something old, nothing new

"Pornography, kissing policemen and erotic pictures" - it sounds delightful, doesn't it? We'll soon have something of the kind in London, in the Barbican's new exhibition, "Seduced" (advance booking, timed tickets, over-18s only). But in Paris, of all place, no...

An exhibition of contemporary Russian art, planned by the state-owned Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow to be shown in Paris, is now being meddled with by the Russian Minister of Culture. Apparently it would bring disgrace on Russia if some of these pictures were seen in Paris, especially the one above. "It is inadmissible...to take all this pornography, kissing policemen and erotic pictures to Paris." he said. I'd like to think the Minister, Alexander Sokolov, was at least blustering, shaking his whiskers about; but sadly, I expect it was more like a dry statement, possibly in a press conference or else a release, maybe drafted by a poor harmless press officer, and utterly dull except for its content.

The picture above, titled in English variously as "The Age of Charity" or "An Epoch of Clemency," singled out particularly by Sokolov (let me ask: is it just possible he used to be a policeman of some kind?), is by our "something blue" - a Siberian art duo called Blue Noses. Read all about them here, in the blurb for a show at Matthew Bown Gallery; and here, on Matthew Bown's extremely interesting Russian art blog.*

In fact, this picture reminds me of not only one, but two other pictures. The first is cited as the inspiration for the image by the artists themselves, Alexander Shaburov and Viacheslav Mizin: good old Banksy's Kissing Policemen.

" 'We were inspired by Banksy's iconic image of two constables kissing. We wanted to do the same but in Russia,' Mr Shaburov said, in the same Guardian article as quoted above.

"The image had nothing to do with gay people, he added. Instead, it was an absurdist fantasy about what might happen if everyone showed mercy and tenderness to each other. 'Given the fact the state has banned it, we haven't quite reached this point yet,' he noted."

The second thing it reminds me of is one of the most surprising pictures I've ever seen in my life, and it came straight out of Stalinism - from the cover of a Stalinist propaganda magazine called USSR in Construction. Of course the import of the picture is completely different - it depicts a peasant embracing a soldier with a passionate kiss on the mouth - and the fact may simply be that the sexualisation of contemporary culture makes this picture more surprising to me than it would have been to some babuschka in Archangel in the 40s. But the fact also remains that USSR In Construction was a miracle of progressive art that was simply, for some reason, allowed to happen, even in one of the largest-scale dictatorships of the twentieth century.** There's a display in Tate Modern, and I wrote about it here.

This bring me to the third thing this fracas reminds me of, and it's not a picture. It's a sad truth about the nature of progress in culture. Right now in the USA, even a poem - Ginsberg's "Howl" - that was cleared of obscenity by the courts, in the 50s, can't now be broadcast on the airwaves because it would contravene all sorts of codes and laws about "decency."

Plus ça change, and maybe we've always been more alike than we wanted to think. Clearly the "old" item in our little rhyme is the political censorship of art, which we can now see flourishing on both sides of the Superdivide and under the so-called Free Market. "Let me to the marriage of true minds admit impediments..."

I for one think the picture above is completely successful, poignant and sweet. I can't wait to go to the Barbican and see the Mapplethorpes.

* Not wishing to digress: Matthew Bown has also reproduced another of the banned pictures, which does in fact look a little more politically-uncorrect to me... interestingly. Have a look here.

** Mind you, Stalin was notoriously capricious when it came to art, and especially writers: he tolerated, for sentimental reasons, Pasternak (eg), whilst simultaneously sending thousands of other artists to the gulags. USSR In Construction was not allowed to persist indefinitely.