B EAST Magazine website

By Joel Alas, B EAST Editor

“YOU wanna see a performance?” the heckler yelled, and dropped his pants, squatted, and shat out a small pile of feces. He wiped his ass with his hand and smeared it on the whitewashed wall as he left the gallery.

When I first heard grumblings about the Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, I dismissed them as the exhausted complaints of weary art tourists. Upon hearing a second round of bitching, I began to question whether there might be problems over at the Biennial.

Then I heard about the shit-smearing.

It occurred on April 29 during a lecture given as part of the Biennial’s night programme. A crowd had gathered to hear Danish artist Joachim Koester discuss hypnagogia – also known as conscious dreaming. Some listeners, upon finding themselves lulled into such a state, grew restless as the lecture wore on.

“This is boring bullshit,” one man yelled from the crowd, and proceeded to heckle the artist.

It was a shock for both audience and organizers, for the Berlin Biennial is one of those aggrandized art institutions that is normally hailed a ground-breaking success before the gallery doors have even opened.

This year the event suffered an extra bout of hype and expectation due to the supposedly risque appointment of Eastern European curators. Local and international press were quick to praise the Biennial based on reputation alone, and scarcely a voice had been raised in criticism until that point, when a lone heckler launched his verbal tirade.
“I actually agreed with him, but I would never think it yell it out loud,”one witness to the protest told B EAST.

As the critic’s abuse continued, others around him began to feel uncomfortable.
“Anyone who wants this guy to fuck of, yell ‘fuck off’,” came a cry. “FUCK OFF!!” the crowd responded.
The man obligingly made his exit. As he passed through the door, someone in the crowd fired a parting shot. “Nice performance,” they yelled sarcastically. The heckler wheeled around and stormed back into the room.

“You want to see a performance?” he said, and proceeded to give the Berlin Biennial it’s most prescient criticism to date. He dropped his pants, squatted, and shat out a small pile of feces. He wiped his ass with his hand and smeared it on the whitewashed wall as he left the gallery.

So how did such a promising event curated by a team of Eastern European artists turn into such a pile of shit? Why did so many audience members come away denigrating the Biennial as boring, unchallenging and entirely disappointing? Well, quite simply, because it was.

To be fair, the shit-smearing incident is only half-valid as a criticism of the event. The defecator in question wasn’t an average audience member – he was a shock artist with his own agenda to pursue. His name was Alexander Brener, a Russian protest artist with a long history of public shitting and other crude attention-seeking actions. Brener spent several years in a Dutch prison for spray-painting a dollar sign over a painting by Russian master Kazimir Malevich at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1997 (see image).
So while Brener can’t be taken as an impartial or unbiased critic, his action at the Biennial in physicalized the opinions of many ordinary ticketpayers.

Read our full critique of the Berlin Biennial in the next issue of B EAST. Subscribe to receive a copy.

B EAST founder, Vijai and the eXile go way way back, to the summer of 1997, and those gonzo days when whoring, smacking drugs, being obnoxious, slanderous, mean—and chasing slutty Russian dyevushki—seemed a literary pursuit. Hunter Thompson was still fresh in our minds, and the high-minded English daily, the Moscow Times, spurred vyked expat writers to reject the mainstream news feeds and go groping the belly of the Russian beast.
Having fallen out with eXile founder Mark Ames over girls and dirty underclothes (lol), the Moscow rag slandered me endlessly, printing club reviews under my name even when I had moved on to edit Russian Playboy in 1999. Given the country’s weak libel laws at the time, there was little that I could do. I just hoped that the loser, misogynistic writing that defined the rag would sink it eventually, and the magazine would go under, leaving sweaty, shy, frustrated Mark Ames without a job. Brave behind the computer screen, he’s actually shy in person, with an inferiority complex towards extroverted partyers. However, the eXile kept going and going … Until this week, that is.

Eleven years later, the eXile seems to be finally going bust. Hurrah. Moscow has moved on, to a more sophisticated nightlife scene, and a young generation that’s bored of endless talk about sluts and speed and hookers and dyevs and all the rest of the loserish 90s zeitgeist. Plus, Russia doesn’t want to be seen anymore as another country to be gleefully exploited by drugged-up Yanks.
However, we do feel a slight pang of regret that Moscow’s only alternative is out of vodka, and might have to go into exile. So, in a spirit of comraderie, with the old skool un-PC beast we also ask our readers to contribute to save the eXile. Click on the link above to donate.

Change is definitely afoot in the ‘boho’ capital of East Europe. Although still known for its cheap beer, grunge bars, English-teaching expats, dogs a plenty, and dope-friendly atmosphere, the new Amsterdam is increasingly looking more to Moscow—and less to Berlin—as prices rise and a new wealthy class grown rich on the real estate boom tires of 24/7 slackerdom.

The exclusive La Scene restaurant/bar, which plans to become a Soho Club-like members establishment in the fall threw a fashion party last week to establish its ‘elitist’ credentials. Czech and Siberian models (from Petr Holanec’s PH Models) sashayed down a make-shift catwalk while real estate heads, fashionistas with their trophy pets, advertising execs, and others from the city’s growing monied classes sipped mojitos and gaped at the babes as they walked past. It could have been Moscow or Warsaw or Kiev—but it was Prague.

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