Read Online Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West by Agata Pyzik - Free Book Online Page A

Russian mainland, Kaliningrad is an isolated territory created by the Soviet Union. Carved out of the German East Prussian city of Königsberg and its hinterland after the war, bordered by southern Lithuania and northern Poland, it sits on the edge of the Baltic Sea, geographically separated from Russia but officially still part of the country, a hangover from a bygone era of empire. With its neighbors now part of the EU and NATO, as well as the Schengen zone, the city’s detachment from Russia is only growing. Kaliningrad’s extraordinary position inEurope has inspired strong responses in adjoining countries, and particularly in Poland, not only from politicians, but also from artists. In January 2012 a simultaneous exhibition,
Enclave
, was held at Warsaw’s Center for Contemporary Art and Kaliningrad’s National Center for Contemporary Art. Artists from Poland and Russia were asked to reflect on the idea of an enclave, with regard to Kaliningrad itself.
    What are the principal associations of the word “enclave”? Mostly negative: isolation, xenophobia, alienation. Judging from many contributions to the exhibition, Kaliningrad is a reflection of exactly that condition, a museum of dead ideology, surrounded by the ruins of an old system. Yet look closer and the city tells a different story. Both economically (it was given Special Economic Zone status in 1996) and demographically, Kaliningrad is doing significantly better than most of the rest of Russia. So which of those two images — cultural obsolescence or economic progress — is nearer to the truth?
    The Russian artists in the exhibition tended to respond more closely to the stated topic. Sound artist Danil Akimov produced the most ethereal work, a small room that became the city itself: a map was projected on the floor that was sensitive to footsteps and evoked the sounds of the respective parts of Kaliningrad. Art group Tender Bints (Nezhnye Baby) showed a video, Dirt, in which two women perform a strange ritual drowned in mud, telling a sad story of the women of the Curonian Spit, the enormous sandy peninsula which sweeps out from Kaliningrad towards Lithuania and forms an isolated enclave within an enclave. Some of the Polish works meditated on neighborliness and hospitality, kindness and the lack thereof. Karolina Breguła’s ‘Good Neighbours’, for instance, showed the artist walking around Kaliningrad knocking on people’s doors and introducing herself as “your nice neighbour from Warsaw”. For the most part, however, the Polish works in
Enclave
were Ostalgic - wistful portrayals of Kaliningrad that focus on the ruins of the previous system, and in particular on the mostdevastated elements of post-Soviet reality. Franco-Polish photographer Nicolas Grospierre focused on picturesque Soviet relics: the Palace of Soviets (constructed on the site of a castle built by the Teutonic Knights); decaying tower blocks; government buildings and courtyards; and, as an epilogue, a library in an abandoned school, replete with endless heaps of ruined books.
    Maciej Stepiński’s ‘Exclave’ series contemplated wistful trash: one of the most typical features of Kaliningrad seems to be abandoned rusty cars. As always, the problem with aestheticizing socialism like this is that it not only annihilates any potential positive uses of this project, declaring it as dead, but also provokes a melancholy longing for it. Other works not only took a maudlin look at the city, but also criticized it. In a film by Polish group ZOR the narrator, increasingly unimpressed by the concrete architecture of the city, says, “It’s a terrible city. The ugliest city in the world!” Ryszard Górecki’s ‘You Can Scream Here’ is a sign, hung on the Timber Bridge in Kaliningrad, which reproduces Edvard Munch’s famous image with the invitation, in German and in Russian, to replicate that scream. Why would anyone want to scream there? “There could be many reasons,” says the