the worldbackwards: a
moscow travel diary
Alexei
Kruchenykh - Graphic used as a stamp and large print. A collaboration by Mike
Dickau and John Held, Jr. for the "Back to the Russian Futurists" series shown
at the Mayakovsky Museum in Moscow.
One
of the motivating factors for my going to Moscow was the desire to research the
artist books of the pre-revolutionary Russian avant-garde. Interested since the
mid-nineties. I was especially drawn to the work and life of Alexei Kruchenykh,
whose books from 1913-1916 (The Worldbackwards, Expoldity, Game in Hell, etc.),
were the first to use rubber stamps in an artistic context. His major contribution
was Zaum, or "transrational" poetry. A Dadaist before Dada, and later a chronicler
of the era, Kruchenykh spent his later life as a collector and bibliographer,
salvaging the historic contributions of himself and his friends. As a practitioner
and historian of Mail Art, I began seeing Kruchenyhk as a role model; wanting
to traverse his path in closer proximity. This became a possibility after several
years of correspondence with Russian Mail
Artist Juri Gik, with whom I planned
an intensive three weeks of exhibitions and lectures in Moscow during April and
May 2003.
Day
1, Monday:
Leave
San Francisco at 5:00 pm on Aeroflot Airlines. Stop in Seattle, Washington before
preceding eastward to Moscow.
Day
2, Tuesday:
Arrive
in Moscow at 6:00 pm. At Passport Control I'm told there is a problem. I was originally
planning to arrive on the 16th and my visa lists it as my entry date. I'm told
that this can be corrected, but it will take a long time and there will be additional
costs. Awake for 24 hours and eager not to disrupt my meeting with Juri Gik, I
agree to pay a $150 bribe to enter. This accomplished in a bathroom, I pass through
customs and meet Juri, who is waiting for me with a taxi driver. We arrive at
his house in Pushkino, a suburb of Moscow, after a one hour drive. He lives in
a large apartment building with his wife Ann. Juri shows me the catalog he has
prepared for my show at the Mayakovsky Museum. After a dinner of bread, cheese,
smoked fish and salad, I go to bed at 9:00 pm.
Day
3, Wednesday:
Wake
up at 12 noon. Juri has gone to his work at a bank where he is a compute
r programmer. This is his last
day before a two week vacation. Ann and I take the train from Pushkino to Moscow
at 3:40 pm. We meet Juri at the Mayakovsky Museum, but our appointment with the
director has been postponed. Instead we browse the books in the Museum bookstore.
I buy several books on the Russian avant-garde, including, "Kruchyonykh Katalogue,"
an exhibition of books by the artist during his "Caucasian Period," which the
Mayakovsky Museum hosted in 2002. Juri had previously sent this book, but I buy
additional copies. Ann goes to work at the Russian Science Academy, where she
researching a literary encyclopedia. Juri and I walk to the Kremlin and Red Square,
and then along the banks of the Moscow River. We take the train back to Pushkino
at 7:00 pm. Dinner with Juri and Ann: fish, meat, rice, tomato, cheese, bread.
Bed at 10:30 pm.
Day
4, Thursday:
Paste
"Back to the Russian Futurists" postage stamps produced by myself and California
Mail Artist Mike Dickau, in the Mayakovsky Museum catalog. Take the train to Moscow
at noon. Go to the Mayakovsky Museum and meet with the director, who gives us
a tour of the Museum. Mayakovsky was a member of the Russian avant-garde, who
became the head of the LEF after the Revolution. He committed suicide in one of
rooms of the museum, which had previously been his residence. His association
with the Russian Futurists makes this a highly appropriate space to show the works
I produced with Dickau, both prints and stampsheets based on the personalities
and designs of the pre-revolutionary period. We leave at 3:30 pm and take the
Metro to the Central Train Station. Moscow Metro stations are all they are reknowned
for. Each one is different; some sporting elegant traces of pre-revolutionary
royalty, others outstanding xamples of political propaganda. They are truly underground
palaces for the people. Eat at an Italian restaurant before taking the train
back to Pushkino. Juri and I go to Internal Immigration to get my passport stamped.
I have entered on a "special visa," which has allowed me to stay in Juri's home.
We begin this process, but lack certain forms, plus we have to pay a seventy cent
fee at the bank, which we take care of. Back to Juri's house and bed at 7:00 pm.
Day 5, Friday:
Address postcard announcements
of the Moscow shows and lectures produced in San Francisco (with the help of Tim
Mancusi) for mailing. Eat breakfast: cereal, cheese, coffee, orange. Go to the
train station at 11:00 am, where we buy copies of the magazine, "At Rest," which
features a story about the Mayakovsky
exhibition, under the title, "Dada Held."
A stampsheet by myself and Dickau is illustrated. This is the main weekly cultural
guide to Moscow. Arrive in Moscow at noon. Go to a bookstore near the Mayakovsky
Museum and buy a book on Futurist painter Olga Rozanova. Meet the Manager of the
Mayakovsky museum and begin framing works for the exhibition. In addition to the
prints and stampsheets in the series, "Back to the Russian Futurists," produced
by Dickau and myself, we install work in display cases by Ray Johnson (letters),
Rocola (rubber stamps), H. R. Fricker (envelopes), M. B. Corbett (rubber stamps),
Picasso Gaglione (Stamp Art Gallery rubber stamp boxed sets), Vittore Baroni and
Piermario Ciani (AAA Edizioni books). Back to Pushkino by train at 9:00. Dinner
of sausage and rice. Bed at 10:00 pm.
Day
6, Saturday:
Wake
up at 8:00 am, seemingly over jet lag. Breakfast of coffee, swiss cheese, cereal.
Juri goes to Internal Immigration office at 9:00 to stand in line for 10:00 opening.
Ann and I walk to the office for the 10:00 opening. Meet Juri and get my visa
stamped. After the trouble in getting into the country, I've become a bit anxious
about these official visits, but all goes well. Juri goes shopping. Ann works
in the garden with others in her apartment complex. Saturday is "subotnik," a
communal outdoor cleaning day, a hold-over from Soviet days, and something I've
seen previously in Cuba. I stay in a read, "Our Arrival," by Kruchenyhk. Leave
at noon by train for Moscow with Juri and Ann for opening of the exhibition, "First
International Post-Futurist Exhibition." Arrive at Mayakovsky Museum at 1:00 pm.
Juri and I go through the exhibition and explain the works (Juri translating),
while Ann videotapes with the digital video camera they have purchased just previous
to my visit. Set up table for rubber stamping and applying artistamps to special
papers I've brought with me. Two Moscow artistamp artists come for opening and
I exchange stampsheets with them. Rubber stamp and Mail Artist Constantine Melenkov
arrives and exchanges work.
He is the hardest working artist I've ever met,
constantly rubber stamping and drawing in books, on paper and any other surface
(metal, cigarette packages) he can find. I see him often throughout the trip.
Also a younger artist presents me with a Mail Art exhibition catalog in the form
of a postcard set. About thirty people in all for the opening.
I
am introduced by the Manager of the Mayakovsky Museum and presented with flowers
(which I later give to Ann Gik). We leave at 3:30 pm to go to the exhibition opening
at the Digital Gallery. This was the first private gallery in Russia and this
exhibition marks the opening of the gallery in a new modern, three story space.
Lots of food and drink. We meet with Alexander Kholopov and his wife Natalya Lamanova,
who previously curated the Motherland/Fatherland artistamp exhibition in 2002
with Jas Felter. Natalya has some incredible digital art on canvas, with images
taken from previous artistamps. A fantastic meeting with them. Constintin Melenkof
is also there. It is a big event. I meet the director and other artist friends
of
Alexander and Natalya. Leave with Juri after an hour at the gallery. We
take the Metro (all different stations are decorated in different ways-mosaics,
chandeliers, portraits of Lenin) to the Central Train Station. Get some Italian
food before catching our train to Pushkino. Back about 8:00 pm. Juri works on
editing video. Sleep at 10:00 pm.
Stampsheet
and large print. A collaboration by Mike Dickau and John Held, Jr. for the series
"Back to the Russian Futurists" shown at the Mayakovsky Museum in Moscow. Click
for larger view.
Day
7, Sunday:
Wake
up at 8:30 am. Breakfast of sausage, potatoes and tomatoes. Taker a shower. Get
things ready for trip to Chekhov Museum for exhibition opening of "Post-Futurism,"
composed of some eighty postage stamp sheets of mine from 1988 to the present.
Also about thirty sheets of rubber stamp impressions. Take train from Pushkino
to Moscow at 10:30 am. Change train in Moscow for the town of Chekhov, some 80
miles out of Moscow-which direction I have no idea. A word on Russian trains.
Seats face each other with three people sitting on a side. There are two rows
of seating separated by a center aisle. The seats are wood. Most often, the trains
are crowed-and stuffy. Why no one opens the windows I never figured out.
This
was the same on buses. I figure that it was the same as why people in Dallas,
Texas, keep their houses and building so cold-in the case of Dallas-a reaction
to the heat. In Moscow, a reaction to the cold. Peddlers constantly come on board
to sell inexpensive items-toothbrushes, glue sticks, shoe cushions, soup seasoning
in packets-and at on one trip-a puppy. Tickets are cheap. The fare from Pushkino
to Moscow, which lasted some hour and a quarter, was seventy cents. We arrive
in the town of Chekhov at 1:30 pm.
We
walk about a quarter of a mile from the train station to the Museum of Letters-essentially
of postal history. A former post office, it was funded by the famed playwright
Anton Chekhov, who had moved to the town and bemoaned the lack of one on his arrival.
I'm surprised to see a full room of some schoolchildren
ranging in age from
14 to 17. It turns out that they are studying English and my appearance is an
opportunity for them to hear real English speech. I'm charmed. After an introduction
by the Director, I give a talk on my interest in Russian Futurism, Mail Art and
Artist Postage Stamps. Sensing their lack of interest in art, I keep it light
and conclude about telling them stories about my life in San Francisco. Lots of
questions when I conclude. I do some stamping with rubber stamps from the Russian
Futurist series I've brought with me, and then let them stamp. After the children
leave, the museum staff, about five women,
serve refreshments-tea, sweets
and fruit. While eating, I'm asked to take a phone call. It seems that there has
been a national radio broadcast about the show, and I'm asked to give directions
to the museum. I leave it to others to answer. I have a very good translator for
the talk to the children-a freelance English teacher, who has retired from the
army. He is a very nice man, but takes the opportunity to ask me about the Iraq
war, most notably my thoughts on the looting of Baghdad museums. It is the only
time I'm asked about the war while I'm in Russia. Before leaving at 5:30 pm, I'm
given a short tour of the museum, which used to be a working post office. We arrive
back in Pushkino at 8:30. Ann prepares a dinner of small meatballs, bits of lamb,
tomatoes and a baked potato. Bed at 10:00 pm.
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