It was clear from the very start that Roger Buergel did not come to Moscow as a tourist: the former Stella Art Gallery would probably not have invited the curator of the famous exhibition if he did not have an eye on some Russian artists, including perhaps artists from its collection. Nevertheless, Roger Buergel avoided answering direct questions concerning the Russian participants with a skill of an intelligence agent. Instead, he gave a whole lecture, starting with a 1945 photo of Kassel destroyed by bombs (it was in this city that the notorious German tanks known as "Tigers" were produced) with the surviving Fridericianum Museum standing amid the ruins. Ten years later, in 1955, this very museum was made the venue of an exhibition of modernist art - which had been persecuted by the Nazi regime – to exonerate Germany in the eyes of the artistic world. It was a complete success: the exhibition evolved into one of the most prestigious global art events, rivaled by the Venice Biennale alone. Documenta (that is to say, "the documents", as one can gather from its title) owed its reputation to the conceptualists' and minimalists' exhibitions of the late 1960s and early 1970s which were the policy statements of these art movements. From then on, every five years the global artistic community has awaited the next revelations from Kassel with bated breath.
According to Roger Buergel, the exhibition, which is about to open in June, will be built around three main leitmotifs. The first one may be summarized by the question "Is modernity our antiquity?" The second leitmotif - "What is bare life?" - is also interesting. The third one is familiar to anyone who has been to a Soviet school: "What is to be done?" Towards the end of the lecture there appeared a slide of a recent work by the Moscow artist Anatoly Osmolovsky – apparently abstract sculptures which actually represented tank turrets in miniature. "You see, these are tanks, and this is modernism, and it is so appropriate in Kassel!" – Mr Buergel commented. However, his only reply to the question about whether this particular work is going to be on display in Kassel was that he was only trying to give an idea of the sort of things that might be displayed there.
Mr. Osmolovsky himself, who happened, very opportunely, to attend the presentation, did, however, disclose some facts for Kommersant: yes, he was going to take part in the documenta, along with his older colleague, the well-known Moscow conceptualist Andrei Monastyrsky. The last notable participation of Russian artists in Kassel was in 1993, when Konstantin Zvezdochetov exhibited a mosaic in the style of Moscow subway featuring the three popular protagonists of Gaidai’s films, the Coward, the Idler and the Stager. From then on, Kassel curators have ignored Russian contemporary art.
Anatoly Osmolovsky says he knows for certain that Kassel exhibition will feature documentation of his 1993 performance. Then the artist climbed, risking his life, onto a shoulder of the statue of Mayakovsky in the Moscow square bearing the poet’s name and was photographed there. This metaphor of the relationship between the modern art and the titans of modernism is very impressive indeed. As for the tanks, for the time being it is a military secret.
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