Tsesler’s painting “Generation P” removed by censors from exhibition in Minsk (Photo)

25.03.2009, 8:30

After a denunciatory; article in an official newspaper, a painting of the famous artist was removed from an exhibition.

Vladimir Tsesler, Syarhei Kirushchanka, Ruslan Vashkevich agreed to offer their paintings for “Grapheme” exhibition. There is no need to present them to public either in Belarus or in Europe. A young curator Krystsina Stashkevich collected 10 projects. Almost each of them was a diptych or a triptych, “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus” informs.

“The idea of “Grapheme” was to show in one exposition different works devoted to a text,” Krystsina Stashkevich explains. “In every of the works a text is present to some extent, as an idea or as a graphic treatment, or as a part of the concept. In fact all works had been displayed earlier in the framework of different projects”.

The exhibition opened in Yanka Kupala Literary Museum, which is recently rather successful in finding its way to the hearts and minds of young people. Besides, a high-ranking official from the Culture Ministry was present at the opening of the exhibition.

In a week an article was published in one of the republican newspapers. The artists were called scandalous art-hooligans and provocateurs, and even a question was suggested whether conceptual art is permissible inside the Literary Museum with half a century long traditions. However, there was also a phrase there that a museum is not a cemetery of art. Somebody from high officials might have overlooked it. As a result, the museum had to hide all the works mentioned in the article: the painting of nude fire fighter by Mikhail Hulin from his large project “Children’s demonology” about childhood fears of his generation; two works by Ruslan Vashkevich and one work by Vladimir Tsesler. It was the work where the artist rewrote Pelevin’s novel “Generation P”.

“This exhibition is totally innocent, it is not ideological, not figurative,” Ruslan Vashkevich is convinced. It is not the first time his works are removed from an exhibition. “Art is a dangerous zone. It should be complicated, unbrushed. And most often it happens that people read paintings dubiously, but to read a newspaper article in such a way… By the way, one of my works, “A Portrait as a Memento” had been exhibited many times, and in the National Library as well. It could embarrass someone as it resembles a tomb. But the second one is absolutely childish: black men are stealing coal in the night”.

Art critics resent the event as well.

“Artists whose works have been removed belong to the most famous masters in the country,” art critic Iryna Stalnaya is convinced. “Many galleries of the world compete for “Vector space” cycle by Tsesler. It is amazing that someone has to be explained today that actual art is a serious trend which exists since the beginning of the 1960ies. And to call it hooliganism is simply ignorance”.