Svetlana Vorontsova-Velyaminova
Svetlana Vorontsova-Velyaminova, fashion feature editor and an upcoming artist told The Maker Magazine how fashion and art are all rolled into one in her life – and what’s the perspective of this compound.
Q:How did your path in art start?
A:Oh, it’s a long story. I studied the history of art at Moscow State University and got a bachelor degree (B.A.), I always loved art, but at that moment it was just not the right time to go deeper. There’s another almost mythic story. A year ago after coming back home from London and I suddenly lost conscious and strongly hit my head. Doctors took me to the hospital, and there sitting all in bangage and surfing the Internet I’ve suddenly came across the announcement about the extra admission at the Institute of Contemporary Art. And I applied. People say that a good artist always comes out of some hurt, maybe in my case it was too literal (laughs– E.K.). It’s hard to get new artistic ideas without the conflict and struggle. Maybe that’s why Russia seems to be a good place to become an artist.
Q:If you studied art history, why didn’t you started earlier?
A:Maybe it was not the right time or I just had to get through some other things before? And well it’s always interesting to reconsider your professional skills and ideas from the perspective of art.
Q:Is there any inner conflict about working in art and in fashion at the same time?
A:Well I’m in fashion journalism for more than 9 years now, I used to work for Harper’s Bazaar Russia and Vogue Russia website, contributed to Afisha magazine and website (Russian local entertaining media – E.K.) and now hold the position of senior editor for Marie Claire. Today I’m rethinking this experience and use it for self-reflection. For instance I’m reading Roland Barthes’ “The fashion system” and also consider Jean Baudrillard’s text “Fashion, or the Enchanting Spectacle of the Code”. Baudrillard says that you can’t escape fashion – even the attempt to rebel against it finally turns into a fashionable trait. As Oscar Wilde once said fashion gives a person the feeling of protection that even religion cannot provide. Fashion makes decision based only on itself, it’s undirected and according to Baudrillard it’s taking pleasure from this randomness as godsend for elitist.
There’s some unspoked rule that the artist should not pose for fashion magazines or advertise clothes – do you remember how everyone got surprised when Marina Abramovic appeared in Givenchy’s ad campaign? Some of those taboos seem outdated to me. For Abramovic it was unexpected contact with the audience – it’s sort of testing the limits between the performer and the viewers, giving the performer the passive role. Audience becomes the power that influences her. That’ interesting!
Q:What’s your art work with chalks about?
A:It’s physogeorgaphy. So called drift that me and a group of young artists did through the city. I was painting the puddles regarding the atmosphere of each particular place. It was all done under the impression from the situationist artists. At the Institute we read Guy Debord’s essays from 1950s and tried to rethink the city with the ideas he had proclaimed. I also have another project based on the idea of drift, it’s called Synecdoche. While travelling in Europe I took some ground in every country I visited, made the photo of the place and then created a map of drift. From the linguistic aspect the ground becomes a synecdoche – i.e. a piece of something bigger.
Q:Why did you choose those mediums– performances, installation, without any typical forms like painting or graphics?
A:Well, I do have video art also. It’s funny that even now in Russia when people hear you saying you’re an artist, they immediately think that you should paint. But it’s not always like that! My most appreciated work so far is the performance with the hanging. Actually performance is not my medium at all, so I started with self-negotiation. I’m not a public person and don’t like showing off. Performance was filmed, and that helped a lot, because some of the curators who wanted me to repeat it in the gallery refused at the very last minute – they were afraid not to be able to guarantee my safety. Video is still very impressive as it gives additional expression with all the close-ups and dynamics. Regarding the plot of the video it’s all clear, I think: the artist is hanging upside down in the forest, common thing.
Q:Where do you find the ideas?
A:They just cross my mind. Out of nowhere! I don’t know. People always tell me it’s all autobiographical, and I often agree with that. I’m working with the spirit of time, with my emotions, the constant feeling of uncertainty. The installation “Tomorrow?” at the Sidur Museum’s balcony is also about that. While passing the balcony you get the artificial narrative, the phantom of the story line, the aroma of it. It gives above all the conducting of your feelings. The space is “playing” and you’re percieving the moment. You go down and see the word “Tomorrow?” in red light with the question mark afterwards – and this mark is the main thing. It’s all about the atmosphere of these days, not only in Russia but in the whole world. There’s something in the air, the feeling of anxiety. The viewers found some new connotations in this work that I even didn’t mean (and this is good) – for example, about suicide or procrastination. One of them said it looked like political statement and the red color resembled her the color of blood.
Q:And political art is so on top in Russia nowadays. What do you think about it?
A:I would call myself completely apolitical person as much as it’s possible in nowadays Russia. But we all know that political apathy is also a political stance.
Q:Is there any artist who influences you most?
A:It’s hard to say… I still have to find with whom I am in a dialogue. I’ve already mentioned situationist artists and drifts. My Synecdoche project reminds the series of works from the American artist Robert Smithson, the pioneer of land art. He made an installation with small boxes filled with minerals – he found them in the industrial but abandoned areas, somehow “discarded”. And the boxes became the metaphorical maps of those places.
After my performance with the hanging my course mate found out that another artist from Guatemala had already done it in 1999 – her name’s Regina José Galindо, and it was also about the situation in the society. So I occasionally made the reactualisation of that performance! But frankly speaking when I was working on it my starting point was abstract impressionism and the pieces made by Carolee Schneemann.
Interview by Elena Elena Kryakvina
Svetlana Vorontsova-Velyaminova，时装专题编辑，也是一位即将面世的艺术家，她将告诉《臆想》杂志她在生活中如何将时尚与艺术集于一身——以及她对此有什么样的观点。
Q:你的艺术道路是怎样开始的？
A:这是一个很长的故事。我在莫斯科国立大学学的是艺术史并获得学士学位（BA），我一直很热爱艺术，只是那时候不是一个合适去深入的时间。还有另一个几乎是神话般的故事。一年前从伦敦回到家后，我突然失去了意识，我的头遭受了强烈的撞击。医生把我送到了医院，绑着一头绷带的我坐在那里上网，我无意间看到关于当代艺术研究所额外招生的公告。然后我递交了申请。人们说，一个好的艺术家永远是从一些伤害中产生的，也许在我的情况下就是这样（哈哈）。没有冲突和斗争是很难获得新的艺术观念的。也许这就是为什么俄罗斯似乎是一个成为一名艺术家的好地方。
Q:既然你学习了艺术史，为什么不早点开始呢？
A:也许这不是合适的时间或者我只是在这之前有一些必须完成的其他事情？而且还有，从艺术的角度重新考虑你的专业技能和想法总是非常有趣。
Q:在同一时间从事艺术和时尚工作是否存在任何内在冲突？
A:我从事时尚新闻工作已经9年多了，我曾经为俄罗斯版《时尚芭莎》和俄罗斯版《Vogue》网站工作，促成了Afisha杂志和网站（俄罗斯当地娱乐媒体），现在担任《Marie Claire》的高级编辑。今天我重新思考这方面的经验，并用它进行自我反省。比如我读罗兰·巴特的《时装系统》的同时也考虑让·鲍德里亚的文章《Fashion，or the Enchanting Spectacle of the Code》。鲍德里亚说，你无法逃避时尚 - 即使企图反抗它终于却会变成了时尚的特质。就像奥斯卡·王尔德曾经说过时尚给人一种受保护的感觉，那是即使是宗教也无法给到的。时尚仅基于自身去做决定，它是无方向性的，根据鲍德里亚的思想，它从这种随机中获得乐趣就好像是杰出人才的天赐之物一样。
还有一些潜规则，艺术家不应该为时尚杂志造势或给衣服做广告 - 你还记得当玛丽娜•阿布拉莫维奇出现在纪梵希的广告活动时大家有多惊讶吗？有些禁忌对我来说似乎已然过时。对于阿布拉莫维奇这是观众们意想不到的 - 这可以说是在某种程度上对表演者和观众之间的极限测试，赋予表演者被动的角色。观众成为了影响她的力量。这很有趣！
Q:你用粉笔制作的艺术作品是怎样的呢？
A:这是physogeorgaphy。也可以说是漂移，我和一群年轻的艺术家穿越了整个城市去完成它。我根据每一个特定地点的气氛作画。这完全是依靠来自情景艺术家的印象完成的。在研究所，我们阅读了居伊·德波自20世纪50年代起的论文，并试图根据他发表的思想重新去思考城市。我也有基于漂移想法的另一个项目叫做Synecdoche。当我在欧洲旅行的时候，我拍摄了每一个我去了的国家的土地，给每个地方拍照，然后创造一个漂移的地图。从语言方面的地面变成了提喻法——比如一块更大的东西。
Q:你为什么选择这类媒介表演和装置，没有使用任何像绘画或制图的形式？
A:好吧，我也有做视频艺术。这很有趣，即使是现在，在俄罗斯，当人们听到你说你是一个艺术家，他们立刻觉得你应该画画。但并不总是这样的！我至今最欣赏作品是悬挂表演。其实表演并不是我所擅长的，所以我开始先做自我协商。我不是一个公众人物，也不喜欢炫耀。表演拍成了影片，这帮助了我很多，因为一些想让我在美术馆重复表演的馆长总在最后一分钟否决了 - 他们担心不能够保证我的安全。视频还是很可观的，因为它提供了更多与所有的特写照片和动态有关的表达。关于视频的情节这一切都清楚，我觉得：艺术家在森林中倒挂，倒是常见的事。
Q:你是在哪里发掘到这个想法？
A:它们刚刚从我的脑海中浮现。从哪儿冒出来！我不知道。人们总是告诉我，这一切都是自传，我经常表示赞同。我工作的时候随着时代精神、自己的情绪和不确定的感觉走。在Sidur博物馆的露台上展示的装置「明天？」也是这样。当穿过露台时你会听到人工叙述，看到故事情节的幻像，闻到它的香气。它会给到你上述全部的感官享受。这空间在“放映”而你只需去感受这时刻。当你往下走会看见这亮着红色的「明天？」一词——这当中的问号标志是最主要的。这是所有关于这些天的气氛，不仅在俄罗斯，还包括整个世界。有什么东西在空中，焦虑不安的感觉。观众发现在这项作品中的一些新的涵义，是我没有想到的（而且是好的）——例如，有关自杀或拖延症。其中一个人说，它看上去像政治声明和红色与她血液的颜色相似。
Q:现在政治艺术在俄罗斯处于领先位置。你对此怎么看？
A:我会称自己是现在在俄罗斯完全不关心政治的人。但我们都知道，政治冷漠也是一种政治立场。
Q:有没有哪位艺术家对你影响最深？
A:这很难说......我仍然不得不找到能和我对话交流的人。我前面已经提到情境艺术家和漂移。我的Synecdoche项目让我想起了美国艺术家、大地艺术的开拓者Robert Smitson。他用装满矿石的小盒子制作了一个装置——他用的矿石来自工业区中被遗弃的、类似“废弃”的区域。而那些盒子则在地图上代表着这些地方。
在我与队友的悬挂表演结束之后，我们发现来自危地马拉的另一位艺术家早在1999年就已经完成了 - 她的名字叫Regina José Galindо，而且它也是关于社会情况的。所以我很偶然地将这项表演重新实行了！但坦白地说，当我在做这个工作的时候，我的出发点是抽象印象派和Carolee Schneemann制作的作品。
Interview by Elena Kryakvina
