In her third blog, Maria considers the testimony of four artists from Ukraine and Russia. Each speaks powerfully about how the war is impacting them. We like to say artists speak truth to power. Courageous artists do this, yet often with severe consequences. Some of them are highlighted in the blog. Maria speaks to the trauma of war, exile and disruption, how it creates memories that may never be dispelled. Like an earthquake, it is visceral and ripples through the body, reemerging with each new tremor. Like so many artists, historically and in the present, she questions the relevance of her practice in the face of the violent end of meaning, rationality, and order. —Clayton Campbell

 

April 6, 2022

 

Six weeks since the start of the war. I wonder about artists; has their purpose been crushed by millstones of war and politics? Is their work made irrelevant by the war? We all have to reconsider what we are doing going forward. For the exiled artists I meet in Berlin and communicate with in Ukraine and Russia, their new reality is an existential shock. In Ukraine, abundant with talented creative people, artists are forced to wear body armor and defend their country on an equal footing with the military. Russia has so many brilliant artists who made important contributions to world culture. Now artists are forced to be outcasts from their country if they do not support the regime.

 

Alexey Karpenko, pianist from Lviv, Ukraine

With the beginning of the war, I brought a piano to the Lviv railway station to play for people, namely refugees. They need support more than anyone, because they abandoned their homes to save their lives. Music has always been an antidepressant, soothing and inspiring. I play every day for the people, for which I received a lot of gratitude from the refugees. At the beginning, I could not imagine that it would reach a planetary scale. The video in which I play during the sirens was seen by the daughter of the famous composer Hans Zimmer; she showed it to her father. On the same evening, he personally recorded a video in support of me and showed it in front of 15,000 people at a concert in London. In this way, I can help my country to declare the information about Ukraine in order to enlist the support of people from many countries.

Alexey Karpenko. The pianist plays under the air raid sirens at Lviv Railway Station. John Stanmeyer (National geographic). Music Hans Zimmer “Time”. 20th March

 

 

Yevgenia Isaeva, artist from Saint Peterburg.

After her anti-war performance in St. Petersburg’s center, Yevgenia, Isaeva was arrested and fined for vandalism and held for eight days. My heart is bleeding. I feel that it’s helpless to appeal to reason. That is why I’m appealing to your hearts. Women, children and elderly people are dying in Ukraine everyday. From bombings, hunger, the impossibility of getting out of the rubble and obtaining medicine. Their graves, topped with self-made crosses, turn black in the yards and playgrounds. Thousands of injured and mutilated people, millions of broken lives. If you can find any justification for this, your heart is blind. Find the strength in yourself for mercy and compassion, do not support bloodshed!”

 

Yevgenia Isaeva. performance My heart is bleeding. 27th March. 2022. Saint Petersburg.
Photography composite from EuroNews, BBC News.

 

 

Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, artist from Moscow (now lives in NY)

As a queer artist, I am against Putin’s regime and against his war in Ukraine. I’m speaking out in support of the Ukrainian people—and the LGBTQ community around the world. The war in Ukraine is a crime. I cannot remain silent, and it is my responsibility to speak out against it. To be a queer artist in Russia is already a political statement. Queer art in Russia is illegal. My exhibitions have been censored. The media has routinely cut pieces mentioning queer topics. The government’s “gay propaganda” law carries a prison term of five years. And now, the new “fake news” law carries up to 15 years in prison. I am now in New York now, and I cannot go back to Russia.

 

Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Image from the video- A Snake and a Bat are Girlfriends of the Octopus, 2019-21

 

 

Nikita Shokhov, artist From Moscow (now lives in USA)

The massacre that Russian Federation forced in Ukraine is a tragedy of European society. RF discredited itself in the international arena, it is dragging Russian creative future into the swamp. The war shall be stopped right now to save the invaluable lives of the Ukrainian people, their happiness, and freedom. This is a historical mistake of the RF. The longer this war progresses, the harder the future will be for Russians and our culture. I insist on helping Russian dissidents, artists, activists, scientists, cultural entrepreneurs who are contributing to the liberation of Russia from this murderous political machine.

 

Dragzina– video, Presented at Spring/Break Art Show Los Angeles 2022, theme “HEARSAY:HERESY”

 

 

If this horror ever ends, I feel artists will no longer be the same. Will we be needed at all in that future, another world? Will we be able to return to our old practices, ideas, interests? How will they be transformed by a world on fire? Will our art be wanted, will it matter, showing the permanent traces of wounds on our bodies and psyches?

—Maria Agureeva

 

 

Editor’s Note: If you would like to donate to Ukrainian relief efforts, you may make a direct contribution to the Global Giving Ukrainian Relief Fund at this link. Or please donate to a charity of your choice that will assist the people of Ukraine.

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/ukraine-crisis-relief-fund/