Dying Swans
Russian video and performance artist Elena Kovylina’s video installation Dying Swans deals with the concepts of a national community and the unconscious identity. In the era of the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin, it was a tradition in the Soviet to show Tschaikovsky’s Swan Lake every time an exalted statesman passed away. According to Kovylina, Russia hasn’t succeeded in finding equally powerful cultural characteristics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nowadays, the tacky consumption craze of the newly rich is the most visible form of Russianness; the same can be said of the rest of the world. In the heyday of the new, hard liberalistic values funding for the arts is scant. Reporters, writers, and artists do not dare to express hemselves, fearing serious implications.
During the past ten years approximately 200 Russian reporters have been murdered or have disappeared – in Finland the best-known case probably being Anna Politkovskaja. Dying Swans is Kovylina’s interpretation of Tschaikovsky’s ballet, and a homage to all these reporters. Soviet Union symbolism meets oday’s brutal political reality in the video installation, the meeting taking its form in a charged dance. Open social criticism in art is rare in Russia. Kovylina is one of the few artists who dare to take a stand, to both the polemical national and international issues. Dying Swans has been exhibited in Paris, but in the artist’s hometown the gallery owners have not dared to show it.
Minna Långström
20.11.-30.11. / Open Mon-Sun 11-18, Free Entrance / Kaiku Galleria & Kuvataid
http://www.lenspolitica.net/
