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Art Critics in Black Shirts
// Attack on Gelman Gallery was well planned
An attack was made on the art gallery of Marat Gelman in downtown Moscow. Unknown persons tore artworks by artist and architect Alexander Djikia, a native of Georgia, from the walls and stomped on them. They also beat the gallery owner. The main theory in the investigation is that the attack was carried out by nationalists, who could have been motivated by the Georgian last name of the artists on exhibit and by the recent incident when a work that Gelman had sold to a London gallery owner depicting Osama Ben Laden, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin was seized by customs.
The attack was carried out on Saturday during the day. Dozens of young men dressed in black caps, black jackets and black army boots broke into the gallery, at 7/7 Malaya Polyanka St., Building 5, when the gallery was closed to the public. Owner Marat Gelman and several gallery employees were present at the time.
Gelman founded one of the first private art galleries (now Gelman Gallery) in Moscow in 1990. Many of Gelman's projects have been political in character. Among them were the Compromising Information exhibition in 1996 and the Russia 2 project for artists to create a “parallel” positive image of the country. In 1997, Gelman was among those who campaigned against the installation of Zurab Tsereteli's monument to Peter I in Moscow. In 1995, Gelman ran for the State Duma as a member of the Border Generation bloc. He founded the Foundation for Effective Politics with Gleb Pavlovsky and provided PR services to Alexander Lebed and other politicians. He was the head of the campaign staff for the Union of Right Forces in the 1999 parliamentary elections. From June 2002 to December 2003, he was deputy general director of ORT television and managed its analytical department and PR service. He worked at the same time on the foundation of a new leftwing party.
The attackers divided into several groups. Some silently removed 40 works by Georgian artist Alexander Djikia from the gallery walls and stomped on them. Another group destroyed office equipment, furniture and the telephone system. Gallery workers were forced against a wall. Their cellular phones were taken away and broken. Gelman was beaten by the attackers and kicked after the fell to the floor. One gallery employee was able to escape and summon the police, but the attackers fled before the police arrived. Doctors at the City Hospital No. 1 diagnosed Gelman with a concussion, broken nose and numerous abrasions on the face and body.
Gelman told Kommersant that the attackers worked “without hysteria” and did not look like “hooligans or fanatics” but like “professional fighters.” Gelman said that the gallery's video surveillance system was not operating at the time of the attack because the gallery was closed to the public on that day. For the same reason, there was no security service. Gelman arrived at the gallery in the morning to give an interview to Reuter's news agency in relation to the incidents with customs last Friday when English art collector and gallery owner Matthew Bown was held at Sheremetyevo 2 Airport in Moscow along with works by a group of artists known as the Blue Noses that he had acquired from Gelman's gallery. Bown will open an exhibit of Russian artists in his London gallery on November 9. Customs agents were suspicious of several works, but one picture from the television series Masks Show disturbed them in particular. It depicted three semi-clad men wearing masks of Osama Ben Laden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush. Customs agents decided that the work violated article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Russian federation (“offense of officials”) and pulled Bown off his flight. After conversations with customs officials, Bown left Russia later that day, but the picture remained in the possession of the customs service. The Gelman Gallery called the incident the result of confusion and said that the work should be turned over to it today, after the gallery provided the customs service with a list of exhibitions it has already appeared in.
Gelman described the customs scandal and his upcoming interview with foreign journalists in his Internet journal, which is accessible to all users.
The attackers appeared at the gallery 15 minutes after the Reuter's journalists left. Gelman speculates that the attackers ascertained that he would be present on that day after reading about his appointment with the journalists on the Internet and then found out the time from gallery employees. Unidentified people had called several times on that day to ask when Gelman would be present.
Gelman did not connect the attack with the nationality of the artist on display, since Djikia had an exhibit at the Artplay Gallery that was not marred by disruption. That exhibit closed on October 15. Nor does he connect the attack directly with the English gallery owner's troubles with Russian customs. “Most likely, the unexpected appearance of the story [of the customs scandal in the media] pushed the nationalists to do what they had been planning for a long time,” he suggested.
Blue Nose artist Alexander Shaburov said that the customs service was not as alarmed by the depiction of Putin as by a work showing a female suicide bomber in a fluttering dress in the mode made famous by Marilyn Monroe. Shaburov considers the coverage of the picture showing the Russian president an exaggeration by Western media “that still think that polar bears roam Russia, each followed by five KGB agents.” Shaburov does not consider the Masks Show work insulting to the Russian president. “It's about how the media substitutes for our private lives,” he said, “how in Russia, as in all information societies, figures from television become closer than our real neighbors and acquaintances. It is simply the citation of a fact. Of course, there is humor and a disengaged view, but that can't be equated with insult.”
Shaburov agreed with Gelman about the motivation for the attack. Another Blue Nose commented that “Half of the crimes in Russia occur because people associate with the wrong elements. The Internet is a place where you constantly hang out with people you would never have anything to do with in real life – there are all kinds of extremists and just sick people there. On the Internet, everybody sees and knows his enemies and everybody openly hates each other.” Shaburov noted that Gelman's webpage is read not only by his admirers, but by those with whom he has been in long debate as well.
Irina Kulik, Andrey Salnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 23, 2006
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