IT IS NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS: PACIFISM AND ART TODAY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE EXHIBITIONS OF MAYANA NASYBULLOVA «EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE» AND «MONUMENT TO MEMORY»)

Abstract

In article, the researcher considered «pacifist art» as a contradictory phenomenon of contemporary Russian art. The author focused on two exhibitions by the artist Mayana Nasybullova «Everything is terrible» (Vadim Sidur Museum, Moscow; June 9 — August 7, 2022) and «Memorial Monument» (Anna Nova Gallery, St. Petersburg; December 23, 2022 — March 12, 2023). These exhibitions are the most striking statements about the war among young Russian artists over the last couple of years. The researcher aimed to identify the features of domestic «pacifist art» today: its ideas, forms, problems. She analyzed the installations of Mayana Nasybullova: «War» («Angry Women»), «Memorial Monument», «Garden of Eden», «Exodus» firstly presented in the 2022. The author examined them in the general cultural discourse and espessially in the context of the development of «pacifist art». Also she compared the installations with the works of such «pacifist artists» as Otto Dix and Vadim Sidur, as well as with the modern battle paintings of the M. B. Grekov Studio of military artists. This approach allowed the author to identify the commonality of the problems of contemporary domestic «pacifist art» both «conceptual» and «classical» in the form of expression. The researcher summarized that this type of art has such features as the lack of ideological and formal independence of young artists, the absence of personal experience of the war, as well as the incompleteness of a generalized philosophical vision of the themes of «war» and «peace».