Russia’s commissioner for the Venice Architecture Biennale talks about his dismissal

It’s been a turbulent few months in Russia with political tensions regarding Ukraine spilling over into all spheres of life, including culture. During this time, there have been open letters — both in support of and against the government’s annexation of Crimea — and there have been boycotts by foreign artists. More recently, the Ministry of Culture’s dismissal of journalist and art critic Grigory Revzin as commissioner of the Russian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale has marked one of the latest penalties administered to those who have dared express opposition to the government line.

Although he was given no concrete explanation for his dismissal, Revzin publicly claimed it was connected to a blog post published last month that was critical of Russia’s military presence in Ukraine. Talking to The Calvert Journal, Revzin said: “The fact that I disagreed with the official interpretation of the events in Ukraine was considered unacceptable to remain commissioner of the Russian pavilion at the Biennale. Prior to the current events, you could be a liberal and a supporter of the west and still represent Russia at the international exhibition. Now it’s harder, and, at least in public, you shouldn’t voice disagreement with political decisions.”

Revzin’s replacement by Semyon Mikhailovsky, a pro-government curator and art history professor, has been seen by some as a warning that influential jobs in the cultural domain are becoming increasingly dependent on political allegiance with the Kremlin. Following his appointment as commissioner earlier this month, Mikhailovsky told Russian news website Fontanka: “I believe that every person has the right to say what he thinks. But the commissioner in Venice represents the state, so he should make statements accordingly. In any case, I think that, for the ministry, my opinions about Crimea didn’t matter, only my experience.”

In an interview with business news website RBK, Deputy Minister of Culture Elena Milovzorova added: “In this post, [Semyon Mikhailovsky] will replace Grigory Revzin, whose extremely active artistic and public actions recently don’t allow him to fully participate in the project, preparations for which are going at full speed.”

Despite the change of commissioner only two months before the biennale opening, the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, the non-profit educational project curating the Russian pavilion at Venice this year, told The Calvert Journal that it would continue as before. Anton Kalgaev, a curator at Strelka, said: “Our approach to curating was established months ago and will remain as planned, and we are now in the final stages of production.” Speaking in a personal capacity, Kalgaev added: “As for my personal feelings, I was really surprised with what happened, and I’m just happy that the situation didn’t affect the show itself.”

The Russian pavilion at Venice in 2012

Revzin, who came to prominence as a journalist more than a decade ago after becoming a columnist for the Russian edition of GQ magazine, is certainly no rookie when it comes to political commentary. During Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, when Revzin was twice the commissioner for the Venice Architecture Biennale, in 2008 and 2010, he used his blog to condemn Russia’s military presence in Georgia. According to Revzin, while freedom of expression in the media wasn’t officially celebrated during Medvedev’s stretch as Russian president, it was “taken as a given”. He added: “You could think anything you like, although you couldn’t turn it into a propaganda campaign. But times have changed now: the articles for which I was fired were published on my Facebook.”

At the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, Revzin’s decision to focus on Skolkovo, Moscow’s “innovation city”, wowed international art critics. The pavilion’s curators, Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov, covered every surface with QR codes, which visitors could decode using tablets. While Revzin’s dismissal ends a relationship of over seven years with the biennale, the Ministry of Culture’s decision underscores a wider issue of the politicisation of Russia’s cultural and media fields. Remarking on the rapidly changing media landscape, Revzin said: “We are moving from restricting freedom of propaganda to restricting freedom of speech, pure and simple. Online projects have been shut down, and it’s not a question of the real impact of these projects on people’s opinions, but a question of a show of force.”

“Our constitution doesn’t have an ideology, but rather a party ideology poorly expressed and now our culture, at least officially, is becoming highly politicised”

Revzin said he sees his dismissal as part of a mounting trend among politicians to try to curry favour with President Vladimir Putin. He said: “Politicians try to find internal enemies in Russia on a minor level — online portals, NGOs, Rain TV, things that have modest audiences — and they earn a reputation for fighting them. It’s a competition for the approval of Putin — ‘Look, Mr President, we are fighting with you’.”

Revzin now joins a growing number of journalists and media figures in Russia who have been unexpectedly fired from their posts. This week, Pavel Durov, free speech advocate and founder of Russian social media site VK, was fired as CEO of the company, while last month editor-in-chief of Russian news website Lenta.ru, Galina Timchenko, was dismissed and replaced with pro-Kremlin journalist Alexei Goreslavsky. For Revzin, the tensions that have emerged in the past few months have less to do with Crimea’s contested history and more to do with the state. He said: “Our constitution doesn’t have an ideology, but rather a party ideology poorly expressed and now our culture, at least officially, is becoming highly politicised.”