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Andreeva
Katya
Our
time according
to Olga Chernysheva
Olga
Chernysheva
called
her exhibition
at the Russian
Museum The Happiness
Zone. It includes
video-films
The Unknown
Ones, Self-sufficient
Activities,
Steamboat Dionysius
and Train as
well as drawings
and watercolours
based on the
images from
the video /
photo series.
All the material
is united by
time and place:
Central Russia,
2003 - 2004.
The films show
people absorbed
by some activity
(by sweeping
a road, by moving
along a street,
by riding a
scooter in Red
Square or by
collecting items
for recycling
in a park).
They show a
man and a woman
submerged in
the summer sunshine
somewhere in
the suburbs.
Or a city crowd
going up and
down the river
on a ship. Or
passengers of
long distance
trains edited
by the artist
into one meta-train.
So, The Happiness
Zone starts
with observation
of male and
female nature.
Then, gradually,
all manner of
characters slip
into this world,
each absorbed,
as befits human
creatures, by
their, at times
understandable
and at times
mysterious,
body movements.
Then, in the
Train installation
this human kaleidoscope
transforms:
the camera moves
along the circuited
space
inside the carriages,
along the passage
from nowhere
into nowhere,
along the mechanical
'riverbed' which
goes through
rows of faces
and bodies as
though through
a mass of water
or earth which
remains the
same and changes
every minute.
Chernysheva
's first exhibition
at the Russian
Museum in St.
Petersburg coincided
with the retrospective
of Ilya Repin
whose genre
painting went
way beyond the
professional
framework and
turned into
a live picture
of Russia during
the reforms,
a phenomenon
defined today
as blockbuster.
Chernysheva
is prompted
by a desire
to grasp, to
preserve the
spectacle of
new Russia of
the 1990s: of
that middle-Russian
life unfolding
in markets and
railway stations,
near kiosks,
on the pavements
of big cities
and squares
of provincial
capitals. However,
the genre originates
here not in
the pathos of
a nation or
a social group
looking for
their identity
as was the case
in the middle
of the 19th
century. It
comes from the
desire to record
unknown people
unselfconsciously
going about
their lives.
People who are
like everything
else around
- like nature
or, to be precise,
biosphere which
includes megalopolises
with their ever
decaying and
self-regenerating
world. There
are no clearly
defined borders
in the art of
Chernysheva
between
individual objects
or between bodies
or between urban
and non-urban
spaces. When,
in the second
episode of The
Unknown Ones,
the camera suddenly
pulls out, the
man under a
tree amidst
the shiny, sunny
dense bushes
turns out to
be standing
on a concrete
base which in
turn, with further
zooming out,
'grows' into
a railway platform.
In
the video-installation
Train it is
especially obvious
that the artist
is not only
interested in
the passengers'
ability to take
over the carriage
like a form
of mycosis but
also in the
entrepreneurial
ability of human
nature which,
in its highest
manifestation,
is called creativity.
It is
this that makes
anthropology
the subject
of Chernysheva
's work. And
it is at this
point that Chernysheva
's oeuvres comes
close to those
genres of Dutch
painting of
the 17th century,
in which one
simultaneously
perceives, in
the unifying
act of creation,
both the whole
of Creation
and the immersion
of anonymous
individuals
in the flesh
of totally absorbing
insignificant
activities:
skating, catching
flees or contemplating
the sky over
sanddunes. Chernysheva
, with all her
sympathy, demonstrates
the absurdity,
and at the same
time the strong
inner need impelling
her characters
to settle in
the zone of
their present
existence -
from a cramped
railway carriage
to the slopy
paving near
the Kremlin
wall.
Chernysheva
's attention
is firmly fixed
on the total
self-absorption
which might
come upon those
who, by chance,
entered the
field of our
vision. We know
and admire those
moments of self-absorption,
marked by virtuosity,
of an artist
or a sportsman,
when everybody
understands,
with all lucidity,
that it has
began, has fluttered,
has kicked off.
That some ecstatic
channel of Universal
connection has
opened, that
real life has
begun to flow
and that the
intensity of
experience at
that moment
redeems long
years of emptiness,
oblivion and
weakness. But
the artist,
in the Unknown
Ones and The
Self-sufficient
Activities chooses
precisely the
kind of people
and situations
directly connected
to weakness
and oblivion:
an elderly woman
in a park in
the evening;
a girl skating
on a pond just
about cleared
of snow; a disabled
man walking
along a deserted
street using
a box instead
of a crutch.
The miraculous
quality of this
experience opens
to the viewer
at the moment
of realisation
of their own
presence in
this footage
of reality beyond
'normality'.
Unlike
documentary
camera operators,
Chernysheva
has a
very soft touch.
As though out
of air, she
creates, in
each of her
shot-story-biography
of the character
an unseen but
palpable presence
of a guardian
looking on.
This miraculous
guardian's presence
is sometimes
materialised
as a cover over
a person or
a plant (as
in the winter
series about
fishermen wrapped
up in transparent
film or the
young trees
protected from
the cold by
canvas). But
most often,
induced by the
artist, it is
born out of
our own emotional
experience of
what we see.
It is the viewers
who, following
the image on
the screen with
their souls
and eyes, unwittingly
despatch an
angel to hover
behind the back
of the lonely
figure of the
skater and to
keep an eye
on her boots
which have nearly
disappeared
in the deep
snow. It is
the viewers
who draw the
happy trajectory
for a passer-by
in the dark
and are totally
engrossed in
the performance
of an amateur
poet in a commuter
train. Here,
a fairytale
does not become
a true event
before turning
into a fossil,
but true events
here and there
grow into fantastical
stories immersing
themselves into
unknown worlds
and, just like
trees, wash
their crowns
in the sky where
angels, birds
and other flying
objects live.
There
are two types
of the seen
world contemporary
people know:
one presents
itself to them,
rather unwittingly,
outside the
window, and
the other -
in the TV-set.
The TV world
distracts us
from the one
outside the
window, all
but erasing
in our consciousness
the habit of
contemplating
life which is
close to and
around us. Chernysheva
's projects
strive to return
to the viewer
the ability
to perceive
the live reality
which has not
yet been dragged
through the
information
machine. The
artist gently
substitutes
the usual content
of a monitor
screen with
spectacles accessible
to an individual
who unhurriedly
looks around
getting in direct,
sensual two-way
contact with
the world in
which light
goes on and
off and the
day unfolds.
This spectacle,
nevertheless,
is perceived
by contemporary
consciousness
in a dramatic
way because
an everyday
experience,
which has not
yet been pigeonholed
as a piece of
news or statistics,
has a very powerful
effect on our
senses. It reminds
us of how we
are distracted
from ourselves
in our own lives.
It is as though
Chernysheva
were sending
us her characters
as a reminder
of how priceless
each moment,
hour or day
are, of how
priceless direct
perception of
the world is,
the world which,
in its eternal
death and rebirth,
is now as ever
identical with
nature. The
presence of
the messengers
sent by the
artist, is light
like a whiff
of air, like
a roving eye.
It makes our
hearing and
vision get totally
involved in
this open invitation
to immerse deep
into ourselves
simultaneously
with the artist's
character who
dedicates him
/ herself completely
to the process
of perception,
gets enveloped
in the uninhibited
flow of energy
which, using
us as its medium,
makes the environment
real and active.
Chernysheva
's video-projects
are dedicated
to resuscitation,
on the monitor
screen, of the
world which
we accept as
ours much more
readily than
the one behind
the window.
She is not the
only artist
working on reactivation
of this waste
screen fuel.
Video-art of
the beginning
of the third
millennium is
marked by a
tendency of
making 'reformatted
cinema', i.e.
documentary
fixation of
scenes from
life which,
by means of
a light grotesquerie
of images, of
rhythmical pauses-disruptions
in editing and
soundtrack,
returns to everyday
life the energy
of transformation
and emphasises
the effaced
and hidden meanings
by way of barely
palpable micro-ecstasies.
Contemporary
oeuvres of this
kind represent
the realism
of today's life,
which aspires
to inhabit its
world without
artificiality
or the conjuring
trickery of
post-modernism.
Unlike in the
1980s - 1990s,
resistance to
the bureaucratic
unification
of life comes
here not from
employing a
hyper-illusion
but from searching,
in reality,
for bio-physical
forces which
oppose wasteful
consumption
of life's warmth
and the global
ice age of the
soul.
Chernysheva
masterfully
employs disruptions
in the soundtrack
in Self-sufficient
Activities;
or the titles
describing the
action in advance
in Steamboat
Dionysius creating
'memories of
the future'
in which the
viewer has already
taken part together
with the characters;
or life unfolding,
falling into
pieces and reassembling
itself again,
a process which
the viewers
can rewind,
pause or let
go of in their
imagination.
Two opposing
impressions
- the disrupted
rhythm of visual
and audio elements
and the special
force of endless
return, reappearance
of the beginning
- find peace
with each other
in the same
stream of being
which is possible
not thanks to
orderliness
and the laws
of society but
solely to the
absurd desire,
the pure drive
of life. From
the seemingly
pointless events,
words and sounds
Chernysheva
extracts
the desire of
fullness. It
is this desire
that is reflected
in the delirious
'poetry and
songs' accompanying
Train and Steamboat
Dionysius in
the zone of
happiness: bread
and salt / on
a clean cloth
/ steaming cabbage
soup / wine
in a glass;
or completely
down to earth:
dance-balls
/ beauties /
man-servants
/ cadets. There
is a clear call
to admire and
enjoy in this:
in the same
sky hover both
The Sky Dance
ballet and the
picturesque
images of the
Spaso-Prilutsky
monastery.
Her
ecological talent
to transform
life's everyday
absurdity into
meaningful art
is the hallmark
of Chernysheva
. It stems from
a strong desire
to be in contact
with the world
and from her
belief in the
practical magic
of art. Chernysheva
is an animator
by education.
Her artistic
skills serve
the purpose
of preserving
people living
trackless lives.
That's why,
simultaneously
with video,
she starts drawing
the same characters
fully covering
by hand and
pencil the space
already depicted
by the camera.
The genre nature
of the video-recording
and all its
everyday life
details blend
into a new,
now singularly
artistic fabric
in the form
of drawing.
This form finds
its way into
the all-encompassing
grisaille panorama,
into the interplay
of light and
the shadows
gliding across
the surface
of the biosphere
creating images
of life visible
to the eye and
remaining in
history.
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