'Interdicted Art' shines light on Russian artists, victims of repression

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Works of art from an underground exhibition in Moscow were put on full display at the Reforum Space resource centre in the Užupis neighbourhood of Vilnius recently.

The "Interdicted Art" exhibition, which showcased about 20 pieces by Russian artists, was held May 27–June 10.

Andrei Pugachev, a former resident of Moscow who now lives in Klaipeda, Lithuania, organised the show after friends contacted him and told him that there had been an underground exhibition in Moscow.

Pugachev said he wanted to mount the exhibition in Klaipeda, but friends talked him out of it, saying now was not the time to spotlight Russian artists.

Yet members of the international human rights organisation Memorial helped organise the event in Užupis, a bohemian neighbourhood in Vilnius.

Although the Russian Supreme Court outlawed Memorial in 2022, it still conducts limited activities, especially abroad.

"Political repression in Russia is only intensifying, but apparently right now no one other than Memorial is raising the issue of helping Russian political prisoners and those who disagree with the regime but have remained in Russia," Pugachev said.

These days, everyone is more interested in the events connected to Ukraine, he said. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Pugachev had Belarusian friends help smuggle the canvases out of Russia. To ensure that the overtly political pieces did not attract the attention of Russian and Belarusian law enforcement, participants in the scheme hastily drew pictures on neutral themes on top of the works.

Some of the artists have emigrated. The organisers omitted the names of the artists who are still in Russia to protect them.

The painters used different styles, but their paintings all reflect the profound inner tragedy the artists are experiencing. At the same time, there is an enduring hope that peace will come in the foreseeable future.

In one painting, a rendering of Pablo Picasso's "Dove of Peace" perches on the dilapidated wall of an apartment entryway next to a profane denunciation of war. In another painting, replacing two letters in the Russian word for war, which the Kremlin has prohibited as a term for its invasion of Ukraine, puts the focus on spring and rebirth.

In the unsigned painting "Ostankino Needle", the top of Moscow's 540-metre-high television tower is lobotomising a person's brain.

'Negative inspiration'

An especially powerful painting was "The Son Has Returned", which depicts a shapeless piece of flesh on an autopsy table, said many visitors.

Because the artist is in Russia, he agreed to talk to Caravanserai only using the pseudonym Serafim.

"The idea for the piece came to me quickly, and I also made it quickly," he said, calling his creative impulses "negative inspiration".

"You wake up and read the news, and the first item on the list is what you put on the canvas," he explained.

Political prisoners in Russia are the most defenceless members of society, Serafim said.

"The wheel of repression rolls suddenly over ordinary people, and few can help them," he added.

Alexander Gorokhov, a journalist and artist, took part in the exhibition. He left Russia out of fear of being arrested for his work and now lives in Vilnius.

Gorokhov reported on protests in Moscow in 2019, observed the riot police officers' brutal treatment of peaceful demonstrators and attended trials.

As a result, he said, "troubling emotions" built inside him and he needed to find an outlet.

The result is a triptych called "Tired", which shows the silhouette of a man who has hanged himself. The scene is reproduced in three different settings.

"You always need to look at things from a humane standpoint," Gorokhov said. "This painting shows a man who has committed suicide. I've spent years tracking news items like this, about how security personnel shoot themselves in their offices, or how rich, high-ranking people can't get cancer treatment and can no longer live because of the pain."

"I looked at this from their perspective, thinking that these are people with their own problems, and that some of them are probably implicated in something," he said. "These probably aren't the best representatives of humankind, but at the same time they're also individuals who are reduced to the level of animals."

"I thought it was important to convey that somehow."

Gorokhov created the side parts of the triptych in Russia and managed to take them to Lithuania. He painted the middle part, titled "Tired of Resting", after leaving Russia.

"I'd like to record the Soviet and post-Soviet everyday life that's slipping away -- what will soon no longer exist. But it's very hard to find the time to do that when there's a war going on," he said.

'Mad times'

Since its founding after the fall of the Soviet Union, Memorial has focused on historical and educational activities and on human rights.

In helping to organise "Interdicted Art", Memorial fulfilled both agendas. The proceeds from the auction of the paintings will help Russian political prisoners and the rights organisations Memorial and OVD-Info, according to a Memorial statement.

"Initiatives to support the political prisoners themselves and their relatives and lawyers are well established," said Memorial board member Sergei Krivenko.

The period we are living in now is "unimaginable when you are used to peacetime", he said, adding that if art reflects life, then paintings should give an accurate portrayal.

"And some of them really are shocking, like 'The Son Has Returned,'" he said. "But we're living in a time when people in Ukraine are being killed by bombs that were made in Russia. And the paintings reflect these mad times that we're living in now."

Memorial shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. It donated its prize money to Russian political prisoners and to Ukrainian families whose members had been killed by Russian invaders.

In the spring of 2022, the Free Russia Foundation started setting up Reforum Spaces in cities that have a large Russian-speaking community. There are now four: in Berlin, Vilnius, Tallinn, Estonia; and Tbilisi, Georgia.

The centres are intended for those who left Russia and Belarus because of an anti-war position or possible persecution for political views, and those who left Ukraine because of the war.