The poet Vadim Levin has a children’s poem, which ends with the words: “Each and every one was waiting – children, animals and birds. But this time, like any other, nothing happened in the world.” In it, birds and animals from different parts of the earth gather together. Gather and wait. And then, apparently, they disperse.

 For artists of The Collective Actions Group working in the 70s of the last century, it was essential that, in fact, nothing was happening, that the very process of waiting was filling up with meaning. And that this was quite enough for an event and co-existence between people to occur. Perhaps, this is the most important thing that can happen right now.

In the late 60s — early 70s, many artists who lived in the USSR played with reality. They did not pretend that it didn’t exist, but they didn’t accept its official discourse as well. They gently cut the leg of the chair on which this reality was sitting. It was possible to create works and events in which the meaning could be read between the lines. Either in or off the form. Walk in circles, write on cards, take the audience out of town, arrange a «mental performance».

When someone tries to put pressure on your mind — specialists, fellow colleagues, rulers, curators, the older generation, the younger generation, etc. — you can always just remain a child or a fool, in the sense that director Slava Polunin puts into this word. No one can take away from the artist the right to play, to meet, to lift her/himself by the hair, to lead the viewer by the nose, to tug at a friend’s ears, stretch muscles into a smile and evoke the same from others. For this purpose, sounds, music, words, letters, gestures, ideas, objects, silence, absence, presence, common space, wind and night were invented and have existed nearby all along. Everyone can use this material, it seems like it’s always appropriate.

Anna Romanova