Syndicate: mailradek no.2

[Oleg Kireev <radek@glasnet.ru>]

Moscow-based magazine "Radek", dedicated to theory, art, and politics
continues the project "mailradek in english". The information about the
magazine is available on the Website:
 	http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/1457, 
and the issues in English will be also available soon. In September the
"mailradek in english" issues will conclude two short essays only, but now
we'd like to precede them with several larger articles on theoretical subjects. 
	Our address is: Russia 117333 Moscow, Vavilova 48-237, for O.Kireev.
tel./fax:(095)137 71 31, 

                  Policy of exclusion
Once, in the "Moscow Art magazine", the leading Russian art magazine, there
was published an interview with Jean-Christof Amman, the chief director of
Frankfurt Kunsthalle, where he insisted that Russians were unable of
carrying out art studies, that their calling was something different, e.g.
Brazilians would better also stop worrying about art and dance their rumba.
Not long ago at the opening of Ilya Kabakov's exhibition in Geneva he
reiterated the idea, probably to spoil this coddle of international art
market's pleasure.

Perhaps the quoted statement was caused not by Amman's personal taste (for
his humble knowledge of Russian art doesn't give any reasons for such a
generalization), but by his role as a director of a large Western
institution and by the social functions which he is supposed to carry out
and synchronize. According to traditions of sociological Marxism, Amman must
be rated not as a single saboteur, but as an example of the work of a system
which he is a part of. Also the fine arts must be rated not as an "desolate"
domain of the beautiful, but as one of many fields where the representatives
of the western system are not interested in letting the foreigners in.
Moreover, we aren't going do discuss Russian art only, for we are
internationalists and cosmopolites. We're less interested in Russia, art,
and Amman than we are in the imperialist policy of exclusion and
westernization pursued towards territories beyond the European
cultural-economical exchange zone.

The actual analogy of this policy is NATO expanding to the East and
integrating more and more countries into it. Considering their countries
joining NATO as a big progress, eastern European politicians don't
understand that they don't even have a consultative vote, but just a role of
third-rate observers in this global militaristic organization. The end of
the 80s, the break-up of the Warsaw block was the beginning of global
campaigns towards production of both western hypocritical rhetoric and
policy of exclusion, which is its reverse side. Of course, it's more
convenient for the abundant and prospering West to integrate this new
continent into itself than watch it like something unknown and
uncontrollable. For means of accumulation the Western machine used both the
hypocritical rhetoric and controlled corruption. The exclusion begins a
little later and some lucky fellows can be let in the shining Euroworld and
be proud of their talent, by which means they achieved it, but they don't
understand that their acceptance itself is the beginning of their exploitation. 

How can we oppose the policy of exclusion-corruption? It is necessary to
consider the heterogeneity of the Western society and to understand that the
logic of capitalism is not the logic of a plot after all, but the logic of
polymorphous and self-confronting initiatives, and only the majority of
which can unite in their aim to take any alternative program away from the
battle-field. It is necessary to find outposts on the isles of the
opposition within the Western society. 

The first step is creating an alternate identity and an alternate social
project, which can oppose the new colonialism by its intensity, the project
decentralizing and relativizing the Europeocentrism itself. The European
language which we use to contact each other can be used and appropriated
until it becomes obsolete.

The second step is relativizing and discrediting the Western project by all
possible means, including saboteur raids on its territory. It's necessary to
remember that to give away is their duty, their infinite debt and there's no
morality, consciousness, reality or objectivity. We impose a tax on them for
their shameless being above us, for their lordship.

The system can be brought down by extremely explicit and obscene acts,
political pornography, which is the basic dimension for the revolutionary
radicalism. 

					Anatoly Osmolovsky, Oleg Kireev

project: Anatoly Osmolovsky, Oleg Kireev
translation: Alexey Kovalev
realization: Syndicate