“Liquid Modernity” by the Russian artist Andrei Molodkin opened in the spectacular new Orel Art gallery in London last week. Redolent of a wedding ceremony we witnessed a juxtaposition of two different closed circuit energy states corsetted in tubes configured to reproduce two Russian prison cells. Light was wearing her neon chiffon which produced a wonderful chaud froid effect. The groom’s proboscis was sucking from a 10 gallon drum of authentic fine Russian crude to top himself off. A special page-less edition of “Das Kapital” with hollow Vampire typeface half filled with oil served as the Holy book. The walls were adorned with clear pipe assemblies filled, alternatively, with either real blood or oil in disrupted Mondrian-like formations fitted with taps. Mr. Molodkin glided throughout flanked by interpreters.
Molodkin will represent Russia at this year’s Venice Biennale. He merits our attention because of the anarchistic country that he hails from and his re-evaluation of a human’s worth based on his or her calorific value.
Russia is a mysterious country. It teeters on the brink of failed statehood. Meanwhile, London is full of Russian citizens on spending sprees and Molodkin points out that a lot of contemporary art is bought with oil money. Intrigue abounds. Recently the Kremlin chose London to poison to death a dissident with radioactive substances. London is also the seat of a major Russian oil trading syndicate. In the scramble to put their lips to the derricks some oligarchs slip in the oil puddles. Not too long ago Putin put the CEO of Gazprom in prison and this inspired the show’s cages.
A hollow “pop” emanating from the pumps circulating oil through the grooms pipes created a pleasing ambient rhythm while a continuous baseline hum droned from the electric transformers powering the neon. This is the artist at work on a mock industrial scale. Molodkin has created closed circuits that will run themselves and continue to produce art while he concentrates on other projects.
Next door a grid of oil lies atop a grid of neon creating a stained glass effect that veers towards an eclipse. It all feels very underground and I was surprised that daylight was allowed to filter into the gallery.
Although the contemporary art building site vernacular was familiar there was a missing ingredient . . . a welcoming committee? A prisoner?
Oil is the result of geological transformations but Molodkin doesn’t yet know how to speak in the transformative with it. We all know what the political and moral implications of this black liquid are. One look at it and our mind reels. But Molodkin seems to expect the oil to speak for itself while trying to piggyback off of our personal knowledge about the stuff. He just puts it in the picture or moves it around and says, There.
Although blood, oil and light are in close proximity they never mingle. Molodkin’s awe for this material produces raging sterility. Molodkin articulates and formalizes liquid through tubular supports but these are nothing more than personal kinks. The artist needs to do more than just prebend his subject/medium.
More grimly, but at least transformative, is Molodkin’s project “I Die For Art”. Upon their death a porn star , a BBC journalist and some HIV positive sufferers have agreed to have their mortal remains compressed into oil and to be made into sculptures. Molodkin suggests that relatives of the deceased might want to run their cars off of their loved ones oily remains or burn a flame with it.
Molodkin messes with a fair amount of hand me down concepts. Lately he sold a ballpoint pen drawing of a skull( can you believe it?) for 56,000 euros and then produced 100 prints of the drawing that had the same “aggregate” value of the original (of which he sold thirty). Thank you for the mishandled Walter Benjamin lesson.
All in all the spectator feels outmaneuvered and interrogated. Bright light obscures our vision and the blood-sucking undertones make us ill. Or maybe it was the fumes?
Ultimately the cages question our freedom. I would gladly hop into one of them if it would protect me from the forces unleashed when the occult meets the geological.
