Vyacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburov are a pair of Russian artists who produce work such as the image above under the name ???????Dark-blue Noses??????? (???????????????????? ?????????????????). They have represented Russia at the Venice Biennale and shown widely in Russia and internationally. The Matthew Bown Gallery of London scheduled a show of their work for November 9th through December 2nd and last week the gallery????????s owner, Matthew Bown, traveled to Moscow to meet with the artists and select works for the exhibition. When he appeared at the Moscow International Airport last Friday with the above image in his possession (as well as ten others, including four similar collages), he was arrested (after boarding his flight) and the works, depicting a semi-nude Vladimir Putin cavorting with various world figures were confiscated. After nine hours in detention, Bown was allowed to leave the country, minus the artwork. The day after the arrest, the Moscow gallery (owned by Marat Guelman, a Jew who has been identified as an ???????enemy of Russia??????? on various fascist websites in Russia) which had been showing DBN????????s work before Bown received it was attacked and ransacked. The owner was savagely beaten and stated ???????My face was smashed into meat.??????? A large quantity of Georgian art work which had been on display was destroyed. Guelman told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that ???????he attackers worked without hysteria and did not look like hooligans or fanatics but like professional fighters.??????? Regarding Bown, Guelman stated that ???????officials confiscated the photos on suspicion of “defamation of third persons” and he said prosecutors were considering opening a criminal investigation on the grounds of insulting the president.??????? The New York Times reported that the attack on Guelman ???????was carried out by 10 men who looked like skinheads. The attack was the latest incident to raise troubling questions about xenophobia and freedom of expression in Russia.??????? There have been 39 race-based murders in Russia so far this year.

Perhaps even more terrifying than these barbaric acts were the reactions of the artists themselves, which seemed to boil down to ???????who cares???????? or perhaps ???????we didn????????t mean any harm, please don????????t kill us Mr. Putin.??????? According to Kommersant:

Blue Nose artist Alexander Shaburov said that the customs service was not as alarmed by the depiction of Putin as by a work showing a female suicide bomber in a fluttering dress in the mode made famous by Marilyn Monroe. Shaburov considers the coverage of the picture showing the Russian president an exaggeration by Western media ???????that still think that polar bears roam Russia, each followed by five KGB agents.??????? Shaburov does not consider the Masks Show work insulting to the Russian president. ???????It’s about how the media substitutes for our private lives,??????? he said, ???????how in Russia, as in all information societies, figures from television become closer than our real neighbors and acquaintances. It is simply the citation of a fact. Of course, there is humor and a disengaged view, but that can’t be equated with insult.??????? Shaburov agreed with Gelman about the motivation for the attack. Another Blue Nose commented that ???????Half of the crimes in Russia occur because people associate with the wrong elements. The Internet is a place where you constantly hang out with people you would never have anything to do with in real life ???????? there are all kinds of extremists and just sick people there. On the Internet, everybody sees and knows his enemies and everybody openly hates each other.??????? Shaburov noted that Gelman’s webpage is read not only by his admirers, but by those with whom he has been in long debate as well.

Russia is a land that offers many strange contradictions, and perhaps the strangest of them all is the Russian self-image of courage and strength. Russians pride themselves on having been able to survive so many wars and such a harsh climate, and the country is festooned with memorials to the valor of Russians in battle. Yet, even the totalitarian regime that governed Russia during the Soviet era was terrified of artists and had no hesitation in using the most brutal types of force against them, clearly an expression of weakness and cowardice rather than strength. Does Putin, who enjoys 70%+ approval ratings in polls, really think that the circulation of these images can damage him? Do those who enforce his laws? And, where is the vaunted bravery of the Russian fighting man when it comes to controlling his own government? Nowhere to be seen. Ultimately, it seems that those in the West are more interested in defending the civil liberties of Russian artists than even the artists themselves. Given this we must ask, did the USSR ever really disappear? If if it did flicker momentarily, surely the claim made by so many rash observers of Russia when Vladimir Putin came to power that since Russia could ???????never go back again??????? to the dark days of Soviet dictatorship was piffle, and their advice it was possible to be patient with Putin and allow Russia to work out its growing pains in peace pure rubbish, seriously damaging both to Western security and worldwide democracy What more need happen in Russia before these individuals will step forward and admit their error?

Russia????????s punch in the Dark-Blue Nose is fully neo-Soviet in character. Not only does it betray the fundamental weakness of the regime, but also its characteristic disrespect for the value of individual life and freedom and its classic ham-handedness. By taking this action, the Kremlin has guaranteed that the images will be far more widely circulated than they otherwise would have been, and made the linking of the race attack to the art seizure unavoidable. No doubt, Putin fancies that he has ???????learned the lesson??????? of the Soviet downfall and imagines he can do it right ???????this time.??????? But the evidence is to the contrary. At the same time, however, is the West reacting more expeditiously and effectively as second Iron Curtain descends once again across the continent? Time will tell. It does not seem so at present.

Kim Zigfeld publishes the Russia blog La Russophobe.