It is also important for us that Sofya is the most experienced editor and administrator of the Russian Wikipedia, as well as an active participant in Wikimedia Commons ( Shakko). It becomes obvious that Wikinews simply could not pass by such an event, and today we offer our readers an exclusive interview with Sofia Bagdasarova. Dmitry Rozhkov talked to the best Runet blogger.
Dmitry Rozhkov: First of all, let me congratulate you on your victory. What are your impressions of her?
Sofia Bagdasarova: Of course, pleasant. It's great that it was the art blog that won, that it is popular. Over the past year, my audience has grown a lot (up to approx. 50-40 thousand views per day). A ridiculous figure compared to YouTube, but for long texts, not only in blogs, but also in normal media, this is an excellent indicator.
DR: Tell us who you are by education, by profession, and how, in fact, you came up with the idea of your blog.
Sat: I graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, and have been professionally engaged in journalism in the field of culture for more than ten years. All these years, I have used two tools to structure information - Wikipedia and my blog. Moreover, Wikipedia is also not as a reader, but as a place where you can take notes. Many people don't realize this, but Wikipedia is a great place to keep notes of books and articles you've read. On the blog, I threw off funny facts and pictures, and also duplicated my journalistic articles - and for good reason, many of those magazines for which I once wrote have already disappeared. So a large part of the texts that attract readers today were not written for a blog, but for a salary.
DR: We will definitely return to your participation in Wikipedia. And how did this popular topic of your blog come about - the hashtag "disgusting art criticism"? Is this an area of your special interests, or just such an attempt to “catch a hype”?
Sat: This section of the blog appeared a year and a half ago, when I was in a bad mood. It's just that there is a lot of disgusting in art: castration, cutting off heads, skinning ... And the educational standard usually includes only the beautiful - Rafael and Shishkin. But I have known this for a long time. If you dig deeper, the wild opens up: not just erotica, but also zooerotica, all kinds of torture, infanticide, bearded women. The fact is that art, there is no escape, reflects all aspects of life - including the inner demons that devour many. I came across it under the arm, and I wrote it out - because it is unusual; noticing that people are attracted to it, she turned it into one of the permanent headings.
DR: But surely the rest of your headings appeared in the same way. Why did the “disgusting art criticism” “shoot out”?
Sat: Because people like to join the high, but not to be bored. However, classical paintings are usually perceived precisely as dreary and incomprehensible. And when someone appears who explains that it is not boring, but just as “fried” as regular news, this gives indulgence to enjoy the spicy, but at the same time joining the high. As a result, my readers learn culture through all sorts of "horrors".
DR: What other sections of yours are popular?
Sat: The next successful column was “questions about art”. They ask me the most idiotic question, and I begin to answer it. And telling some theoretical things, I taxi out on the meaning of life, the Universe and all that.
DR: Why is this artist "bad".
Sat: Yes, this text is especially popular: “Why is Shilov a bad artist, but Bryullov is a good one? They are very similar!” It's a brilliant wording, right? I really love such absurd questions, because they allow you to compare the most dissimilar, and cool generalizations are born from this. Or here's another: "Tell me about contemporary art in a nutshell" - an impossible task, after all! When they ask: "write about the Pre-Raphaelites", it's boring. I write in such a way that it would be interesting for me, about what I myself often just learned and am surprised at this. For example, about the fingers of Napoleon's corpse in broken boots (in works of art, of course).
DR: The objects of your criticism, the same Shilov, for example, somehow reacted to publications, tried to contact you?
Sat: Shilov is a celestial, he is higher than this. But recently a new monument to Alexander III appeared, the relief of which is decorated with "important events of the reign." Among them, as I listed in my blog, was a portrait of Dostoevsky, who died before the accession of Alexander III, the facades of museums founded or built under other tsars, the ship of the Russo-Japanese War, the silhouette of the Soviet monument to Tchaikovsky, and much more mysterious from the point of view of logic choice. This, of course, is not as blatant as a monument to Kalashnikov with a silhouette of a German machine gun, but it was amazing in quantity. My text sold out, something based on it was even made by the media. A few days later, the sculptor gave an interview in which he attacked the illiterate Internet community, which does not know that Dostoevsky was friends with the future emperor (which is why he is depicted), and that he read the biography of the emperor, and chose all this from it .
DR: Yes, I remember these explanations, they boiled down to the fact that everything that was before the reign of Alexander III was established under him, and everything after that was born under him.
Everything is clear with the reaction of the celestials, now tell us about the reviews of ordinary readers.
Sat: The return is great, and it's great. Many write: “I have never commented on anything, but for your sake I will write.” My readers are people who, according to them, do not open any other top blog at all. Recently at the exhibition I met one of them, and he began to introduce me to friends with the words: “I start my morning with this woman.” And with approximately the wording that I “need like coffee,” many write, it is very warm.
DR: And there are dissatisfied, aggressive comments?
Sat: Yes, I take a bath. This is my personal space, you can not offend me in it.
Sat: At first, I allowed almost everything. A person swears, well, it happens. And then my old friends started complaining, “Sorry, but I’m uncomfortable. You've become popular, the atmosphere has changed." And I thought, who is dearer to me: people with whom I have been communicating normally for more than a year, or some kind of trolls? And I began to ban all these characters who go from one popular blog to another and try to provoke everyone. And it turned out that there are a limited number of them, new ones appear now rarely. The atmosphere in the comments has become pleasant.
DR: I heard that your project is going offline, and you are already writing a real book.
DR: But did you reduce your presence directly in the Russian-language Wikipedia?
Sat: Yes. I continue to use it as an auxiliary apparatus for saving extracts from books. If I need to write an article about a person, I first write a biographical article about him on Wikipedia, where the bare facts are. Then, on its basis, I compose a normal text, artistic, with epithets, adjectives and my personal relationships.
DR: And you no longer participate in high-profile projects?
SG: For three or four years I have not been hunting for any "stars". The rules are becoming more and more complex, approaching the rules of the VAK. It is better to write a real dissertation. The amount of nitpicking about footnote design is insane.
DR: How many Wikipedians do you know in real life?
Sat: With sufficient quantity. And it's very nice to meet people with whom you communicated a lot online and with whom you wrote lyrics together. During the collective writing of articles, you understand a lot about a person: how he thinks, whether he is smart or stupid, what his temperament is, whether he is capable of negotiations. This is a communication that is almost unthinkable in standard social networks. On the Internet, people mostly have fun or engage in boastful self-representation, and when filling Wikipedia, people work as volunteers, showing their nature more truthfully.
DR: Sonya, thank you very much for such a meaningful conversation, new successes and victories to you in the coming year!
Sources
How often do you watch a person in the subway and think how, say, Venetsianov or Rokotov would write him? In general, the professional deformation of an art critic makes itself felt in everyday life?
There is another thing: you look at a person and mentally try on a suit for him. A hat from the time of the Musketeers or a kokoshnik. The face seems to be inserted into the suit, like a paper doll.
Sometimes you look at a girl - well, just scary, scary, faded, not made up. And then you imagine her wearing a headdress called ennen (the favorite headdress of the nobility of the 15th century, “horned” or cone-shaped - ed.) and you think: “Bah, yes, she’s from a van Eyck painting!” (Jan van Eyck - Flemish painter of the early Renaissance - ed.)
Have you ever wondered what your portrait should look like?
I have a portrait, a familiar artist painted it. I was a student then, and she made a portrait in the style of Piero della Francesco, in profile, against a blue sky.
What does the blue sky symbolize?
This is youth, spring, simplicity. No frills. I love the early renaissance. And my artist sister at one time drew me as a character in her comic strip.
Wow, how does it feel to be in a comic book?
It is very interesting to see how your personality is refracted in the work of the artist. Even in the work of a person who knows you like the back of his hand, your sister. When you turn into a character, the artist removes the excess, comes up with what he needs according to the plot and sharpens some characteristic features. No matter how much he loves you, he will still make you funny at some point, “for the sake of a red word, I won’t regret my father.” But that's okay - about Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, his relatives also wondered how it happened.In one of the interviews, you mentioned that you love TV shows. What did you like about the last one?
Fincher's Mindhunter, True Detective - in general, good, funny films.
In terms of aesthetics, I love costume shows. From a historical point of view, they are sometimes stupid, but at the same time they are made with great love for the psychology of the characters: "Borgia", "Tudors", "Rome".
On the other hand, I am terribly disturbed by the fact that I remember the faces of all historical characters and know how they should look.
For example, when I watch Borgia, it annoys me that the Pope, played by Jeremy Irons, actually looked like Leonov. And it's one thing when Irons plays the villainous pontiff, and another thing if Leonov would play him. It would be a completely different level of villain and poisoner, much worse! Or how it would play, for example, Danny DeVito.
For you, is art an escape from reality, or, on the contrary, a way to strengthen ties with it?
When you contemplate an oriental mandala, it hypnotizes and calms you. This is pure art, abstract. In the same way, you can look at the “Madonna” by Raphael: and she will enchant and calm you down.
Art is meditation
Sofia Bagdasarova, author of the book "Disgusting Art"
After that, you will begin to perceive the world more acutely and more subtly. Art, beauty is a way to clear the mind, exercise for the eye.
What is your favorite painting in the Pushkin Museum?
In different periods of life, these are, of course, different canvases. Now it is Boucher, "Hercules and Omphale", where they kiss. I was not allowed to take it in my disgusting book. They said that the Pushkin Museum always asks to read the text that will accompany the picture. And if my text is read in the museum, they will die and never do anything else.(for publication - ed. note) will not be given to anyone.
"Disgusting Art" is about how to find the funny and reduced in the pathos of the classics. Does this mean that classical art has lost its sacredness in relation to modernity, has become infantile?
No, it's about something else. The fact is that when classical art was created, all consumers of art had a store of knowledge about antiquity, this was given in elementary school. And now we've lost it all.
To understand and feel the classics as deeply as in the days when all these works were created, you either need to read a lot, or do what I did: translate it into the language of modernity. This is often done in cinema, so that we still understand what this very classic is about: “Romeo + Juliet” by Baz Luhrmann,(USA, 1996 - ed.),when the action takes place in modern costumes, or "Richard III"(film by Richard Loncraine and Ian McKellen, UK, USA, 1995 - ed.),where the action takes place as if during the heyday of British fascism in the 1930s. That is, a plot that seems outdated is taken and brought closer to us through modern costumes, realities and language.
We now have a very high interest in popular culture in historical plots in such a "meme" form. At first everyone was carried away by the "Suffering Middle Ages", now - "Disgusting Art". Do you think the stars aligned so well, or do historical stories help contemporaries cope with reality?
It's just interesting, and surprising, when something complex and "high" suddenly turns out to be understandable and funny. Our taste buds are full of informational fast food. People want to see beauty, but since there is so much of everything around now, simple beauty is no longer impressive. And here the old recipe turns on: beauty + adrenaline.
The breasts of a beautiful woman are much more beautiful if there is blood on them.
A blonde in a horror movie seems more beautiful to the brain than the same blonde in a good comedy. When a person looks at the beautiful, and at the same time, as if from fear, adrenaline is produced in him, then his feelings become aggravated, and beauty is perceived more sharply.
Since we have so much of everything, beauty is now served with adrenaline. With murders, like in Game of Thrones, with gags, like in The Suffering Middle Ages, or cannibalistic, like mine, in Hateful Art. This is a way to bring closer to the viewer something that, due to its elitism and complexity, has faded into the background.
People are drawn to the beautiful, but the old way of presenting them no longer clings. It turned out that there is a new way: blockbuster, Hollywood.
In Chekhov's time, to show the audience that something indecent was happening, it was enough for the actors on the stage to kiss. And the viewer understood: oh, this is indecent. Now, if they kiss in front of our eyes, we will not understand the subtexts. And so the director adds natural sex to this scene. It is understandable that for someone who grew up on a classical reading of the play, this is shocking. But the author achieved this: then, more than a hundred years ago, this kiss shocked us in the same way that sex on stage shocks us now.
How do you like the experience of publishing a book, what are your impressions?
As soon as I get a fee, even a penny, I’ll tell you right away.
Then we switch to the workflow. Did you have to reluctantly agree with the editor's edits, or did you feel completely free?
Well, I was asked to clean up the lyrics. In the original, it's quite harsh. What is allowed on the Internet is not allowed on paper. And now on the Internet it is not quite allowed. I cleaned out all the racist jokes, jokes about nationality, jokes about gays and jokes about the Christian religion.
That is, marking 18+ does not save you from censorship?
And why, and so just enough. Cannibalism, rape... why exacerbate the situation and involve mentally unhealthy people.
Why on the cover of the book - "Leda and the Swan"?
I myself selected illustrations for the texts, and then the artist chose 5-6 of them to choose from for the cover. The one that I liked the most, the miniature with castration, was decided not to put on the cover after all. And from the remaining options they took the second one, with Leda. He lay down the best.
In one of your last interviews, you said that interest in your blog increased in 2017. We believe that after the release of the book, it will take off even more, and the public will expect something new from you. Are you planning experiments, collaborations, transition to other platforms?
You know, I received an art history education, and immediately after that I began to engage in journalism. Why did my blog take off like that? Because I can write professionally. Art critics are usually reproached for knowing a lot, but at the same time they state it in such a way that nothing is clear. And I, on the contrary, do not know everything thoroughly, I have to prepare, but at the same time I can tell.
Having worked for more than ten years in journalism, I did not make a big name for myself (although I got a good hand). After all, all the time I had to perform other people's tasks, to stay within the editorial framework. And it was my personal blog that “shot” where no one controlled me, and I could turn around and set up a variety of experiments.
Therefore, I do not make any plans, I just have inspiration. Here I wanted this, I wanted this ... And when the soul flies, and it turns out interesting. And the routine and “focus on winning” are often boring.
I don't remember, but after the interview I'll give you a list (list of Sofia Bagdasarova for beginner art historians - ed. note).
The Internet is replete with blogs of various formats on various topics: beauty, fashion, games, movies, books, entertainment... But even today, when there are so many interesting niches around, one should not forget about art. In LiveJournal you will find many informative blogs about art, especially since we have already selected some great projects for you.
1. Tatyana Andryushchenko
Tatiana's popular blog looks at culture as a whole. The author shares not so much his own preferences as he invites his readers to get acquainted with various artistic trends and make their own choice: what they like and what not. Tatyana herself writes about her blog as follows: “Here you can find surre, art, salon, fashion and retro, and ... erotica.” In some places provocative, looking into the hidden corners of modern mass culture, but this makes it even more interesting to study. Recommended!
2. Sofia Bagdasarova
The sonorous nickname Shakko Kitsune (in Japanese folklore - a red werewolf fox) belongs to the art historian Sofia Bagdasarova. Her main areas of professional interest are painting and the history of Russian culture. Sophia devoted and continues to devote many articles to them, published on the Portal of Cultural Heritage and Traditions of Russia "Culture.RF", links to which can be found in the top blog post. And more recently, Sophia also published an electronic illustrated book "Mysteries about Russian queens, empresses, regents and grand duchesses of Moscow."
If there are readers among you who think that art is boring, then we advise you to look at Sophia's posts by tag
In her blog, Anna opens up the diverse world of painting and introduces the outstanding works of the masters. She pays special attention to a large layer of our history - the fine arts of the Soviet period. Turning to the sketches of such a familiar and understandable everyday life of that time, Anna was able to systematically comprehend and document it. May Day, flights into space, pioneers, workers and discoverers - everything in the pictures of the selections is filled with warm light and breathes faith in the future.
4. Valentina Feofilaktova
The blog of the Teacher - an art critic and teacher with 40 years of experience covers a wide range of topics: from the Middle Ages of the XII century, Romanesque art, the art of Byzantium, Italy, the Renaissance to architecture, sculpture, mosaics, the history of ornament and styles in art.
The Valentina principle can be formulated as "less subjectivism, more general principles and patterns." Therefore, here you will not find great comments, but you will see a lot of beauty through her eyes. Noticed, photos from the author's travels work better than any art history lesson!
In Nadezhda's blog, everyone who is not indifferent to art will certainly find something of their own for themselves, whether it be simple selections for the mood or thematic posts. We have evaluated and recommend more than 350 artists. We bet that you have not heard the names of many before, which means that the most inquisitive people will have more than one hour of immersion in the wonderful world of fine art ahead.
Prepared by LiveJournal Russia especially for Hello, blogger.
Bagdasarova S. Disgusting Art. Humor and horror masterpieces of painting. - M.: Eksmo, 2018. - 296 p. ISBN 978-5-04-088717-0.
Hateful Art is a new look at the classic world art that has conquered the whole world. Let's look at it from the perspective of the Criminal Code, shall we? Sofia Bagdasarova (Shakko) is a non-trivial character in the art world, as well as the winner of the "Best LiveJournal Blog" award in 2017. Famous plots of mythology, told in such detail that you involuntarily grab your heart and the Criminal Code all the time! Yes, in childhood we definitely didn’t read such things about heroes and gods ... Cannibals, sexual fetishists and murderers: it turns out that they are the characters of the masterpieces that fill the halls of museums around the world. After this book, you will begin to look at painting in a completely new way, seeing hidden stories and secret motives everywhere. And so that it is not so scary, all this is presented through the prism of humor. But do not worry, no kindling and insulting the feelings of believers - only aesthetic and moral.
Foreword
In many museums around the world you can find paintings by famous artists of the 15th-19th centuries, which amaze with their content. Something bad is clearly happening on them - murders or dismemberments, freaks or indecent, in our opinion, actions are depicted. To understand what exactly is happening on the canvas, you need to seriously delve into history or literature, remember long-forgotten mythical heroes.
Moreover, it turns out that many of these terrifying characters - criminals and victims, roam from picture to picture for centuries, from antiquity and the Renaissance to romanticism and modernity. For centuries, artists have retained an interest in these subjects, despite the huge number of other, much more “decent” and beautiful stories. Depending on the era, the reasons for this interest change, but their main source remains unchanged - the need to comprehend again and again what the most terrible thing can create for one person to another, the need to know the demons of one's own soul.
This book is dedicated to such cross-cutting characters with whom horrors are created in the paintings of both Rubens and the Pre-Raphaelites.
And since the topic is painfully tragic and cruel, and in some cases downright disgusting (for example, castration or cannibalism), a special style was chosen to present it, reducing pathos and contributing to “estrangement” - humor. This literary technique is well known to the Russian-speaking reader: with its help, such popular books as “The General History, Processed by the “Satyricon”” and “The Funny Bible” by Leo Taxil were created (and it goes back to the “Conversations of the Gods” by Lucian of the 2nd century BC .)
But humor is needed not only to distract from especially bloody scenes - thanks to the introduction of modern realities, it becomes easier for the reader to understand the background of many ancient stories and to feel that human nature, despite the change of clothes and religions, remains unchanged for centuries.
FRAGMENT
The Colchis princess Medea had a magical gift, an aquiline nose and a determined character. Any observant person would notice psychopathic inclinations in her immediately. When the Greek prince Jason came to her in the Caucasus, Medea fell in love with him and helped to rob her own father. They stole the Golden Fleece.
The father, King Aeacus, rushed in pursuit of the Argo ship, on which Jason, Medea and Fleece were sailing. Almost caught up. But Medea, who was very proud of her foresight, in addition to her cosmetic bag, jewelry box and passport, took with her her younger brother Apsirt. When her father's ship came close to the Argo and began to prepare for boarding, Medea brought her brother on deck and, making sure that her father could distinguish faces from her side, cut her brother's throat.
Then she, as the myths tell in detail, cut the body into pieces. And she began to throw these pieces overboard at intervals of 10-15 minutes, which, with a ship speed of 3 knots, gave them a sufficient head start. Because the poor father, of course, began to slow down in order to fish out pieces of his son's body from the sea.
A moment - and she thrusts her sword into the side of an innocent.
The body is torn apart, pieces of torn flesh
It hurries to scatter in the field, where it is not easy to find them.
And so that the father knows everything, he attaches to the top of the rock
His pale hands with a bleeding head -
So that this new grief delays the father, so that the remains
Looking for a son, he delayed the path full of sorrows.
By the apt definition of the Quantico FBI profilers, Medea is a classic organized non-social killer plus a highly organized psychopath. But Jason did not read the orientation they had compiled, deciding that such behavior on the part of a girl in love with him was completely normal. The dead boy was not his brother, but hers, so no one cares.
Then there was another alarming episode - Jason's uncle did not want to give him the throne, it was necessary to liquidate the old man. Medea cheated his daughters, showed them beautiful witchcraft - she cut an old ram into pieces and threw it into the cauldron. A young lamb jumped out of there. Most likely, it was even a banal sleight of hand a la Ostap Bender, and not magic.
Then he says to the girls - and let me rejuvenate your dad in the same way? Only it will be necessary to cut it into pieces for this. The girls believed. The poor old man was dismembered and thrown into a magic cauldron. Naturally, no handsome young man rose from there. The throne was vacant, Jason took it. Certainly, this woman had a morbid propensity for sawing human bodies into pieces.
So, not noticing anything, Jason and Medea got married. Time passed...
Sofia Bagdasarova is an art critic, journalist and popular blogger. This year, her art blog won the award for the best Longread LiveJournal. Today Sophia is ranked sixth in the ranking of LiveJournal users. In an interview with Kulturomania, she shares her thoughts on the phenomenon of the popularity of her blog, on how to write about art in an interesting way, and on cultural journalism in Russia today.
- Congratulations on receiving the award. Please tell us how your blog appeared and how it gained such popularity?
Indeed, my blog received the NeForum Award-2017, where one of the nominations was "Best Longread LiveJournal". It was in it that my "Blog of a naughty art historian" (shakko-kitsune.lj.ru) took first place. To be honest, I myself am surprised at how popular it has become: the number of its views is about 40-50 thousand per day (this is about the fifth or sixth place in the general LJ top). Probably the secret of success is that, first of all, I am, of course, not a “blogger”, but a professional journalist with an art history education. I have been writing about art for various publications for more than ten years. And my blog existed all this time in parallel with the main work, but it began to gain noticeable popularity in 2017. Previously, I used it more as an auxiliary platform: I posted notes and my old articles, I kept a professional archive on this platform, so to speak. When preparing materials, funny facts and pictures often come across, which I also added to my blog. After a while, these interesting little things and details began to attract more and more attention. Readers liked the personal attitude to art, emotionality. The fact is that when a journalist writes articles for a certain publication, he is restrained by the format, style, internal censorship - whether it is a story about the opening of an exhibition or about an artist. And in a personal blog there is space for expression, for individual and, of course, for humor.
- That is, the secret is in the presentation of the material?
Not only. I write about those topics in art that are rarely covered in serious publications. However, in the West they have long been in the scientific field (for example, you can recall the "History of Ugliness" by Umberto Eco), we are still poor with this. And people are interested in everything unusual! Thus, I came up with the Hateful Art Criticism column (named after Tarantino's The Hateful Eight). In it, I began to publish all sorts of shocking things, terrifying works of art - and not modern, but exclusively classics. The first major flow of readers, it seems to me, was attracted by these stories, and then they began to read other, more “calm” entries.
- It turns out that people are attracted, first of all, by something forbidden?
I would call these topics rather "marginal". They have always existed, take the same ancient myths. But basically, when studying the history of art, people are guided by the usual, traditional program. And that is why most viewers believe that the classics are boring and dull. But if you show art from a different, more sensual and human side, people become interested. It's not just about the "dark side" that is present in every person. Just an unexpected point of view, a look at the pictures with humor is a way to eliminate fatigue from the annoying “you need to be enlightened!”. Thus, by changing the format, I show the same art, but I do it in a non-boring way, with the help of a popular language. This is what shifts the perspective from the familiar to the exciting. For the same reason, my artistic riddles turned out to be in demand: I encrypt the names of paintings or the names of artists, and readers solve them with pleasure. Such materials are gaining three hundred to five hundred comments. This way they get to know works that they have never heard of. The game is fun and rewarding.
- What blog topics were the most popular? And how did they appear?
When I realized that I had a fairly large permanent audience that was not averse to learning about more serious things, I came up with the “Questions about Art” section. Readers who are not art professionals send questions for her, and the simpler and more unexpected they are, the more interesting it is to answer them. The very posing of the question makes it possible to answer in an unusual way. This is how the post-answer “Why is Shilov a bad artist, and Bryullov a good one, are they similar?” Today it is my most popular text, about 400 thousand views. Compared to You Tube records, of course, it’s a trifle, but for materials about painting, this is very cool. Or, “Tell me, what is 'contemporary art'? Just in a nutshell, please” and “Why is Repin cheaper than Malevich and Kandinsky?”. This, in theory, is impossible to answer seriously, but in the end some fundamental principles are revealed. In addition, I put my own feelings into the answers - thank God, the blog format is designed for this. And since I am an emotional person, this personal attitude of readers is also touching.
- And if the topic is serious? Is there a lowering of the bar here, because art history is a serious science?
This risk is always present. Therefore, I deliberately do not touch on things whose simplification could humiliate me or offend someone else. For example, I usually don't write about Christian art, because the reduction of style in a story about it can sometimes sound vulgar and even sacrilegious. But almost every masterpiece can be told in such a way that it will be remembered. My position is this: the world today is so immersed in a wide variety of information on all sorts of topics that it is necessary to seize the opportunity to talk about art, and not about social life or politics. And appreciate.
Where do you get those interesting facts from? After all, they do not lead to the "set" of academic education.
Basically, I use English-language books and articles, make extracts of memorable details, the names of artists, about which I need to dig deeper. And I use these working notes when I need to write a new post. It's a good habit not to throw gold into the dumps, but to put everything in a piggy bank so that you can use it later.
- Recently, popular science blogs and art portals have become very popular ...
Yes it's true. Perhaps this is a continuation of the same processes, the visible symptom of which was the already famous “Queue for Serov”. But although they say that this is due to the crisis and impoverishment, I would not associate this phenomenon with these factors. In my opinion, the fact is that there are so many options for entertainment, simpler needs have already been satisfied, so “elite” ways of spending time have become available and, most importantly, are of interest to more people. Today you can afford to download any movie or book. This means that you can afford a certain increase in self-education, something that will improve you. After all, thanks to the tradition laid down by education, we are used to the fact that teaching and culture are good. And when museums became more comfortable and open, the audience responded, especially in large cities.
- Are your readers really changing due to the information received in the blog?
I would like to think so, especially since I regularly receive thanks for this in the comments. And I have almost managed to convince the main body of readers that the avant-garde is good! The next goal is to explain contemporary art, but I'm afraid to take it. In a way, my writing has become, through regularity, an online art course. But it's hard when it comes to the beginning of the twentieth century. If in the West children are taught from an early age that expressionism and abstractionism are just as important creative trends as their predecessors, then our education is still “realistocentric”. This is not only the heritage of the curriculum, but also these are the features of the national character: we are rather closed and conservative, we are more pleasant and calmer to deal with understandable things. Therefore, I'm already tired of answering standard remarks like "My child will draw better than Malevich." But art cannot be bad, you just need to learn more and better about it.
What developments in cultural journalism in Russia could be called encouraging? If we pay attention to the comments of media readers, we see that performances and contemporary risks cause much more reader activity than vernissages.
It is true that people react more actively to newspaper articles about contemporary artists than about exhibitions of old masters. But this, as a rule, is just outrage, and not "reviews of a work of art." People are offended by these actions, artistic acts that affect the surrounding everyday life, which is why they talk about scandalous, outrageous actionism the most (well, that's how it was conceived). At the same time, if interest in news about culture (judging by the budgets allocated to editorial offices) is declining, then attention to the entertainment format, on the contrary, is growing. Getting information in the form of a game, video, infographics intrigues the modern reader. We see the same process in museums that offer entertainment, interactive programs, multimedia - and the number of visitors is increasing. Journalists have to write more and more exciting - what in other topics is called "adding yellowness." The format of a scientific article has become almost completely uninteresting to a wide audience, and if we do not want to lock ourselves in an ivory tower in order to look down from there, then we need to look for new formats. And although serious scientists condemn the popularizers of science, there is some kind of hoarding in this. After all, knowledge is a treasure, and when you share it, you yourself do not get poorer, but, on the contrary, you get richer.
Ekaterina Kim Photo: Dmitry Rozhkov / Wikipedia
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