Photo: Bert Verwelius
“You have never seen the women behind the masks quite like this!”
So reads the description of “Pussy Riot Unmasked” and it delivers. Inside, there are several cheesy portrait close-ups of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, bare shoulders and up, slightly smiling faces awash in soft lighting. On the following pages, Nadya and Masha comically re-enact their time in Russian prisons, where they separately served 21 months each for several seconds of singing an anti-Putin protest punk song inside an Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Moscow. Clad in prison uniforms, they laugh and haul carts, cuddle on dirty floors and pose severely next to barbed wire fences.
Photo: Bert Verwelius
The book of photos by a self-described “successful Dutch entrepreneur and avid photographer” Bert Verwelius was released this summer by teNeues and found its way to the MoMA PS1 bookstore. It coincided with the museum’s incredible “Zero Tolerance” group show and Nadya and Masha’s appearance in conversation with Klaus Biesenbach on “Activism, Artistic Courage and Civil Disobedience.”
“I can’t tell if it’s über-ironic meta-art commentary or a self-indulgent glamour project,” Miriam Elder tweeted after I showed her this nonsense. She was the first to really interview the emerging, anonymous performance actionists in 2012 and best in considering their current post-prison superstardom. Now, Miriam and I were confused. But amused. Then, I did some digging and got nauseous.
“In his working life”, “autodidact” photographer Verwelius is a CEO, “an estate developing and construction company.” Both his photography and real estate websites feature auto-playing sax-y lobby muzak of “Jazzamor,” but only one features a photo of an elderly Pierrot licking black caviar out of a naked model’s navel. The rest is fairly lackluster clichés of bad erotic photography, except for a particularly hilarious collection of closely cropped photos of closely shaved crotches with some lace on them, entitled “Read My Lips.” I am still waiting for authorization to log in and peruse further, but it’s all almost too crappy to be funny.
Photo: Bert Verwelius
Which begs the question, why the fuck would Nadya and Masha lend their likeness to a creepy rich guy? Maybe we can chalk this oddity up to Nadya’s husband and professional media whore Petr Verzilov (temporarily shunned as a “quasi-conman”), whose grinning, never-masked face appears towards the end of the book.
These photos probably weren’t intended to be making any sort of statement, least of all at a cultural institution. If anyone earned the privilege of lampooning prison it’s the two women who were jailed under a vague “hooliganism” law. Jailed, because “traumatized” babushkas (who’ve never watched their viral YouTube video “Punk Prayer”) testified against them in court, echoing state-controlled talk show hosts and Orthodox religious leaders who regaled the masses with imagined tales of possessed, naked, wild women pissing on the holy altar. They were jailed at labor-camp-like prisons so harsh, Tolokno went on a hunger strike to protest their “slave-like” and inhumane conditions which were driving their fellow inmates to attempt suicide.
Even though Nadya and Masha’s never-ending media tour and high-profile appearances with Amnesty International and Stephen Colbert that followed alienated the rest of Pussy Riot, let them have their silly photo shoot. Sure, this continued to muddle the group’s original mission of anonymous, feminist, un-branded revolt, but maybe they were deliberately poking fun at their accidental celebrity status and all that #capitalism? And who cares if it was with some Dutch cornball who has a penchant for simulated interracial lesbian softcore and pussy puns?
Actual photos of Tolokno’s prison: Izvestia
Obviously there is nothing wrong or unfeminist about being pretty (or naked, though Nadya and Masha’s photos are not). But there is one narrative here that bothers me. It’s not the faux-prison uniforms riding up on Masha “sleeping” frame. It’s not Verwelius’s faceless piles of boobs. It’s these fucking portraits.
Photo: Bert Verwelius
And the book’s description:
Verwelius also shows us a very different, hidden side to the two young women in this book, his first publication. With his sensitive portraits, he captures the open and loveable nature of Nadezda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina—not to mention their beauty.
Except that it is mentioned, and emphasized, and zoomed in on with everything else cropped out. It’s re-purposed for some well-connected dude’s vanity project, a dude who, from the title of his book, relishes in taking away their “masks.” It doesn’t feel like a deliberate attack on the original symbol of Pussy Riot’s cheerful balaclavas, the ones that irked Putin that much, the ones that stood for unified international protest against the oppression of women, the LGBT, and other dissidents. Nah, “Pussy Riot Unmasked” is about the very basic joy of removing someone’s clothing, bragging to the world about the awesome stuff underneath, and expecting some sort of personal credit for doing so. It’s punny and low-concept and it shouldn’t have gotten to me like this. Fuck this stupid book.
{ 17 comments }
Marina, Your negative opinion (on these very brave female activists’ freedom of expression, and their artistic choices) is certainly one of the more stupid things I’ve had the displeasure of reading.
Just because you disagree with an opinion doesn’t make it stupid. Marina took the time to flesh out an argument. Do the same or run the risk of being blocked.
y’all are pretty thin-skinned to be involved in the critique of art, aren’t you? I mean, not that you shouldn’t be, just that it’s not an area where people don’t have their own opinions, which inevitably aren’t going to coincide with yours, speaking broadly of the site and/or its root contributors.
Kathleen L. said she thought they were brave (I agree), she thought the negative opinion (definitely present in the post) was uncalled for to the point where it reflected poorly on the intelligence of the writer (I’d put it more as I did below… I don’t think it’s dumb, I just think it’s blithely tone deaf… critique of art without a legitimate and serious attempt to put one’s self in the mindset of the artist(s) is kind of doomed to be shallow, one way or another.) She also added some information generally useful to the editors: she was displeased to read it.
None of this says the writer shouldn’t have written it this way; but it certainly sets the stage for some passionate and succinct disagreement. Your displeasure at encountering same seems… out of place.
If I were you, I’d be thanking her for taking her time out to read the article, and for passing along her opinion. It’s hardly the end of the world, nor is it, IMHO, anywhere *near* the threshold where one should threaten blocking. Perhaps a little fine-tuning of your mod sensibilities might be called for, eh?
We don’t thank commenters for ad hominem attacks. It’s one thing to disagree with a post, it’s another to call it stupid. That’s not useful feedback to the writer.
When one offers an opinion — which this piece surely was — one can expect that opinion to be taken and shaken at times. One can expect the basis of that opinion to be questioned or even dismissed, and when dismissed, characterized. Finally, she called the article content stupid. She didn’t call the author stupid. I’ve written stupid things. I consider it possible that you have written stupid things. Doesn’t make us stupid, and it’s hardly the same as saying we *are* stupid. But it will provoke readers, and they can be blunt. Legitimately so. Lastly, this isn’t a “feedback to the writer section”, is it? I thought it was a “comment section.” Perhaps I missed something?
Marina — you are hilariously tone-deaf.
This is the definition of a lazy, unsubstantiated comment.
Mmm. Lazy, yes, possibly. Still, considering the post as a whole… I’m going to go with “wholly appropriate.” Sorry if that upsets you. Just calling it as I see it. You’re for that, right? Considering the context here? Art is in the eye of the beholder. She beheld. I beheld. She expounded; I consider her perception tone-deaf. To such a degree that it actually was funny. So I said so. Was that unfair? I don’t think so. So not unsubstantiated at all. Lazy, surely. More wasn’t called for. Still isn’t. It’s art. There will be disagreements and consequent perceptions. Live with it. Also, please, continue to feel free to characterize my perceptions any way you want to. I may, or may not, be inclined to respond. That’s what it’s all about. Cheers. 🙂
The adage is “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and it’s not an argument for a post being tone deaf. To build an argument like that you’d need to respond to the content of the post. You’re not doing that.
And, in your judgement, I must expound an argument in order to offer an opinion? That seems like a pretty high bar for a comment section, frankly. It’s also worth pointing out that some opinion arises fairly directly from one’s sensibilities; not from logic or reason. That doesn’t make such opinion invalid. If it did, the world would be a very cold place indeed. And I don’t think I’m stretching a point at all to say that art evokes such feelings in those who cross the threshold of interest to where they find certain works compelling.
Ad hominem also means appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions or special interests, rather than intellect. But I agree that the term commonly used to describe a personal attack.
Again, though, there’s nothing here that offers a specific response to the work or what’s been written about the work. That’s a problem because it means there’s no promise for useful or healthy discussion and debate.
As a thought experiment, I shall move the bar. I am, in my own way, an artist. A very minor one. I’m a musician, with a particular interest in a mode I loosely, but definitely, associate with the blues. I play in my own very distinct style. I came to it on my own, backwards, because I had little to no exposure to the history of blues prior to my developing this approach. SF household, writers everywhere, a fairly rigid exposure to classical music and not much else. I felt sad, I managed to get my hands on a guitar, and things unfolded from there without much external shaping for several years. About ages 6 to 11 or so. I had, and dog-eared up, some how-to-guitar books (typical of authors… give the kid a book, lol.)
I assert that what resulted is art because it lives within me, evokes deep emotional responses that then appear as new facets of the music I am playing such that *I* perceive them. Each undertaking is unique to my ear and tends to layer on past undertakings. It’s a slow process in terms of variations. This is my art, such as it is. I may be the only one who can appreciate it as I see it. And that’s fine. But I do share it.
I’m not saying it’s good, commercially valuable, interactively compelling, or even particularly skilled. But it is definitely art; I experience myself much more deeply when I play just this way, and it comes out as an at least somewhat-sharable sound, if we cannot characterize it as anything more. It’s not outright dissonant, anyway.
Now you, you can say I suck, and that’s not ad hom in the usual sense, it’s just an opinion based on whatever metrics or feelings I’ve provoked from you — or not. It’s not invalid. It’s how you see it. I don’t need it explained; I’m interested, certainly, it is even likely to affect how I proceed, but it’s your opinion and that’s ok.
You can say “that isn’t blues, WTF are you talking about?” and again, you can take that position and be perfectly correct within the bounds of your perceptions and preconceptions (and I don’t mean preconceptions in a bad way.) To *me* it’s blues(y) because it’s… well, sad. There are a lot of things I’m sad about. Most of them, I can’t do anything meaningful about it. So I whine. I whine and bitch and complain with my fingers on the neck and over the soundboard of my instrument. It’s my thing. It’s art. And perhaps, indeed, it sucks.
Can I “do” classic blues? Sure. almost 50 years of playing gave me the exposure eventually, and I picked a good bit up just to be social about it with other musicians. Rock too, folk, etc. But I always lean back to my roots, which are distinctly “other”, when I am alone or under no pressure to conform (hey, let’s play a shuffle! …ok)
If you were to listen to one of my… tone poems, let’s call them… and you said “hey, that’s stupid. I’m displeased. I feel like you wasted my time.” I’m thinking that’s both valid and perfectly ok for you to say.
That’s all.
Just as an aside, I was under the very strong impression that “ad hominum” means “to the man” or more PC these days, “to the person.” “responding to arguments by attacking a person’s character, rather than to the content of their arguments.” That was wikipedia. Other reference sources just quickly hit right now seem uniformly in agreement. Where did you get the extended ideas you put forth above? My position was that KL didn’t attack the author, she attacked the article, which seems valid to me. Over.
It is a high bar – that’s why our comment section is good.
Look at the art and describe it. Do you find the clown portraits compelling? Tell me why. Look at the images of Pussy Riot. Which ones do you find compelling? Tell me why. It’s exciting to talk about art and it’s exciting to debate what works and what doesn’t. I want to know what you like about these photographs.
> Do you find the clown portraits compelling? Tell me why.
Yes, very much so. Look at him. Puts me directly in mind of how the powers that be looked at them — from the side, concerned only with the surface, acting foolishly in the presence of beauty and insight and an overall social message that could have served to improve things, but instead was perverted and distorted into an attempt to muzzle it. Clowns, indeed.
> t’s exciting to debate what works and what doesn’t.
Is it? Well, for you, perhaps. My take is that what works for me may not work for someone else, and vice-versa. When I drop an opinion on art, I’m always ready for the other person to take any position. I’ll certainly have an opinion on that position, too.
I’m don’t think it is generally productive to debate it, though, because the formative process I went through that sets my sensibilities on their own peculiar surfaces and edges is most unlikely to find an analog in the person I’m having the conversation with. Anything can trigger significant disagreement — the presence of certain props, a facial expression, camera technique… anything. Depends so much on where you’re at.
And the key, as it’s art, is that such things are not in the least invalid — and that’s another reason I’m not much up for debate WRT what “works.” As I see it, if it worked for the artist, it worked, period. We then move to issues of communication, empathy, preconception, and so on. Which will, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree, vary, and which really aren’t up for… debate. You can agree, or not, but to pan? Meh. Now, if you were to ask what works for *me*, we might be having a very different conversation. But as you don’t know me, and as I didn’t offer… do you really care?
I wanna see pussy riot do their thing in a synagogue.
They seem to be discriminating by only doing it in churches.
Interesting. Now, I see the clown as a problem. The evil or sadness that lurks behind a clown mask is so common it’s a cliche at this point and since Clowns often hurt each other with their pranks you don’t feel like these women are safe with this figure. These images aren’t from the pussy riot shot, so I don’t think they comment on the group’s specific situation though if they were hung together I guess you could make that argument.
And yeah, I totally love debating art and think it’s useful. I’ve met some incredible commenters that have totally transformed the way I’ve seen work. I find that so thrilling when that happens.
Anyway, I gotta knock off for the night, but thanks for the discussion.
good morning everybody what did I miss
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