15/7/07

Museum of Modern Art, Petrovka
Suprematism collection: note the homology between the (apparently flying, or at least moving) rods and blocks of Suprematist compositions, and abstract film animation, specifically the visual sequence of the Pearl & Dean advertisement at the cinema. In other words, we are now obliged (in some sense) to look at these 'transcendental' works through the visual filter - or point of reference, or visual imagination - of commercial visual culture, advertising and animation in particular. Does this mean that advertising becomes the 'truth' of these works, perhaps in part by means of the Australian artist who made animated abstract advertisement for the GPO back in the thirties? Or is it rather that advertising is the mere dialectical antithesis of these, itself to be succeeded by some kind of synthesis that will restore the 'transcendental' element? (See Ilya Tchasnik, Composition, 1920s). Malevich's faceless peasants: are you coming round to (at least) some of them? Note unexpected connection here with Dali.

Benjamin, at least, shared his hotel room with only one other person when he wrote his Moscow Diary; I must be sharing mine with at least six. It is both this, the lack of any personal (private) space, and the exhaustion from constant walking, that makes writing difficult - or that, at least, is my excuse. Mathews' exercise was a morning one, preparatory to actual work: yours - have you mentioned this already? - has no such function: it has become a mere end in itself, a duty to be fulfilled before the day passes. In this sense it begins and ends with itself, leading nowhere (but only, that is, since you let it do so). The day, with its predictable frustrations, and its recurring memories of Moscow of eleven years ago where you spent many an unhappy hour wandering around alone, as you are today, and as you will be for the next week or so, ended acceptably enough, and with the encouraging and unexpected news that M. will be in town tomorrow. The hostel was again so crowded - and you found its guests so objectionable - that you decided to take refuge, once again, in a cafe where you are writing this. It is open twenty-four hours a day and the staff seem to work incredibly long hours; as, indeed, it seems many of the service personnel do here, the people working in bars, restaurants and kiosks. The industry here seems to draw on a vast pool of un-unionised and young labour. Indeed youth seems to be much in evidence walking around the city, and you can't tell whether it is the summer or your own thoughts on the few months of your own youth you spent here that has drawn your attention to to this fact. Other, related (but how?) observations include: that people are better dressed (which does not necessarily mean, more successfully), appear better fed (that is, somewhat healthier, and perhaps 'cleaner'), and the number of people carting bags and trolleys of saleable goods - mainly foodstuffs - around the metro has declined dramatically, as has the number of kiosks and small street traders. All this is surely a sign of both rising prosperity - at least in the city - and a greater degree of control of the streets by the authorities, who have obviously at some point forcibly moved a good deal of petty traders off the main thoroughfares and into a few designated areas down certain sidestreets. Thus poverty and hand to mouth livelihoods persist, but their existence has been repressed as best the city authorities can manage (or get away with). This particular area of Moscow, just east of Pushkinskaya, seems particularly to have been gentrified, and the streets near here with the old, aristocratic houses make Moscow appear far more attractive than you ever remember it looking. Correlative with this process is the fate of certain pieces of Soviet-era architecture. The famous Constructivist Izvestia building on Pushkin Square, a rare survival from the twenties, has an advertising hoarding on its roof now, which lights up at night. It remains the offices of the paper, now a pro-business financial daily (apparently). Ten years ago you remembered thinking that Muscovites were mocked by their revolutionary monuments (notably the 'caryatids' in Ploschad' Revolutsii metro). Today it is the monuments that are mocked. Their 'ideological' significance has wholly evaporated; but they have yet to acquire a 'historical' one (in so far as 'history' isn't mere ideology itself). This exposes them, and makes them appear vulnerable and frail.