Ulica Pravdy

In Berlin, the city that for decades has been marked by the interface between East and West and the front line between Russia and the USA, the Sophiensaele opened its doors for a festival of Russian avant-garde art. The starting point was the living image worlds of an exceptional artist of Russian performance art – Alexander Petlyura. For the festival, he designed seven tableaux vivants that relate to Berlin and the Sophiensaele with its chequered history. His “living pictures” cast a spotlight on individual events in European history, commenting on them ironically and bringing them to the point with great detail.

18. – 26.06.2009
Sophiensaele Berlin

In Berlin, the city that for decades has been marked by the interface between East and West and the front line between Russia and the USA, the Sophiensaele opened its doors for a festival of Russian avant-garde art. The starting point was the living image worlds of an exceptional artist of Russian performance art – Alexander Petlyura. For the festival, he designed seven tableaux vivants that relate to Berlin and the Sophiensaele with its chequered history. His “living pictures” cast a spotlight on individual events in European history, commenting on them ironically and bringing them to the point with great detail.

For 25 years, Petlyura worked tirelessly to collect discarded everyday objects, discarded clothing and insignia of Russian everyday history. His collection now comprises some 2,000 pairs of shoes, 1,500 suits and dresses, 1,000 pieces of women’s and men’s underwear, about 3,000 pieces of various accessories and about 2,000 everyday objects. It is the largest collection of Russian everyday culture in Russia today – at the Sophiensaele he brought it together for the last time. With this almost inexhaustible reservoir of costumes and props, he continued the tradition of “living pictures” and recreates the identity of Russia with the waste products of the disintegration of the Russian world. His tableaux vivants question guiding images and expose precisely the ideological staging of historiography and interpretation, thus moving along the road of truth – “Ulica Pravdy”.
The festival marked the end of Alexander Petlyura’s work and this celebration was joined by other Russian artists and groups of artists at the Sophiensaele, such as Vladimir Sorokin and Petr Mamonov.

with
Alexander Petlyura “Empire of Things
Andrei Andrianov / Oleg Soulimenko “Made in Russia”.
Animal Cops REPLACEMENT MUSIC
Evgenij Kondratiev “Between Parallel Cinema and Necrorealism2
German Vinogradov Fire Graphics / Ognepis
Marina Lyubaskina “Matryoshka
Pyotr Mamonov “Long time we have not seen you2
Vladimir Sorokin “Novel with Picture
Artistic direction Heike Albrecht
Conceptual advice Joachim Gerstmeier, Janina Möbius and Alexander Petljura
Organiser Sophiensaele
Supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds
With the kind support of Goethe-Institut and radioeins
Pictures © Alexander Petljura
Design milchhof.net

Newspaper Uliza Prawdy