Art Exhibit Closed Down in Moscow
Officers of Russia block the entrance to the exhibit.
The Lumiére Center of Photography was forced to close a photo exhibit by American artist Jock Sturges. A group of activists, who call themselves “Officers of Russia,” blocked the entrance to Sturges’ The Absence of Shame. Sixteen members and a spokesman for the organization gathered outside the front entrance to the gallery on September 25 to protest art they claimed was “child pornography.”
Officers of Russia’s website states that it is an organization that “unites groups of veterans and active officers... and passionate citizens” and lists amongst its aims “the patriotic education of the population.” A video by Krym Realii, a Radio Free Europe affiliate, shows the protesters wearing paramilitary style uniforms bearing titles badges stating “Center for the Prevention of Lawbreaking” and “Operational Youth Unit.”
Sturges’ exhibition opened at the center on September 8. Curator Natalia Grigoreva told independent news site Dozhd that there had been no complaints after the opening. However, Rozkomnadzor, the Russian executive body that oversees the media, has designated the exhibition as child pornography. Russia’s Children’s Rights Ombudswoman, Anna Kuznetsova, stated on her Facebook page, “I pity the girls whose photos make up part of this unfortunate exhibition.”
Others, including Federation Council member Yelena Mizulina, called The Absence of Shame “a public demonstration of materials containing child pornography.” Mizulina has, according to Radio Free Europe, asked the Prosecutor-General to investigate “the exhibition and its organizers.”
Sturges refuted these statements in an interview with Ren TV.
“Galleries and museums across the world haven’t seen these photos as pornography. It simply isn’t the case,” he said.
However, Sturges has come under scrutiny for the subject of his works in the past. According to The Moscow Times, the artist was investigated in 1990 by the FBI for possession of child pornography. The Bureau raided and searched his home and his studio, but a Grand Jury in San Francisco later refused to indict him.
This is not the Russian government’s first attempt to regulate the world of art. In 2003, The Committee for the Moral Revival of the Fatherland protested and vandalized the exhibition Careful! Religion! at the Sakharov Center in Moscow. The protest resulted in the destruction of works of the famed painters Aleksander Kosolapov and Elena Elagina and the prosecutions of Center Director Yurii Samodurov and organizer Anna Alchuk for the crime of “incitement of feelings of hatred and enmity on the basis of social, religious, and ethnic belonging.”
More recently, the members of the punk rock group Pussy Riot were arrested and sentenced to prison for their performance of Mother of God, Put Putin Away in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the wake of accusations of mass voter fraud in the 2011 Duma elections.
Putin’s major electoral win in last week’s elections can be seen as for impetus for a greater push towards social conservatism in Russian society. And with art being one of the most public areas of culture, the closing of Sturges’ exhibition will not be the last attempt by the authorities to enact change towards their perception of traditional Russian culture.