“Sites of Passage," independent curator Tavia La Follette’s cultural-exchange series of art exhibits at the Mattress Factory, has always, almost by definition, been fraught with the stresses of global politics. Matching U.S. artists with artists from other countries can be challenging when those other nations include Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and South Africa.
When the current iteration involving Russian artists began, some three years ago, such obstacles weren’t readily apparent. The mood of the four American and four Russian artists in “Pop-Aganda: Revolution & Iconography” was playful, said LaFollette, practically light-hearted.
But the pandemic delayed the show’s opening from late 2020. And following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the mood is much different.
“Obviously, there’s no spoofing now,” said La Follette. “All of our ideas that were far more celebratory have completely changed.”
In light of Russia’s wartime repression of not only anti-war dissent but even of basic information about its invasion of Ukraine, the exhibit’s exploration of messaging and disinformation feels tragically pertinent. Russian critics of the war can face consequences, including jail time.
The Mattress Factory, La Follette, and all four participating Russian artists have publicly condemned the war. Three of the four artists have left Russia on visas, and one is going by the moniker “Untitled” for safety reasons.
While each of the eight artists contributes a room-sized installation to the exhibit, approaches to the theme vary widely.
Offering a statement about the exhibition itself, "Untitled" exhibits four pieces of cut-up black fabric starkly hung from the ceiling of a small, white-walled gallery; each hanging is what remained after pieces of fabric were excised for the creation of four “artist uniforms.” The negative spaces in the cloth reference the absence of the artists who cannot attend (though LaFollette said she will continue trying to bring them to Pittsburgh before the exhibition closes, a year from now).
Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva contributes a large, box-like installation whose interior viewers can access by climbing attached steps, or by crouching to peer through floor-level hatches. Inside, video projections of child-like artworks are watched over by video images of dozens of large, staring human eyes.
Lera Lerner’s installation is a huge, round bed covered in synthetic pink fur. Viewers lay on it to watch a semi-abstract video, projected on the ceiling, in which an anthropomorphized cancer cell speaks to its host — as LaFollette put it, “sort of pleading with the body, ‘This is what I’m doing here, please don’t try to kill me, I’m just trying to live like you are.’”
Syanda Yaptik, a member of the Nenets Tribe, in Northern Arctic Russia, contributes a performative video and installation, inspired by family stories, in which she laboriously stitches together severed pieces of raw meat.
The American artists include Pittsburgh-based Emily Newman, an elementary art teacher who once also taught art to children in Russia. One of her three video installations explores competing versions of the story of the Chelyuskin, a Russian ship that sank in Arctic waters in 1933. Newman compares the official version of events – in which the more than 100 Soviet victims of the shipwreck cooperated to ensure their survival – with the conspiracy-style version told by elderly Russian immigrants living in Pittsburgh, which is decidedly grimmer. Newman then investigates how the story is passed down to younger generations.
“The reason I wanted to work on this story was to illustrate the way that history is taught to children in different ways depending on the ideological framework of the regime in place,” she said.
Colombian-American artist Liz Cohen is known for her work based on the iconography and transformation of motor vehicles. Her outdoor installation is a vintage, restored and wittily customized Soviet jeep originally used on a Colombian coffee farm.
Sonya-Kelliher-Combs, a Native-American artist born in Alaska, contributes an installation evoking that state’s legacy as the place where Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse were sent by the Church. And Pittsburgh-based Bekezela Mguni’s installation evokes her Trinidadian heritage.
"Pop-Aganda" opens with a reception Sat., April 16. More information is here.
