Exhibition,Hoast artist-run space Vienna, Austria,2021 In collaboration with Nikolay Karabinovych
New Judische Kunst introduced a store of broken magic items. Broken musical instruments arrived at the store from Eastern countries. The store owner’s grandson takes in the refugees. He wants to integrate them, but he fails. The exhibition becomes a backdrop for a radio play that was previously created by the artists. A mysterious story about a new political class.
Video performance,Yiddishland Pavilion 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia In collaboration with Nikolay Karabinovych. Curated by Yevgeniy Fiks, Maria Veits
Performed by Neue Jüdische Kunst just outside of the Latvian and Ukrainian National Pavilions in Arsenale on April 23, 2022, YARMULKE OF A STRETCHED STRING was a gestural, provocative intervention in the proper regimated art viewing experience of the Biennale visitors. Enacted in the style of Jerusalem syndrome (a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions, or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem) and howling loudly the text of the performance in Russian, Neue Jüdische Kunsts delivered a fictional testimony in court by the person on trial – a fictional character named David Magin – keeping the biennale audience that had gathered around in suspense. While shouting at the top of their lungs the text of the performance, Neue Jüdische Kunst began to cut out with scissors from a red banner squares with printed portraits of historical personalities, including the 17th century Jewish mystic Sabbatai Zevi, the classic of the Odesian conceptual art Leonid Voizekhov, Russian poet of Jewish origin Joseph Brodsky, and Jewish-Greek performer Roza Eskenazi and lay them down on the ground in a circular arrangement. According to the narrative of the performance, these individuals were the jurors of the fictional court hearing enacted by Neue Jüdische Kunst. The testimony that David Magin/Neue Jüdische Kunst clamored was full of self-accusations as if David Magin/Neue Jüdische Kunst were testifying against themselves and thus self incriminating and self-victimizing. David Magin was testifying against David Magin and Neue Jüdische Kunst was testifying against Neue Jüdische Kunst in a permanent court trial without an end. This was a court testimony as a form of political speech, in which ideological positions of the speaker were constantly and quite radically shifting. In their signature-style post-historical and post-ideological practice, Neue Jüdische Kunst weave together the YARMULKE OF A STRETCHED STRING out of bits and pieces of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, records of the Nuremberg trials, and the fellow Odesian Ze’ev Jabotinskiy’s “Jewish Legion”, while presenting these elements and influences in the manner ranging from direct citations to parody and satire. In the practice of Neue Jüdische Kunst, the Jerusalem Syndrome achieves the dimension of an aesthetic category that appears authentic for the fragmented, obsessive, and traumatized 21st century “Jüdische Kunst.
“The Tone of the Bowstring”
translated text from video
I draw my string, slowly, slowly aiming at the enzyme fungus on your body. A belly full of yeast with the hope of raising your spirits, resuming the fermentation of a pot-bellied hut of bacteria, but you did not have time to knead the dough. Spots of leprosy on the left thigh, a desecrated room, a rat-catcher’s briefcase, an old Frenchman’s sour vinegar, all this is David Magin. Speaking about serving the people, shaking the air with extramarital ideas, you wanted a completely different citizenship for yourself. You, together with the shameful people brought down into the Neue Judische Kunst , wanted to lead the people into obscure darkness, make friends with enemies, take them with traitors whom we do not even know, for whom we have no right to vouch for. Counting on our blindness, you brought our troops back to Golipolye, leading us through the black harbours without the right to escape. Dear court, gentlemen, I an making my speech before witnesses of whom there are not so many and who are not stained by the presence in the centres of your struggle for freedom, which can be dangerous for the court, for the verdict, for the truth. They can get confused, you can lead them in the wrong direction, because our hands have not yet reached the forked tongue, which is covered with a white coating of ignorance, immeasurable will and strength. Good men and women! Be vigilant, for his cultural expenditure on the task of renewing speech was not commensurate with our interests, our importance, or our strength. They, in their cramped cellars, counted on fools drunk with violence, but their hoax failed. There was not a single soul, even the cheapest and most rotten, who would have believed to the end in the psychology of the sura’s neighbor, Nyura’s grandmother. They wanted to sell this item under the banner of avant-garde and constructivism. You knew that it would be the same greedy landlord who serves for the benefit of state oppression and public non-recognition. A one-of-a-kind crime that was completely defendable and barbaravaravaarar NYK should start an endless process,
Neue Judische Kunst , wanted to lead the people into obscure darkness, make friends with enemies, take them with traitors whom we do not even know, for whom we have no right to vouch for. Counting on our blindness, you brought our troops back to Golipolye, leading us through the black harbours without the right to escape. Dear court, gentlemen, I an making my speech before witnesses of whom there are not so many and who are not stained by the presence in the centres of your struggle for freedom, which can be dangerous for the court, for the verdict, for the truth. They can get confused, you can lead them in the wrong direction, because our hands have not yet reached the forked tongue, which is covered with a white coating of ignorance, immeasurable will and strength. Good men and women! Be vigilant, for his cultural expenditure on the task of renewing speech was not commensurate with our interests, our importance, or our strength. They, in their cramped cellars, counted on fools drunk with violence, but their hoax failed. There was not a single soul, even the cheapest and most rotten, who would have believed to the end in the psychology of the sura’s neighbor, Nyura’s grandmother. They wanted to sell this item under the banner of avant-garde and constructivism. You knew that it would be the same greedy landlord who serves for the benefit of state oppression and public non-recognition. A one-of-a-kind crime that was completely defendable and barbaravaravaarar NYK should start an endless process,
The term of which is eternity, and the price is the indifference of judges and the severity of the jury. You ask what constitutes a crime, what article? Turbid water in Venice, isn’t that enough, do you need anything else? We bow our heads and see no foot, no sacred law, no good faith. The five signatories of the agreement have filed prosecutions, and it is now the duty of all involved in the process to ensure that they do not deviate in any way from those principles and traditions that give justice authority and elevate it to the place that it should occupy in the affairs of all pavilions and trays.
Now, in accordance with the procedure provided for by the statute of the tribunal, it remains for me to propose that the indictment be read out:
Sowing sprouted, fate exacted from me
But we are already unhappy now
We are accusers and this is our right
Keep the fate of the sword in your urine.
We blame the Neue Judische Kunst for creating the hummus of turmoil that flooded the philistine settlements of the Gordon type. For calling the masses to a difficult feat. Behind
Shouts, outbursts and for ridicule. I remember how this plump stub climbed up the hill shouting «Let’s follow him», his plump legs looked in a completely different direction, they dreamed of hiding in the corner of the black dwarf, the great grandfather’s skirmisher. They ate it, healed, ground tili tili, washed down with falcon droppings.
All these years I mark, count, and see clearly that the action was of two kinds. Confused and confused ideas. Who hopes, hangs on the trees in the courtyard of the ghetto? Follow after trail. The investigation was led by NATO Kamensky and Nastasya. Coming out of the ghetto in the background, in the backyard Good old Josef, did you cut your favorite corn?
Sitting in Tatarbunary, we did not want to play blindly, we begged to untie our eyes, but you Magin continued to drink vile ditties, vomit on your knees and be rude to wild geese on the streets of Trabzon.
We call and demand oblivion for Neue Judische Kunst and David Magin, endless judgment and final discomfort, thousands of festering wounds and a swollen right shoulder.
You will say, we were careful, the jury shop, we were wary of everything that happened, we watched for equality, we tried to maintain a balance. Perhaps, but weren’t you writing your rhymes in a spacious apartment with a view of the scarlet walls, forgetting your Rodopol, cutting off piece by piece of foreskin, depriving the sensitivity of all districts, exchanging it for the privilege of being dumb and blind.
So, dear jury, you have a fairly typical swindler in front of you, I suggest that you feel him in your sinus, wet your finger and stick it deep so that your saliva tells you that even she does not want to dry in his sink. This unit placed the cells, as if for them human life is the art of playing gi, today the cell is here, and tomorrow the pictogram is on the whole board. Connecting dissimilar bits around, throwing them out of their own phallus, not noticing the blood and traces of purification, they rocked us with deft melodies and ringing scurvy. The task is to intoxicate with dope, promise the future within the limits of the tavern and not care about anyone except your own Enuresis, disturbing in the morning between breakfast and midday sleep. I’m tired dear judge. I don’t have the patience to split those almonds, peel them into tiny pieces to find a military target that isn’t there. Having injected the point of the empty sign, David Magin, together with his henchmen in blue robes, prepared the ground for slowing down, detaining, confining, forgetting, freezing, sourdough on the sebald Winfried 3georgfifth, golden cognac, fucking.
M beware, you’ve been followed by scoff Y from point B, he carries angelic trumpets created in laboratories with money collected from patrons of the previously mentioned organization.
I can go on dear judge. Even forgetting about the children who are sitting on the steps and waiting for an adult who is able to chop bread, grate horseradish and drink 4 glasses of wine for the fate of the abandoned slaves to the will of the desert fate, I will not end if all this was not enough, but I call and demand oblivion for Neue Judische Kunst and Boris Magin, endless judgment and ultimate discomfort, thousands of purulent wounds and a swollen right shoulder, I curse you lackey along with your earring in your left ear and callous mind. We wait, hide our eyes and light candles for the terrible trial and witnesses, for capture and reward, for faith and betrayal, for the power of a sign with meaning and sweetness.
I draw back the bowstring, quickly aiming at the ferment fungus in your body in an instant. confusion, dryness. A belly full of yeast with the hope of raising your spirits, resuming the fermentation of a pot-bellied hut of bacteria, but you did not have time to knead the dough. The spots of leprosy on the left thigh, the desecrated little room, the rat-catcher’s briefcase, the sour vinegar of the old Frenchman, all this is you, Boris Magin. Speaking about serving the people, shaking the air with extramarital ideas, you wanted a completely different citizenship for yourself. You, together with the shameful people brought down into the Neue Judische Kunst , wanted to lead the people into obscure darkness, make friends with enemies, take them with traitors whom we do not even know, for whom we have no right to vouch for. Counting on our blindness, you brought our troops back to Golipolye, leading us through the black harbours without the right to escape.
Video, Photo, Installation, 2019 In collaboration with Mitya Churikov
Harri Kraievets & Mitya Churikov’s collaboration was inspired by deconstructivist symbolism, visual language, and decorative elements. Based on the methods of object-oriented philosophy and speculative realism, the artists studied the interaction of objects in the urban landscape. Permanent psychogeographical journeys by the same street, taking place during several years, have become the outcome of this research. For the first time in Ukraine, the authors presented film clips and photographic material made during this long-lasting work.
Their research is concentrated around the object, failing ever more because of the liberalisation of its symbiosis. In art and history, the object turns into a parody of itself because of being boiled down to specific formulas accessible to anyone. The duo attempts to revitalize the objects that were thrown away, lost their primary function and idea, becoming weird and unusable. In this work, there are elements of the so-called Anthropocene, I.e. objects containing humanity as their crucial component. Trying to find something human in the lonely objects, the artists make an attempt to wake them up, instigating a rebellion against the non-humane attitude people show to the things they consider waste.
STAND UP AND RECLAIM YOUR RIGHT!
Video, Odesa Fine Arts Museum, 2020
Manifest of Neue Judische Kunst
My name is David Magen. I am the speaker for the cultural association Neue Judische Kunst. Today, we’re facing the end of history. These noisy days call for counting and reevaluating casualties culture workers have suffered. It’s time to wake the political and esthetical consciousness. We are raising our banner in Kyiv high enough to be seen from the Donbas, the Carpathians, the left and the right banks of Dnipro, Southern Palmiras. Neue Judische Kunst committee has decided to revive Sorosyan trade union that previously rallied those who constitute Neue Judische Kunst today. The established circumstances have posed the question: who if not we? We want to act as righteous, though faceless, revolutionaries. We may not have every trump in our hands, but we’ve got a great goal in our hearts, which is to rise a revolution! We’re ready to become fuel to start a fire in the huge, stagnant industry. Stand up to protect the white Jewish boy, bending over backwards to repress his will to trample the rats and take his revenge for racism that has flooded the techno scene in Kyiv. Dark circles around the eyes, trembling hands. Willful and determined, we’ve been sacrificing our lives on the altar of the common cause for 5 years. Now it’s time to reap the rewards.
Will we be lucky enough to appreciate the fruits of our effort?
Will we be defiant enough so as to crush the political dancers accusing us of peddling trash?
Will we be strong enough so as to put an end to these schlockmeisters?
To step on their throats, to rip out the lump of indifference lodging in our throats, to regain the heritage that belongs to the people by right!
Wake up, you honest man!
Stand guard over the truth with springiness and thrift!
I remember the days spent by the Potemkin stairs. Back then, we took our place on the stage. We won back the right to make honest statements. We retrieved the narrative. Don’t stand on someone else’s scene! Our time demands for radical action. We’re waiting for the speakers able to protect us from the filthy hands of formalists, sacred scholars, constructors, and the offspring of SS! Wake up you lively chatty lad, cry out in unison with the crowd. Big round ears, big round eyes, the betrayingly mispronounced ‘r’. Stand up and reclaim your right!
Translated text from video.
WHAT IS NEUE JÜDISCHE KUNST?
Video documentation of the performance, 2020
Reading the story “Religion about Tachanka” by Isaac Babel on the hill. For me, this is a very important book. It seems to me that this is a good code and decipher to what is happening in the new Jewish art. The new Jewish art is a joke and a way of pointing out the tendentiousness of art to be modernist.
I think that this is the direct embodiment of the discourse about the new. At the same time, everything that we do does not contain the promise of something new, it is more tied to some object, a look at the object, and when you look at it, there is no new meaning there. Harri Kraievets
THE FUTURE ALREADY KNOWS YOU
Installation, found objects, paintings, dimensions variables Beyond Myths, Federico García Lorca Cultural Center Ingenio, Canary Islands, Spain, 2022 this work was done in collaboration with Alexandra Kadzevich
One of the methods of continuous violence coming from the ‘civilisational projects’ is the permanent propagation of the belief that the past was orderly and coherent to everyone, while the present is chaotic and unpredictable. Instead, it’s quite obvious, that the past was never like that at all, and what the establishment actually does is constant pushing the subject back into the past, calling it the future, at the same time depriving the subject of the present. As a result, believing in the past becomes today, and the future was yesterday. Such a mess forces the subject into a discomposed search for its own Ego in order to find a firm foundation amidst the fluid modality. Being put into speculative temporality, the subject feels the influence of ideology in all aspects of life, struggling unconsciously with the historical form of control. As such, this is an attempt to gain power over the future. In a series of works, the artist creates a map of the territory that battle might take place on, as well as various posters that the modern people might use in an attempt to win back their right to manage their own present, and to strip the past of its prophetic tone.
THE BESIEGED FORTRESS Film, 2022
In ‘ The Besieged Fortress’, the artist employs documentary devices. The narration features a protagonist researching into the question presented in the movie, namely ‘what does a human being feel, staying in a besieged fortress?’. The artist presumes that melancholy is the feeling most similar to that. Having found himself at the dusk of the Oedipus complex, the protagonist makes his final decision. The main question is that of the law: ‘Do you acknowledge my Law?’, where by the law, we understand a way of dealing with lack. During a siege, this question loses its relevance, because in the fortress, there is chaos, the inhabitants necessarily expect either the survival of the existing system or its failure and dissipation with the following substitution. To the protagonist, the siege implies a hope of deliverance from the symbolic death, he even develops a desire long-forgotten, hidden behind the pleasure of self-torture. The protagonist experiences a maniacal bout, trying to calm everyone down, forgetting the necessity to constantly maintain the guise. He indulges in an utterly straightforward, shameless state of the subject, allowed to enjoy the manic psychosis, affectively juggling signified, stripped of any sense to him. In an urge to find a foundation, the subject forgets about the melancholic catastrophe, as all the inhabitants of the fortress do, experiencing the state of immurement. Eventually, in an attempt to dress before the rendezvous with the other, now officially proclaimed as the enemy, the protagonist loses his Ego and becomes a detail in the historical landscape. Somewhere within, a palm-tree (the primary phantasm) dies, but the protagonist survives. In the end, sorrow comes back to the reality. The protagonist now knows, whom he lost during the siege. But what remains open? The refusal to kill the thing-in-itself, and reunification with it in a non-conscious phantasm, plunges him into a tacit spasm about the lost object.
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD
video Berlin, Germany, 2023
Covered by leaves, the forgotten body appears as a discarded object that ceases to be a form of representation and becomes the hope of finding emptiness in the black crevice between two buttocks.
The leaves become a cosy blanket that shields the subject from the constant sublimation of the images of beauty of the modern creative industry and the indulgence of endless meaningless connections of signifiers. Not yet rotting, but already buried under yellowed leaves, the pop awaits its discovery, which is possible in the case of rejection of the gendered obstacles lying in the way.
The discarded object returns to contemporary art and takes the place of a gaping void in it, which is filled with anxiety and pleasure.
LIKE A HAND OFF!
A series of small video documentation of the Left-Hand and Right-hand voyage. In progress.
It’s difficult to look at your hand in a dream, usually if you’ve managed to do so, it’s likely that the dream has become conscious and you can control it. The hands act as a mirror in the dream. The unconscious has no image of our hands, the unconscious is structured without hands, and the moment the hands appear, the dream becomes controllable, the ego infiltrates the subject’s split self. It is interesting that another combinator (unconscious) also can not draw hands, namely AI, modern sites that generate images very badly cope with this task, it seems that it is difficult for them to find the image of the hand, as the hand in a sense a gadget that has made of man, man-machine. By combining it with Techne. In short clips we can see the adventures of different hands, which, unlike «The Thing» from the Adams Family movies, clearly have a Master, but Master is hidden behind the scenes, or maybe he is busy searching for himself in the world of gadgets.
