeit successful monotown of metallurgists, then after 2014, when the architects of the Wowhaus bureau headed by Oleg Shapiro became curators, work with urban spaces, communication with residents and even desire to systematize a "somewhat chaotic program". Now the festival is being held for the seventh time, its experience is more and more solid, rules are being worked out: for example, the organizers said that changing curators once every three years is a principle that will make Art Ovrag more diverse.
Next three years
went to the permanent organizers of the Arch of the Stand of Yulia Bychkova (she took on the role of producer) and Anton Kochukin's bureau 8lines (they are curators). However, as Anton Kochurkin said, in addition to the well-known, if not the famous Nikola-Lenivets, the 8 lines were engaged in the development concepts of Yasno-Pole and even the city of Brest. Along with a symbolic period, the new commanders of Art Ravine received a festival with a history, a number of objects and graffiti from previous years, that is, with an archive that, as it quickly turned out, had already partly disappeared, partly disappeared before our eyes. With the well-trodden paths of festival activities: there should be a performance, there should be graffiti, because all this is probably expected. And also with the vector set by Oleg Shapiro. Having accepted all this inheritance, the curator and producer had to somehow update the festival - because well, they are new, they were called for that. In a word, the task was not an easy one. Did you manage? It seems so far yes, for the first year out of three - on all counts.
Graffiti
They have been painting on the walls of houses in Vyksa for six years; there is probably no such concentration of graffiti in any Russian city. Moreover, many examples are from famous authors, Russian and foreign, and typical surrealistic style. This is not Aeroflot and anti-American advertising that has flooded Moscow's firewalls. However, it cannot be said that the city has turned into a museum: some of the drawings have been lost, some will soon disappear. They do not protect settled houses intended for demolition, even if graffiti of previous festivals perched on their ends. This art in itself is vr e change, one way or another awaiting destruction. Anton Kochurkin, however, promises to create a catalog of things created for the festival - it is not yet available.
The catalog is the right idea, convenient, although it inevitably transfers graffiti from the sphere of provocative activities, a mobile and, by definition, semi-underground type of contemporary art into the sphere of the history of the city.
On the other hand, for six years in a row, artists have come to Vyksa for three days and paint typical walls of his houses with strange, albeit consistently professional, graffiti. With the full permission of the administration. Well, we would draw a few more pieces, for the seventh time. It was necessary to somehow get out of the wheel of transformations, and Irina Sedykh, head of the OMK-Uchastiye Foundation, which is holding the festival, proposed super-graffiti on the wall of the OMZ (United Metallurgical Plant) rolling mill. Curators held a competition, collected 260 applications, Misha Most won. Implemented in 1.5 months, 5 people worked. The painting is already in the books of records in Russia and Europe (they gave certificates), an application has been submitted to the Guinness Book. It was opened solemnly, with fireworks, in the presence of the regional governor Shantsev.
How is this painting different from others besides the extra-size and the governor at the opening? It is not only legal and supported by the city authorities, it is ordered. Located in the closed territory of the plant. It has a lot from the monumental art of the 1970s, all these mosaics on the ends of modernist buildings. Actually, all the graffiti of Vyksa is a kind of link between the official monumental and the informal, which, by an amazing coincidence, has not lost the surrealness of the image, at times frightening the inhabitants of the city with a strangely wrapped bird neck or even a "devil". Graffiti at the factory has finally merged with monumental propaganda, and the figurative source - on the one hand, is quite modern as a retro technogenic dream of the sixties, whose furniture (and even five-story buildings) is so fashionable now; on the other hand, this language is, of course, appropriate for the factory. In other words, it seems that we are dealing with a certain point in the history of Vyksa graffiti, a drawing of the line.
Rafts
The second theme of festivals is objects. Not all of them are preserved after the festivals, it is rather difficult to accept them on the balance of the city administration, but somehow they are accepted, and the objects are standing, preserved, though not all, some part. The fir-tree tower, cooked by Peter Vinogradov, made of metal, except for jokes, and quite large, feels best. You can't overturn such a thing. The objects are grouped in and around the Batashevs' park, and they have the same problem as graffiti: they have been appearing for six years now, and each next year would simply be the addition of another group, more or less stable.
Here, too, the curators managed to "get out of the wheel" - the objects were transferred to the water, turning them into attraction rafts; everyone can ride on rafts, yesterday they were handed over to the city, it is planned to support this flotilla. There are several advantages: about most art objects it is unclear how to use them, there is an incomprehensible sculpture, and a person may want to overturn it. Rafts are a clear thing, you can at least swim on them. Although the structures on metal floats and four long oars move slowly, they are not ferries either. They do not swim too far, but you can admire the cathedral and the Batashevs' house from the water.
The rafts set the theme of the festival: "Aquatoria". Firstly, according to the curators who investigated the city, the ponds, of which there are many in Vyksa, and the largest of which were once created for metallurgical production, and small ones for beauty and like firefighters, do not cause any special interest. The embankment of one of the ponds was repeatedly mentioned, from which it does not bite and therefore it is not interesting for residents and is not used (although on the day of closing I managed to walk along the village bank of the Verkhnevyksunsky pond and see people in boats fishing a meter from the shore - apparently, where no embankment, it bites better). So, the embankment is not popular, but water without an embankment - maybe. Therefore, in particular, rafts. The theme was supported by the exhibition "Can I get it from the tap?" in the Batashevs' museum; she brought together more than a dozen art reflections on water and ecology, evoking strong associations with the Venice Biennale among visitors.
Courtyards
The third direction of the festival is urbanism or "going out to the city", it is called Art Courtyards. IN
Last year, Artyom Chernikov supervised the Yards, he was the first to focus on participatory design and attracted architects from the Vologda Bureau "Project Group 8" who were interested in this topic. Then three projects were implemented: residents submitted 10 applications, of which the architects selected 3 sites, collected wishes from residents and invited them to participate in the implementation of projects.
This year, firstly, they decided not to build anything, but to concentrate on exploring the city. Secondly, the curator of the program has changed - now he is Svyatoslav Murunov, head of the laboratory of applied urban studies. Applications from residents were collected - it turned out 16, more than a year ago. But then they explained to everyone that everyone is a blacksmith of his own happiness, and one should not expect favors even from OMK - and it would be time to pick up the saw with his own hands, the architects will help with advice. It was this pathos that was central to all of Murunov's performances at Art Ovrag. At the same time, it became clear that the residents of Vyksa are inclined to work with their hands, and already at the festival workshops began to work, the main goal of which was training. So far, the main result of work with the courtyards has become A4 folders with the results of the polls and the collected material: the activists walked around the entrances, got acquainted with the neighbors. The folders should be kept in the community of the yard and become the basis for future work.
However, in parallel and, as it were, at the same time, it sounded: that the project is professional, after all, it is needed, and, strictly speaking, it is impossible to do without the intervention of the housing cooperative. In a word, alignment with participation, set by predecessors, has been preserved, but it has changed the degree or even got up from head to feet (or vice versa): now the main people are the inhabitants, there is nothing without them. Walking around the city, you notice that yes, you cannot do without housing and communal services: after rain it fills with puddles no worse than that Venice, although the sewer grates are visible in places. The sidewalks in many places are covered with a layer of sand, like the Prioksky shoals. Gas and heating mains are laid on top and form bizarre structures wrapped in technical rags - in some places it seems that it is just right to shoot "Stalker", but the city is contrasting, and if you walk along it, different environments quickly replace each other. Pine groves grow among the five-story buildings; new homes in the private sector gently envelop old ones instead of being dismantled, as is done in most other places.
The most upsetting - predictably - are the relatively modern districts of nine-story buildings, the most pleasing are the old factory settlements, for example, those filled with extended two-story houses with stove heating, which alternate with rows of barns. Not garages, but sheds, a charming detail of post-war life, lost in most places, but here preserved and completely alive in appearance. Surprisingly, the fields of garages are boring and disgusting, and the sheds cause tenderness - one must think that this will pass. Sheds and carpet beaters became the most emotionally tenacious elements of the city, according to the curators (yes, they have survived here in great numbers). And here's the paradox: this metropolitan passism instantly took root and was vividly supported, in contrast to surrealistic graffiti. One of the residents of Vyksa, when discussing the presentation of plans to transform the courtyards, said this: “at first we came with the initiative to cut the beaters, but now I understand that it is better to keep them”.
It is not without reason that the curators claim that five cultures coexist in Vyksa - factory, suburb, rural, urban, "art drawing" (see.
maps of Vyksa, including the pre-war, compiled by Oleg Budanov). All this lives in parallel, coexists quite peacefully, like religions in pre-Kemalist Istanbul. Sometimes not noticing each other. Modern culture, being the most mobile, is changing faster: now, relatively speaking, it is turning from provocation to participation. He begins to look at the former cultures of a conservative monotown not as an inert background against which to draw, but as a subject for the study of cultural identity, as a material in itself. Strictly speaking, even former art activities are also becoming the subject of research, becoming on a par with carpet beaters. How do they coexist here, these old beaters and these strange graffiti? Until recently, it was clear how: the cutting-edge was opposed to the conservative environment and existed thanks to the patrons, admiring the possibility of free penetration of the sovrisk into a monotown, perceived as a canvas. Now everything is mixed up. The conditional "devil" has been assigned to the Art Residence, which, as planned, will operate not according to the festival principle, but permanently, but at the same time as a gallery, and not on the streets. The focus is on the interests and initiative of local residents.
“We do not impose anything,” Irina Sedykh, head of the OMK-Uchastiye fund, said at the round table “Culture as a tool for the development of industrial cities”. "We are watching the reaction, what the residents accept and what they don't." At the same roundtable, Aleksey Muratov, former editor-in-chief of Project Russia magazine and now a partner at Strelka KB, called for a reduction in curatorial involvement. Transfer more powers to residents and create an institution that would function in the inter-festival period. Where does it all go. This is not to say that this will completely cancel the participation of curators, artists and architects - this, one must think, is impossible. But the trend has changed: towards less visuality, more consistency, from selfish self-expression to conversations, from private to general, from liberties to institutions. What will come out of this is, in fact, impossible to predict. The festival, previously superficial and therefore free, touches ever deeper layers of reality.
