The Head of Lyubko Deresh

The presentation of the novel “Jacob’s Head” within the framework of the Mironova Gallery project “Apocalypse and Renaissance in the Chocolate House” almost drowned in the media pool around the relapse of museum ignorance exposed by the exhibition. But the very format of the presentation, instead of boring writing autograph sessions, turned into a video dance performance accompanied by thunderclaps (nature itself joined the artistic game), deserves to be noted. It gave rise to a number of questions that we asked art critic Ute Kilter, author of the performance “La tete pour Deresch”. Kilter’s lively speech is characterized by a peculiar author’s slang – a mixture of several European languages. We leave this manner unchanged.

What is the background to the performance?

Back in 2010, at the initiative of art critic Konstanin Doroshenko, I took part in Deresh’s Litreactor at the Gogolfest, two notable programs were created by the UTA Situation there. And most importantly, of which I am very proud, a contact with Lyubko emerged. You see, he’s so … So subtle, introverted. But also real, genuine. And with such people, I usually easily and immediately have communication, an intellectual-confidential something.

Are you saying that it was no coincidence that you were involved in a literary project?

Certainly. After all, I am, first of all, essentially a “reader”; and secondly, I have friendly / creative relationships with Deresh, and Sergei Zhadan, and with Yurk Izdryk himself. Izdryk even took part in our project “Purple Velvet”, he wrote a special text. And this time Lyubko called and asked if I would like to present his new book, and I happily agreed. Moreover, the topic of “Heads” among the Ukrainians also worries me.

Did Deresh want the presentation planned for a visual project at the famous Chocolate House to be rendered in some way?

Yes, and even “plasticized”, that is, not “accompanied by a dance”, but precisely plasticized. He was impressed by my video-dance performance “Uta-Vere” in the “Out” project of 2010 “Doroshenko Grishchenko Clinics”.

It is curious, however, how it is possible to “plasticize” a book, and even on its presentation, roughly speaking?

Simple: you go, buy a book, read, and ideas that are similar to yours and to your own mind are realized. The very “Jacob’s Head” seemed to me a very postmodern creation. But some ideas developed there tormented me myself. For example: “Well, why, why do they go to this, theirs India?” It was an insoluble mystery for me. For today, many of my inner circle regularly visit there. What for? What are they looking for, finding, finding? Moreover, Lyubko has been living there for almost half a year with his wife.

And what, you got an answer that would suit you?

Yes. Still in the process of preparation and in the course of interviewing all the indophiles. And then Deresh, in direct communication, showed many observations-fears that absolutely coincide with mine. For example, about the fact that the head does not exist separately from the bodily essence of a person, not in the straightforward judgment that “being determines consciousness”, but rather in the form of a clear “dostoyevshchina”: “What is going on in the head of a modern Ukrainian , is boiling-boiling, is going on “?

Is that why you used black duct tape around your fingers at the performance? Moved them so unpleasant?

Was my black head pleasant?

Yes, your black head was pleasant and it rotated wonderfully, sculpturally; and they smeared you with our black Kuyalnik mud very aesthetically.

In the video, at the beginning, heads slowly turned, like busts, of real people, including me. Then they literally covered me with really Kuyalnik mud, which, by the way, I respect very much. Thus, I turned into a bust, a kind of monument, the rotation of which was already interspersed with another, also shaved bust, long. Instructive. After cleansing, the rotation of all heads was accelerated. Those to whom I showed the video separately, generally assured me that it, “La tete pour Deresch”, is self-sufficient.

There were also performers, who are they?

I am secretly proud that I can come to Kiev and call my kindred souls for a performance. These were the guys from the Cold VEL group – Vladimir Padun, Eduard Potapenko, musician Dmitry Danov, actors Evgeny Bal and Anastasia Basha, all in black, just present, but also legatio, ligatum of the Level 14 League.

You can already see how it looked on the net. What are you, are you satisfied?

The task of the performer in a video dance performance is to be an intermediary between the video as a “seed”, prepared in advance, temporally organizing (sorry) composite and people, viewers in the famous “here and now”. To convey to them, these very people, as I feel them, the essence of the video and the book.

And it succeeded?

Partly, not completely. Therefore, they needed tall, black, neutral, detached performers. By the way, Lyubko worked superbly! The performance again became a happening. It was not possible to do the rehearsal the day before, and two hours before the start, there was a “cataclysm” completely in the style of the main exhibition “Apocalypse and Renaissance …”. Wow! Well there bulo! The aunt of the Chocolate House obstructed me, rushed to cut me, not letting me in, and the representatives of Mironova Gallery were forced to call the director of the Russian Museum Vakulenko in Paris and Oleg Kulik in Berlin. Phew!

Then the video could not be connected in any way. I ran, it looked like I was shouting, calming Lazy Lyubko. In a word, she lost her voice and the audience was deprived of my prepared final mezzo-soprano vocalist Purcell (my vocal professor, it seems, will scold me for that).

Okay, okay, not a performance, but a happening, but what about the audience?

It is important that we managed to turn the action in the direction of the “Head” and Lyubko, and link them. That is, the task of visual presentation has been completed.

Did you also perform there again in French and German?

I’m awesome. In general, the performance is called “La tete pour Deresch” ou / oder Der Kopf fur Deresch “. In “Head for Deresh” the meaning may be misread. And in French and German it is “for” more precisely. There is also a certain snobbish (in terms of “here and now”) position: you see, today English, like Russian, is a common language. Every European knows not only English, but also his own language. And Deresh is a Ukrainian writer, moreover, from the territory of the former Austria-Hungary. Plus, the presentation coincided with their law on a “second language”, a vivid and shameful demonstration that the “Head” of these people, representing my state, lacks convolutions for what they have already undertaken to represent, pf!

Well, did Deresh himself like it?

Yes! And this is the most important thing. He thanked him, said that I “brought the decal of visual thoughts and ideas to the book”. Although, as for me, there is so much exoticism and discrepancy that, on the contrary, I could only slightly align in the direction of personal responsibility and the importance of reading as such.

by Uliana Gorishna