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Lion’s
Heart. Article by Yuras Barysievich, art historian
Pushkin is loved by women and is not
liked by authorities. Women love Aliaksandr because he is tactful and
confident, witty and inventive, has got a romantic oreole (his wide hat
with pheasant feather can be seen even in the crowd) and does not smoke
and drink (this argument is, of course, debatable). But it was his mother
who most exactly formulated the secret of his charm: “Aliaksandr is one
of those people, who make the world go round”. I like this image of the
artist: a metaphysical athlete, three elephants in one person.
Those, who make the world go round, are connected to this world forever.
Pushkin is a realist in the full sense of the word. He does not complain
about his fate, does not hide in the nirvana of black squares or in the
souvenir art in order to wait through the invasion of barbarians from
Shklou and only after this do something honestly. This is one of the artist
from our “lost generation” who lives indeed, who lives deeply everywhere,
no matter where his carme brings him.
Aliaksandr is a nationalist in his nature. If he were born in some other
country or time, he act adequately to glorify his new motherland. If he
were born Russian – he would become a imperialistic chauvinist; if he
were born Jew – he would paint a victory of David over Goliath of Arabic
world. All the classics, whose influence could be traced in Pushkin’s
monumental works, were patriots (first of all, Italians – from Raphael
to Tiepolo and Giacomo Manzu). The military service in Afghanistan influenced
him as well. He was lucky not to kill anyone – he was looking after helicopters
(it is probably the reason why Aliaksandr used a dismantled helicopter
in stage setting for “King Lear” in Vitsebsk Drama theatre), but anyway
the feeling of guilt before people of Afghanistan was strong enough to
hate the empire and reject the state awards.
I was doing the military service during the same time as Pushkin (1984-86).
They were yet no shots in Caucasus, where I served, but still there was
a feeling as if one had come to another planet. The soviet army, where
it was possible to protect oneself from bullying only with the help of
fellow-countrymen, became a source of nationalism. The conversation of
soldiers who hadn’t know each other before could start with the question:
“What is your nationality?”. It was those years which, together with Gorbachev’s
“perestroika”, faced the dissolution of the USSR. The newspapers began
revealing the crimes of the soviet regime, youth was divided into cliques
of non-formals, we became the witnesses of Chernobyl disaster... When
we came back from the military service, the life was different. I remember
that I could not read books and listen to the lectures in the university
for months: it seemed to me that all “masters of thoughts” – writers,
teachers, politicians were either lying or wrong. Probably, Aliaksandr
was feeling the same, as we had to learn painting again from the beginning.
The majority of our mates lost the sense of life after coming back from
the army. We had to look for it in religion, money, political struggle,
love or children. Pushkin found himself in political art. He has called
his style of that time “Belarusan social art”. The artist’s works had
to have “national form and socialistic content”. Pushkin developed an
esthetic kind of art, which was totally contradictive to the social art:
national content united with postmodern form.
By the way, Aliaksandr could have avoided military service: it was enough
to say in the transition base that one was a student of the Academy of
Arts (we were sent to army after the 1st year) and then quietly serve
as a secretary in headquarters. Pushkin understood it perfectly, but he
didn’t have a habit to hide behind other people’s backs. He said he was
an actor, and actually this was true, because in several years already
he became the best-known Belarusan performer (besides, Aliaksandr considers
his talkativeness (which is a typical feature of an actor) as his main
vice).
Some colleagues consider Pushkin’s performances as too declarative: say,
performance is a super elite art, and its idea has to remain unclear not
only for the public, but also for the author. Aliaksandr agrees that his
street performances are not perfect esthetically. But this is secondary
for him: he doesn’t show abstract problems of an abstract world to people,
but the real pain of his soul – the pain for his motherland, which is
“under the Russian foot” (the title of one of his pictures) for 300 years
already.
However, we can not say that Pushkin has chosen the image of dissident
and scandalous person and is guided by emotions only (Aliaksandr’s Zodiac
sign is Lion, and he was born in the year of Serpent. He interprets his
character as “foolish, but tricky”. A great heart and rationality is a
very good combination for any creation. It’s a pity that many artist lack
either first or second). Aliaksandr has once told me: “When I read Cacto,
futurists, “Diary of a Genious” by Dali, I understood it is not sufficient
to do your business quietly in order to become famous. There are thousands
of gifted artist in the world and that is why it is necessary that God
lets you reveal yourself through something else besides your profession
– but only not through terror or destruction of sacred places.
I was looking for a great idea, which could be thrown in the crowd, and
I have found it in BPR. The issue of Belarusan independence still remains
unclear. I have chosen my own idea, which I can struggle for, which could
make if not a “bomb” than at least something to reason: think, people!
Christianity, probably arose in such a way: Christ came down on Earth
with his idea, then he was crucified, but the idea had been spread by
other people, who also died in suffering – and so it went on. It was enough
for me to make posters, walk 30 meters with them and thus make an event:
the process then went on without me, because the idea (probably God sent
it to me) is worth all this”.
The presentation of Belarusan social art – happening “The Day of Belarusan
People’s Republic” – took place just before the relatively free elections
in the USSR Supreme Soviet. In order to achieve maximal “echo”, Pushkin
came to the city executive committee and warned the authorities that he
was going to hold an unsanctioned anti-government manifestation (he used
this method several times afterwards as well). This resembles what our
predecessors Varangians did, sending a warning “Beware, I’m coming” to
the enemy in order to demoralize them.
The place of the performance was not thus chosen out of the blue: between
the Academy of Arts and old Printing house, where the offices of central
newspapers were situated (“There are a lot of exhibitions and festivals,
and even more ideas, but the majority disappears forever. Documenting
an event is 70% of all work. Until we do something, but not record it,
we’ll remain a white spot in the history”). On the next day already all
the state editions reported about the happening (naturally, sanctioned
by Belarusan Communist Party’s Central Committee). Journalists, illiterate
in modern art, called the even “happy-end”, though the end was not that
happy.
One of the Pushkin’s assistant was injured during the fight with police,
who got the order to break up the manifestation. 21 participants were
arrested and the artist himself was given 2 years of suspended sentence
with deprivation of civil rights for 5 years. Despite of these repressions,
Aliaksandr was not excluded from the Academy (he was sent to Vitsebsk
after completing his diploma work). The court took place only 4 months
after the performance – and it was the time, when the Communist party
lost real power in the empire, thus ending the period of “prisoners of
consciousness”.
Still, Pushkin was taking a risk during the happening, because everything
could have happened in that time yet. His act was rather ethic than esthetic,
kind of exorcism of soviet devil out of the body of ill motherland. Aliaksandr
was thinking not about artistic perfection of the performance, but about
the heroic deed of people, who were brave enough to go out to Red Square
in Moscow in 1968 and demand freedom for Czechoslovakia. Pushkin put a
image of historical Belarusan flag near the crossed flag of BSSR and wrote:
“Enough of “socialistic”! Let’s revive People’s Belarus!”. This poster
became a symbol of that era: millions of its copies were circulated in
newspapers, it was seen by everyone. Its success could be compared probably
only to Artur Klinau’s New Year postcard-parody on Lukashenka in 1997.
Some art historians, who were engaged in national renaissance, believe
the work “From the Past” to be the best in the end of XX ct. Aliaksandr
spilled 300 ml of his own blood on the tissue. The white-red-white flag
was prohibited at that time (as well as now) as an almost fascistic symbolic,
and Aliaksandr sacrificed his blood to rehabilitate politically banned
sequence of colors. The artist reminded us the mythic legend, according
to which the flag was made of a tissue and blood of an injured knight.
It helped the Belarusan army to win: to win not only the battle, but also
its own weakness. (All flags have a smell of blood, even if they do not
have red color in them. When patriots kiss a flag, they heal the injuries
of predecessors, who were fighting for their motherland. And Christians
do the same, kissing the legs of the crucified Savior or receive communion
with the wine of His blood. Belarusan flag could be named Turau shroud,
by analogy with Turin shroud).
Pushkin even has almost made the other national symbol “Pahonia” of himself.
He was planning to ride on a horse at the head of a anti-government demonstration
on Lenin Ave., holding a sword above his head. He had already got an armor
and agreed with a collective farm near Minsk that he would borrow a horse
from them, but the authorities found out about this and prohibited the
farm to have any contact with Pushkin. Later, Aliaksandr partially fulfilled
the project: he rode on an ass in Vitsebsk central street – without an
armor, but with an orchestra (a “crowd” of girls protected him from the
police).
In Vitsebsk, which was a “Belarusan suburb of Russian Petersburg”, Pushkin
at once became an energetic center of unofficial art and a pain in the
neck for authorities. Here are the titles of some performances by him:
“November, 7” (Aliaksandr wanted to coronate the busts of Marx and Lenin
with a barbed wire garland, but was arrested), “Imprisoned Vitsebsk”,
“Spring. Freedom. Love”. The performance dedicated to St. Yazafat (who
was killed by the citizens of the city in front of the building, where
Pushkin had his atelier) was the most dangerous. Aliaksandr, barefoot,
wearing a long shirt with bounded stones walked on the first snow through
Vitsebsk Old Town to Dzvina river, where Yazafat was thrown, lied down
into the boat with a cross on fire, and sailed away in the fog, having
left the oars. An orchestra was playing dead march. Only a miracle and
prays didn’t let Pushkin froze to death and brought the boat to the shore
some kilometers away. On the way to Dzvina the people of Vitsebsk poured
out all their emotions on the artist – three buckets of cold water (black,
red and white).
Pushkin organized the 1st exhibition of social art “Artifacts of Declarative
Art” in Vitsebsk yet in 1991. There, videos of his performance, posters,
paintings, installations were exhibited. A diptych “The Clothes of People’s
Belarus” and “The Clothes of Socialistic Belarus” could stick in one’s
memory. The first part: a beautiful traditional costume from a museum;
the second part: a typical soviet farmer wearing quilted coat. The fact
that the author favored the yellow paint, which is not particularly liked
by modern painters, could be traced in his pictures. Some of the works
were stolen from the exhibition in Minsk. Before, the artist had brought
it in Harodnya, but it was prohibited there (as well as in other cities).
Aliaksandr founded the first private gallery “At Pushkin’s” in 1993. It
was possible thanks to the same political reputation. American Belarusans,
who sent money for the gallery, knew Pushkin as a “fighter against the
power of Jews and communists” (Pushkin meant only those Jews, who rejected
their own culture in favor of the kremlin-soviet culture and helped to
impose it in Belarus). If we asked those people from America to name some
of his picture – no one could do it. But everyone knows about his performances.
There was one of the best collections of Belarusan underground in the
gallery. Among the most successful national events “At Pushkin’s” one
could name the exhibitions “Postmodernists” and “Baroque in Belarus”,
festival of avant-garde art “Art-Prognosis 96” (I was one of its participants).
All 10 exhibition projects in the gallery were organized on Pushkin own
means, earned by monumental painting. The artist did not asked for help
in different state bodies, as well as in foreign foundations, including
“shadow Ministry of culture” – Belarusan Soros Foundation (still, Ales
Antsipenka, one of the Foundation directors, who lives in Minsk in Pushkin
Avenue, is sure that after the patriotic powers win, the Avenue name will
remain; however, there won’t be a monument to the Russian poet, but a
monument to the Belarusan artist).
In the end of 1994 Pushkin helped to organize the Belarusan Nationalist
Assembly in the gallery. The authorities could not forgive the artist
such impudence: the odds of a religious artist is one thing, but the preparation
of national revolution is something totally different. The police threw
the Assembly participants outside, and when the latter formed up and went
to lay flowers to Karatkevich’s monument – many of them were beaten and
arrested. Aliaksandr remained imprisoned for 15 days. After he was released,
the authorities cancelled the rent agreement for the gallery and yet in
several months made the artist leave the building of a former gymnasium,
where he was living and had his atelier. Pushkin tried to organize some
projects of his gallery in other exhibition halls, but his initiatives
faced the boycott of authorities everywhere. Aliaksandr decided to move
to his native town Bobr, where he has been living till today.
In 1992-1996, in the same time when Pushkin conducted performances and
exhibitions in Vitsebsk, he was engaged in wall-paintings restoration
in Mahilyow Cathedral of Ascension. There he also painted new frescos
in baroque style: “St. Cecily, the Patroness of Music and Singing”, “St.
Archangel Michael, the Patron of Belarus”, “St. Antonio of Padua”, “St.
Apostle Juda-Tadeusz” and “Gloria to Cardinal Swiatek”. Aliaksandr glorified
the cardinal inadequately: the images of the white-red-white flag, 1994
Constitution and nationalist leader Zyanon Paznyak were covered with a
tissue.
In Bobr, Pushkin made the wall-painting in the new church of St. Nicolas
on his own means and modest donations from his neighbors. The wall-painting
turned out to be ecumenical: with some elements of Orthodox canon, Catholic
proto-renaissance and anti-soviet social art. The favorite colors of artist
– brown and grey-blue (the colors of bread and rain) – are dominating.
These frescos haven’t been seen yet by many people: the local priest is
trying to delay their presentation to his authorities and journalists,
because in the scene of the Judgment day the artist did not put only Lukashenka
in the hell, but also his commissioner – metropolitan Filaret (the head
of Belarusan exarchate).
Pushkin is critical to church authorities, though not to the faith itself
– like the majority of artists working in monumental art (and Christ himself).
He attends liturgies every day in the church (the only man from the town),
got married there among the frescos painted by himself (his wife Yanina
is a history teacher). In Vitsebsk he restored two old icons for the church
of St. Cyril and Methodius, and both icons started crying – this means
more for an icon-painter than anything from the authorities on the Earth.
Aliaksandr has been dreaming to make wall-paintings and stained-glass
windows in Sofia – a cathedral, which is probably the closest to God here.
American Belarusans invited Pushkin to make wall-paintings in the new
church of God Mother of Zhyrovichy in Strongswill, Ohio. The Belarusan
authorities did not let Pushkin leave the country. Instead, the artist
Aliaksej Marachkin, who is close to Pushkin in style and spirit, went
to the USA. Marachkin, the former head of “Pahonia” union, creates (together
with his son Ihar) the iconostasis and stained-glass windows according
to the own project and makes wall-painting according to Pushkin’s sketches.
Aliaksandr, like Salvador Dali, had a brother with the same name, who
died, when he was a child. Pushkin decided then, that he must live two
lives in one body, and besides his own mission he has to do what his brother
couldn’t. Aliaksandr visits his parents often and helps them to cultivate
the land. Paints pictures (did not want to sell them to foreign collectors),
works with Belarusan academic theatre of Yakub Kolas: besides the above
mentioned staging of “King Lear”, he has decorated “Miss Julie” after
the play of Strindberg and made the posters for the staging of “Chairs”
by Jonesk. He has also made the decorations for the largest International
festival of modern choreography in Eastern Europe IFMC’93 (Chagall’s Vitsebks
from bird’s eye view) and designed the legendary album “Ya naradziusia
tut” (“I was born here”), which includes rock-remixes of old and new hymns,
and the books by Belarusan writers (e.g. Slavamir Adamovich, who was imprisoned
for 10 months for his verse “Kill the president!”).
The office term of the first Belarusan president ended on July, 21 1999.
Although Lukashenka managed to postpone his retirement yet for 2.5 years,
Pushkin couldn’t help celebrating such a date. Exactly at noon he – wearing
a national shirt and white gloves – brought a wheelbarrow full of manure
to the presidential palace. The dung was covered with Lukashenka’s portrait,
new banknotes that were issued during the time of his presidency, the
symbols of soviet Belarus, handcuffs and chains. All this was put out
in front of the residency, and after that Pushkin pinned down the image
of Lukashenka to the manure. A note “For the fruitful works during 5 years!”
was attached to the wheelbarrow.
The security guards had the right to kill the artist: there could have
been a bomb under the dung. Aliaksandr was lucky, because they though
he was a flora specialist, who was going to plant flowers. Actually, they
were right. Aliaksandr thinks that the image of manure has not only insulting
but also optimistic sense: “This is going to fertilize the roots of democracy
in Belarus. A new country is going to rise from it”. The largest information
agencies reported about the performance at once, and that is why Aliaksandr
was released having given a written undertaking not to leave the city.
The court took place in November. The artist could be imprisoned for 5
years, however, a well-known performer Viktar Pyatrou, who was present
at the court as an expert, managed to prove that Pushkin’s act was not
political but artistic (although he was not sure of it himself). Aliaksandr
was given 2 years of suspended sentence and in a year he was amnestied
together with those, who served in Afghanistan during the war.
Already in autumn Aliaksandr took place in the international performance
festival “Navinki-99”. Initially it was planned that his oriental dance
with an axe would take place in front of the Palace of Arts. Pushkin even
brought special equipment so his performance could be heard far away.
But the police insisted on moving it inside the gallery. In the result
the music of Uriah Heep could be felt inside the people’s bodies.
A portrait of the Chechen president Jahar Dudaev wearing the uniform of
a field commander served as a background for the performance “July morning
of Jahar Dudaev”. Pushkin, wearing the same uniform, put a wooden block
in front of the portrait and started chopping cabbage heads filled with
red paint. The cabbage heads were given to him by Asia (the real name
of the girl – Aisha), who had a dead bird of pray in her hair. When there
were no more whole cabbage heads, Aliaksandr started chopping the remains.
Gradually, everything around including the portrait of Dudaev, papers
on the floor and the artist himself, mixed with one huge blood spot. The
repeating execution resembled not only “ethnic cleanings” in Caucasus
villages and arrests in the streets of Minsk. I personally thought: we
are all victims and executioners of one life. One can be sorry for killed
Dudaev, but it was he, who first invented the tactics of “carpet bombing”
in Afghanistan, which was soon used by Russian armed forces in his country.
Probably, Pushkin recalled his participation in Afghan campaign, as well
as his friends, killed by mujahadeen...
Aliaksandr managed to show another performance called “Belarusan partisan”
with an axe even abroad. It was done during the festival of Belarusan
art in the gallery “Arsenal” (Poznan, 2000). Pushkin, wearing a national
costume is sitting at the easel and paints a picture, his bare feet resting
in a bowl with water. A video of mass arrests during demonstrations is
shown on a big screen. Meanwhile, an assistant approaches to Aliaksandr
and puts a heater in the bowl. The artist continues painting until he
has enough strength. When the water is almost boiling, Pushkin puts his
legs out and quickly dresses in his old military uniform. After that he
gets an axe and hews the wire of the heater. The finished picture shows
strong arms holding an axe (the scale does not give the clear idea whose
arms are that: Aliaksandr’s or all people’s, who are tired of attempts
to build the “Belarusan model” of economics by the eccentric head of a
collective farm).
The performance “Incarnation of the Far Call” was the continuation of
the Poznan’s happening. It was organized on Krapiuna field, where the
Belarusan army stopped a much bigger horde of aggressors in the XVI ct.
The performance took place around midnight, when we can hear the whispers
of spirits most clearly. Aliaksandr, wearing black clothes, put out 4
white mummies. The first represented a decapitated knight, the second
– an angel with a sword, the third – a duke without arms (a sculpture
by Yuras Anushka), and the fourth – a young beautiful woman wearing a
black dress, as silent as the bodies of knights. It is not surprising,
that the artist decided to give the life to her. Pushkin sprinkled the
woman (Motherland?) with sand and ashes, inhaled some smoke of church
incense and breathed it into her mouth. The woman opened her eyes, got
up, saw her dead guards and shouted in the darkness: “Men of Belarus!
Wake up!”. Aliaksandr, silent, pointed on a huge fire far away that started
to burn in that moment. The spectators winced when they saw approaching
cross and banners. Those were the ancestors of ancient knights: the members
of “Kraj” group, who became famous after the victory in the fight with
police.
I got acquainted with Aliaksandr in the beginning of 1990 (a girl, whom
we both were flirting with, introduced us to each other). Pushkin invited
me to come to his “last” happening: he was going to celebrate March, 25
with his friends, organizing a mock attack on KGB building. Besides, the
artist was going to set himself on fire, and that would be the climax
of the happening. Aliaksandr hoped that such a scandal would make the
antinational BSSR government resign.
Pushkin’s idea reminded me the deed of Jan Palach, a Czech student, who
burned himself protesting against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by
soviet army in 1968. When Palach was dying in hospital, his friends brought
a radio to him, where he could hear the news about his suicide in the
name of freedom. One could imagine the smile of dying Jan, but I could
not imagine such a happy death of Aliaksandr. The government papers would
write that Pushkin got crazy because of nationalism, and everyone would
belive.
I was arguing with Aliaksandr, trying to prove that a man has no right
to die earlier than his talent. All the unwritten works would die together
with him, including those, which would contribute to people’s enlightenment
more than author’s voluntary death. It is impossible to kill oneself and
not to injure other people. And the closer that people art, the more painful
is your death for them. It is better to warm the planet than to fry it.
I don’t know if my words somehow influenced Aliaksandr that time, and
I was afraid waiting the day of performance. After the discussion with
Pushkin then, I wrote my first essay in Belaruan (“Artist and suicide”).
Aliaksandr came back to the idea of self-burning only 10 years later,
when he was preparing for the exhibition of “Pahonia” union on March,
25 2000. The performance “Phoenix of Belarus” could become the highlight
of the evening, but the union’s veterans were afraid that it could lead
to closing the exhibition and to the end of the union itself. The performance
would be shown as following. Imagine a big tarpaulin overhang (4x6 meters)
and Pushkin standing under it, wearing the same clothes as on his self-portrait
“Plenary in Belarus”. The assistants, wearing the uniform of Russian nazi
set Aliaksandr on fire with lighters, so that he is burning about 15 seconds
(the artist was intended to use special ointment to avoid serious scalds).
The tarpaulin then falls down on him which looks like Russian flag. The
nazi beat the artist with police batons. At last a white creature comes
out from under the flag. The spectators follow it on the way to the next
hall and see the self-portrait of the burning artist there. Aliaksandr
himself disappears.
Several months later Pushkin was invited to show this performance during
the exhibition “The People’s Art of Belarus” in one of the Warsaw castles.
The authorities didn’t let him go abroad again, and he asked me to bring
a couple of his picture to Warsaw instead, including his self-portrait
(I was invited to read a lecture to the same exhibition, and the lecture
itself became a performance). It was difficult to convince the customs
officers in Brest that the fire on the picture is not real and there is
the author on the picture, but not Lukashenka.
The political works of art are best-known in Belarus, as in any other
authoritarian state. Indeed, the elements of performance could be traced
during all demonstrations. Probably it is repellent for some artist-esthetes,
who do want to have something in common with a crowd. However, there is
not less conformism in anti-Lukashenka works than in pseudo-intimate erotica
and borrowings from Chagall and Malevich. No doubt, nothing has shorter
life than political news, but the non-politic art also is not secured
from becoming obsolete.
The value of many books and museum artifacts is that they reflect the
epoch, where they came from. Pushkin is not only the patriot of his land,
but also of the epoch, which he belongs to. But will his performances
be interesting for our ancestors? Do they have a kind of eternal element?
I hope, they will be urgent everywhere, where people art fighting for
their freedom. The art fashions appear and vanish, and the pain in the
heart remains.
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