Issue 1. March 2025

Political Art

Who is the artist of the 21st century, a citizen of the world? — This is the issue that I am interested in.

In the 21st century, what is officially called “political art”? This is semi-journalism, semi-activism, illustrating events that are happening right now and which the media have marked as important. An officially recognized political artist is obliged to affirm that the world is an unharmonious place that needs to be rearranged.

What is political art in reality? It is art that changes people’s perceptions. For example, making them daring, inspired and independent from the media.

Who is going to do that?

I have been living in the West for over two years, observing local art, and I have found out that its main purpose is to fascinate and seduce. I admire its seductive visual forms, its multi-detail, which far surpasses the expression of details in Russian art. This temptation appears not only in shapes, but also in content, which in the art of almost all successful Western artists is related to eroticism. There isn’t pronounced censorship (once I will describe examples of implicit censorship), but if you want to be sold (and you have to do it to survive), you will try to seduce. Could contemporary Western artists, who have never  personally faced the Big History, depict the 21st century and even predict the 22nd century? I don’t know of such examples.

Could artists representing the rest of the world, which is full of revolutions, dictatorships and wars, portray the face of the 21st century? Theoretically we could. But practically we are only needed when we describe the troubles of our own countries, and it’s desirable that each of us spent some time in prison. We are ridden in a blood attraction of nations and happy with it. There is only one nation at the top of this Ferris wheel, a nation with the scariest show nowadays: political trials, torture, and murders are welcomed, but revolutions and wars are much better. In 2019, Russian dissidents were in trend, then in 2020 Belarusians were in favor, then Ukrainians are in the top of this wheel but in many countries, Palestinians are already replacing them. Next, next, next!

Thus, my challenge is transforming from a chrysalis of “The Last Soviet Artist” into something much more universal, that expresses not any political alliance but our era.