Shown as a part of a collective project “The Artist is Hidden: Seven Daring Pieces of Russian Performance Art.”

In collaboration with Yelena Kovylina, Liza Morozova, Anatoly Zhigalov, Natalya Abalakova, Andrey Kuzkin, Aleksandra Portyannikova.

Curated by Daria Demekhina

Solyanka State Gallery, Moscow

September, 20 - 26, 2015

Russian philosopher and theorist of culture, Karen Sarkissov and Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich on How Can I Get to the Sky?

"I've recently grown increasingly interested in the problem of the viewer's vulnerability", admits the author of the performance. From their privileged standpoint artists can indulge in all sorts of manipulation of their unwitting audience. The artist can be assimilated to Zeus that made his way into Danaё's womb by turning himself into a golden rain. Each contact with an artwork is a kind of unprotected sexual intercourse, which possibly entails the utmost enjoyment as well as a fatal outcome. In short, the artist may well be a virus, an incurable (or "incuratable" in some cases) disease. The art-historical reference I chose for this performance is Seedbed by Vito Acconci. In the piece, performed intermittently in January 1972 at New York's Sonnabend Gallery, the artist is hidden below the wooden ramp, masturbating. The visitors can see nothing except the loudspeakers through which he narrates his sexual fantasies aloud. "By contrast, I will be hidden above, in a makeshift attic with a hole in it, through which the audience will be able to come into a tempting, if potentially disastrous, contact with me". The title refers to Daniil Kharms' short story The Young Man Who Surprised the Watchman and raises the questions of vital (or mortal, if you will) importance: how to join the artist in his celestial adventure and how to survive a possible decapitation?