Two art groups will represent Russia at the Venetian show-the Escape and the PROVMYZA, said Ms. Saprykina. The groups won a contest on which 52 projects were running, offered by artists from Russia and other countries. Nizhni Novgorod hosted the event a year ago, under the State Contemporary Art Center aegis.
The PROVMYZA-an abbreviation from the second names of two Nizhni Novgorod artists, Provorov and Myznikova-was offering an air-sound installation, the Idiotwind. The pavilion to exhibit it will have three suites of closed spaces that resemble spacemen's training chambers. You feel a tender breeze as you enter the first room. You go to the next to encounter a strong wind that blows your hair and clothes. Go on to the third room-and a fierce storm presses you to the wall. The sinister room is dark, with lighting only on the floor. Accompanying all those adventures is recorded howl of the wind and minimalist music. The viewer gets inside an art work to become just another artefact. The PROVMYZA thus seeks to prove that visual arts ought to be perceived not through the eyes alone but with the other senses, as well.
The Escape-of Moscow artists Aisenberg, Litvin, Mamonov and Morozova-bases its project's motto, "Too long to escape", on the group name. It represents four red-clad figures on a screen against a snowy Russian winter landscape. The composition repeats Kazimir Malevich's "Red Cavalry". The people on the screen appear to be moving toward the audience, their speed depending on the number of viewers. The hall will have special computer gadgets to gauge the number of entering persons. The critical mass pf viewers will produce a striking special effect. The polysemantic project refers to Malevich to revive social experiments by Russian avant-garde artists of the early 20th century.
