The following replies were given by some Moscow artists in October 1995, more or less when I had the pleasure of taking part in the "Incontri con l'Arte Contemporanea" meetings. The basic lines of my contribution at the Milan event indicate that today's central issue for Russian artists is the meaning art should be given and what justifies it. The life of arts in Moscow is in fact experiencing a moment of serious institutional crisis right now; the powerful state superstructure, so markedly present during the Soviet period, has collapsed, and no new stable order has replaced it yet. Arts as a sphere of practical activity suffer the loss of their social function. This feeling of marginalisation is amplified by the privileged role arts had once played in the Soviet regime; it was something more than what we normally identify with the word itself. Art and culture were called upon to play a sacral role in the extremely formalised Soviet society, where they were somewhat of a creed. Furthermore, artistic experience in that static and institutionalised society represented the only legal milieu with a vitality of its own. In fact, from this standpoint, the official and what was then called "unofficial" or "underground" culture, juxtaposed with the official, and were in actual fact rather close and correlated. Social reality is full of chaotic events today, and appears incomparably more dynamic and spectacular than artistic activity succeeds in expressing. The art world used to enjoy a privileged status, but now it realises that it is losing ground. This context makes even more topical the question raised in the title, which can serve to try and better define today's situation. True, the catastrophe-prone attitude of present processes in Russian socio-cultural and ideological fields are well tuned to resorting to direct questions expressed things succinctly, without euphemisms. In actual fact, we could well ask ourselves what the use of artists is today. Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina opens with a famous sentence: "All families are happy in the same fashion, and each is unhappy in its own way." The same might apply to the artistic environment today; you no longer find the old monolithic mores nor the common feeling of belonging to a common fate_not even the awareness of being part of a homogeneous professional milieu. The self-identification of artists who witness the disappearance of motivations for their activity has become an issue that each has to solve individually, and strategies for individual salvation stem from personal choices. One should not be surprised that the question "Why are you necessary?" is answered in so many different ways. All, however, feel like fellows in distress; difficulties create unity. This is one of the reasons that led them to answer our question. I believe our survey somehow confirms another idea I had expressed in Milan when attempting to define present events in Moscow's art circles: a trend or tendency to fragment individual positions into extreme radicalism, and even collapse, on the one hand, and recovered_albeit exasperated_dialogue leading to depersonalisation on the other. These are the two vectors of the force fields Moscow's art representatives operate in today. The replies clearly underscore the different personal positions emerging from what we might call the new post-Soviet mental attitude. Moscow's situation is quite clearly indicated by the attitude of radicalism and outrage expressed by Dimitrij Gutov and Aleksandr Brener, two personalities who strongly reject all possible compromises, and present the issue of today's complete dissolution of arts in general terms_by accusing those who still feel committed to producing art of being moral frauds and hypocrites. Each holds this position in practical work, though in different ways. Gutov (with a solid reputation for grandiose installations and theatre scenes) has organised an interdisciplinary theoretical centre and shut himself into research which we must define as somewhat hermetic. He upholds that any public intervention would be senseless today, that the fundamental basics of being must be clarified, and the problems ensuing from the results are explained. Conversely, Brener wants to "talk with the language of emotions" and go beyond art's traditional constraints, not to retreat within the confined environment of specialised work, but to act directly in the social sphere. This will, directed at the quest for a radical social gesture, is also shared by Anatolij Osmolovskij, who avoids all animistic solutions and tries to create a most provocative dialogue with contemporary Russian society. The responses by artists from the older generation are very significant too. These leaders of the underground movements, and most representative personalities of the past era, obviously experienced the process of art contextualization even more painfully than the younger generations. Now that the time has should have come for them to rest on their laurels and witness the birth of post-Soviet art, they are being told that their activity is deprived of all validity. Nikita Alekseev, the legendary creator of the art form most representative of Moscow's avantgarde of the 80s, "Apt-Art", indicates significantly that he considers today's "disaster" with a sort of philosophical detachment; Igor Makarevic and Elena Elaghina, who work jointly with the ambition of creating museum works, live a two-fold experience of frustration: the loss of any meaning of their artistic creations for which they risked repression during the Soviet era, and total alienation from their art by the young radicals. Lastly, four replies: Georgij Liticevskij, Gija Rigvava, Vladimir Kuprijanov, and Jurij Leiderman represent different stances of individual stoicism, or four different personal survival strategies. Rigvava accepts the analytical forms of Western art_quite understandably, since he has specialized in video installations which use the most complex technology aesthetically. Kuprijanov uses seemingly high formulations and heroic pathos_this too is not surprising, since he has created great works on issues dealing with the identity of Russia with photomontages. Liticevskij prefers universal communication forms; he is a vastly cultured artist and a great connoisseur of the ancient world. The aphorism that "As long as there's war, there's hope," by Jurij Leiderman, a refined hermetic intellectual, stems from a misanthropic attitude, whereby the defeat of art is in any case proof of its existence. DIMITRIJ GUTOV As they are today, artists are unnecessary. The world won't even notice their disappearance, which I trust will occur reasonably shortly. True, people invest their savings in shares of the "Picasso Company", but I believe they'll soon be disappointed. Until some time ago, the biochemical processes that took place inside the brains of our contemporaries required action from someone capable of stimulating their reactions. This someone was the contemporary artist, and a vast cultural industry existed with the purpose of creating this personality. We cannot say artists are no longer up to their task today; quite simply, the need upon which their task was based has vanished. Around the mid-90s, history lost the dramatic force of its previous years. Life eliminated contradictions and cancelled disorder. An idyllic view, and a new tendency to simplify, cover content that is so unworthy of interest today that even the illusion of a redeeming gesture is nullified. What can we deduce from all this? That a really free gesture is even more necessary. The order governing the world is calculated in such an exact fashion that it is no different from an order in which nothing is defined. The contemporary artist is someone capable of recognizing justice as the outcome of his or her personal free will. Not pretending to be self-sufficient or independent, but really being so, is one of mankind's essential aspirations_we must be able to consistently achieve this freedom of will in all its different aspects. If something worthy of note is to happen in the natural world, then artists will be the persons responsible for it and the promoters of all that happens. GEORGIJ LITICEVSKIJ Artists are necessary today for the same reason they always have been_because they are different from "others." Society defines them as "artists" with some embarrassment, enthusiasm, or rage, but all in all tolerates or at the very least endures them. Irritation at them is sometimes so great that society pretends to ignore them. This very malice hidden beneath a mask of indifference shows the special ties between society and artists. I believe they are needed today more than ever before. Society is actually paying artists back in the same coin (or attitude) by which artists consider social issues. Not to acknowledge this would be a mistake, though this attitude is rather like swimming upstream_you need steady nerves. We might as well say that artists were never necessary if we admit that they are sometimes useless. So-called "works of Art" could have always been given over to persons with a prevalently technical, applicative or illustrative background. An artist is, in fact, often an artisan, decorator, or maker of roads, buildings, and the like; first and foremost, however, an artist is a creator of ideas and realities invisible to the naked eye. He specializes in making ideas perceptible. An artist is the first person who manages to "see" ideas and give them concrete shape. Russian philosopher Losev believed that Plato would have been unable to grasp ideas (eidos) had he not first known works by Greek sculptors. There is nothing disrespectful of philosophy in this judgement, which has thought, and not "ideas" as its object. Society needs both anyhow; in fact it demands something more, namely the formation of an ideological cement as the indispensable premise for building up a solid social structure. Resorting to artists is unavoidable now that a new idealistically-poor ideology is being elaborated, since artists are required to become engineers of ideas and potential ideology builders. Some accept this role, and even become "image makers", clairvoyants, or, more simply, politicians. This phenomenon involves the so-called "actualist artists" in particular, who actually personify emerging and as yet not well-defined professions (this is why they are called "artists"). One of course runs the risk (or has the luck?) of being obliged to relinquish the title of artist, though this is not inevitable. Artists are necessary as the custodians of pure ideas; this doesn't mean that they have to play the role of professors of ideology, however. The merchants of ideas will certainly find a way to partake of their riches, but will be unable to exhaust them (also considering that there no longer is such a thing as an ideological monopoly). Artists of the most diverse species are necessary, including "conservatives" and "deconstructivists", since ideas can be served up in many ways. Artists are different from others. This is quite annoying, so some try to provoke them by waving the red banner of success at them. Other times they are accused of being "merely" artists, and people think they can be led into temptation by coining the definition of a "great artist". Artists, however, insist in saying that a designed home can really house people, even when they are the first to disbelieve this statement. They are devoid of concreteness and society abhors a void. Horror vacui! Yet artists act as a dose of homeopathy for nothingness, and are capable of immunizing cosmic emptiness and the different conformations of "black holes" (including those inside society itself). And black holes are certainly today the world's primary concern. GIJA RIGVAVA In the more developed world, artists exist as members of a community with its own organizational structures, in a context of economic relationships. It's not the same thing in Russia: artists are expected to develop in utter isolation and proceed along a road that starts from nothing and gets nowhere, after which they can continue struggling in their own niche. So the issue of whether or not they are necessary somehow comes up spontaneously. Anyhow, everybody knows that an artist is one of the oldest members of society, together with the physician, soldier, teacher, and politician. An artist cannot not be. Today, however, artists can only exist when they succeed in overcoming the circumstances and conditions that might cause their exclusion. I refer to the market, with its rules or lack of rules; to government policies, in all countries, for all arts, including the main novelty of our time, namely the diffusion of omnipotent pseudo-arts that freely penetrate all cracks and pervade all available spaces, making the representation, recognition, and function of art rather problematic. Post-art, post-sex and post-human; many different definitions have been coined (all with the prefix "post") that supposedly define today's situation and propose solutions that resemble each other from many standpoints. Users invest in increasing masses of erotic products but their sexuality remains poor; hundreds of artists endeavour to satisfy the aesthetic needs of society, but practically never enjoy a deep relationship with art; state, political, economic, and social institutions achieve a great deal of activities, but never seem greatly concerned with the human factor. Contemporary art was born at the beginning of our century, but hasn't always been accepted, for many different reasons. It has, however, pursued attempts at experimentation, created "cases" and looked for new meanings (this is how the process of assimilation to contemporaneity takes place), and thus has become necessary for subsequent generations. This has always occurred, and concerns today as well. Some dig into the soil they have chosen in the hope of reaching the pulsating spring of reality, some sift through the existing layers of human experience that help recompose the world into a unity, while others find in "human values" a criterion for judgement which has never ceased to have a useful function, in all places and times... Much, if not all, of what these people are doing today (and these are things than can be heard, seen and experimented upon) will only be appreciated in the future. ANATOLIJ OSMOLOVSMI The contemporary artist is a specialist in non-standard communications, capable of interacting with the social world. This role allows artists to have a useful function for society. An artist's mission, however, consists in capturing the negativity of transcendence. Artists use their powers of experimentation to the utmost, and thereby risk their health, honour and career. Transcendence can be revolution, capital, God, social criticism, the struggle against the power of logo-centrism and the like. Unlike other social myths, transcendence is totally ambitious. ALEKSANDR BRENER Until recently, artists were necessary to achieve Bodhisatva's four great precepts: Freedom for the innumerable intelligent beings of the universe; victory over one's own limitless frailty, cruelty and ignorance; passage through multiple misadventures; reawakening and awareness of the infinite horizon of Reason's ways. Today's political climate makes these aspirations completely unattainable and ridiculous. Culture and art have relinquished the chance of transforming the world and mankind. So the only aspiration artists can afford is to overthrow the standing social order and create a new form of organization in which culture can once more play its role of an effective force. I should therefore like to invite all those artists reading this note to struggle with weapons in their hands or even barehanded to destroy contemporary civilisation, to try to raze it to the ground, in order to leave room for a new culture of values and life, whose advent is not only necessary but also unavoidable. ELENA ELAGINA, IGOR MAKAREVIC The discouraging simplicity of the questions asked of us cannot but give rise to a clear reply. The word "why" leads immediately back to the origins of the world. Anyhow, we can agree that two types of artists exist nowadays. The former have always been and will continue to be necessary, while the issue will still be raised for the latter. The first category includes the creators of beauty, who contribute differing degrees of perfection and imagination to satisfy the needs of various social strata. The second category of artists includes those who attempt to widen the boundaries of art production by filling museums and art galleries with trash; they are intent at practising self-injury and are ready to sign all types of manifestos. Their attempts to be part of real life are dangerous, incomprehensible and insubstantial, as today's reality is far livelier and more attractive that any artistic work in chalk. This second category consists of artists who are perennially tempted to flee and obsessed by the desire to experience a change that can return them to the first group. What we have said so far should clarify that the useless can sometimes even be necessary. NIKITA ALEKSEEV Why were artists necessary in the past? To decorate churches and palazzos and paint the portraits of kings, bishops, bankers, and generals. I'm talking of the so-called "professional artists", since I don't think the person who asked me this question was interested in anything else. Reproductions of works by classical 19th-century Russian painters Perov and Savrasov are to be found in the most outlandish places; when they painted those pictures however, their estimators were only a few cultured and economically advantaged persons. Nothing has changed. Tastes and the shapes of hooks from which to hang paintings have changed_nothing else. Artists certainly want their works to be successful when they are still alive; some manage to reach this objective, but most have the same fate as mosquitoes; they vanish without having sucked a single drop of blood. It's always been like this and always will be. We shouldn't complain if the government decides to spend money to rebuild the Church of Christ the Saviour while Russia's new masters, the bankers, buy works we contemptuously classify as "living-room paintings". Shouldn't we rather ask why on earth should these people spend their money on something different? What should we ourselves do in this direction, could we ever do so? So are artists necessary to themselves? There's a riddle of logic that says: if they are unnecesary to themselves, it means they aren't even artists, and that's that, but if they are artists then the question is totally nonsensical. And that's all. Ever since art took on the features we know of, it has escaped even any chance of being exactly defined. To such a question such a reply. VLADIMIR KUPRIJANOV The question we're asked requires that we add: necessary to whom and what for? If you're decorating a businessman's office, the reply will of course be "yes" (even though the artist might not be altogether satisfied); if you're trying to help the co-ordinator of this questionnaire, the answer is "no" (even though it might be a pleasant job). It's hard to feel totally fulfilled between these two extremes. That halo of "purity" attributed to artists as persons who are never prepared to compromise, and capable of expressing themselves with absolute sincerity, has obviously vanished. Who of us could feel entitled to say that the number of those capable of appreciating an artist's qualities has decreased? The circle of connoisseurs interested in an artist's work has basically remained the same; there were quite enough of these people even ten or twenty years ago. Why then does this question disturb us so much? Probably because reference co-ordinates have widened and the chances of self-gratification have diminished. An artist's traditional education is based on work done in isolation; support by a customer or a public is needed now to reap the best results. Artists are tools, but they are still convinced that they are orchestra directors. Maybe it's not enough to ask "Are artists necessary?". It should be reformulated as "Are artists ready to follow a universal will?". We are all necessary and submitted to that will. JURIJ LEIDERMAN As long as the question "Why are you necessary?" exists, this also means the possibility of not being necessary. This possibility requires someone to represent it_artists, in other words.

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