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Our search for ways to communicate with Soviet culture
and later with the cultures of other countries.
Our lectures are based on our work with the cultural heritage of the USSR, Germany, Great Britain, United States and Japan and also on our personal experience living in the USSR and traveling in other countries. Our work includes such themes as the Socialist Epoch in world culture and also imperial cultures of other countries and their influence on contemporary life.
The aim of our art is to experience our own culture and while staying in touch with it to understand other cultures so that we are able to communicate and work with them.
Moscow, the End of the Epoch
This lecture includes our work with the cultural heritage of the USSR: the Moscow subway, the Exhibition of Economic Achievements, the Stalin skyscrapers and the mythology of that time. We've done a number of exhibitions on this theme as well as performances and interactions such as:
-The Exam-to explore the specific freedom of socialist choice;
-An Excursion in the Museum of Lenin, which was, held by Lenin himself- a tendency of Soviet people to rely on primary sources only;
A number of performances in Moscow subway station «Revolution Square»:
-Privatization of the objects of «Art for the People»;
-Subbotnik»-dedicated to the disappearing traditions of volunteer patriotic work in Russia;
-The people's love of «Art for the People»-an attempt to re-evaluate the attitude towards the works of art of the Socialist Epoch;
-The Underground Wedding- union of a girl from our time with a man of the 30's;
-The Underground Beauty Contest, Miss 38- a chance for girls of the 30's to take part in beauty contests which are so popular now in Russia.
Slides and professional TV films will be shown:
1. "Subbotnik»-art film, Russian TV.
2. "Museum Metropolitan of Cherkashin»-this film includes, besides our performances, a documentary film highlighting the celebration of holidays in the Red Square, construction of the Moscow Metro under Stalin's initiative in the 30's and the best workers who posed for the life-size bronze statues of the «Ploschad Revolutsii».
Newspaper as a material for art and culture.
The lecture begins with a short slide show to describe how newspapers were used in works of art from the beginning of the 20th century until our time.
Than we'll speak about the use of newspapers in our art. First we started to use newspaper transfers in our photo works, than we used newspapers for collages and frames and after that we started to create independent works of art from newspapers, such as «Red Pravda», «Black Pravda», Small and folded «Pravda», newspaper flowers, figures of people, installations.
We will show slides and professional TV films:
1. "State of the Arts», CNN, 1992.
2. "The day of press, the Day of Pravda», Central TV, 1993. This film is about our installation from newspapers in the Central TV studio and performances we did to create newspaper profiles and figures of visitors.
Travel as Art.
This lecture includes the story about our first and unexpected trip to the United States in 1994 and later to Great Britain and Germany in 1995-1996.
These trips were most conducive to developing our creative ideas. We'll talk about our first trip to «Liberty», about the way we expressed our nostalgia for the USA in Great Britain and also about the long journey our art works took under water from the shores of the Pacific Ocean, through Miami Beach and Great Britain to Hitler's Olympic Swimming pool in Berlin, where the theme «World Atlantis» was generated and developed.
An artistic solution in Japan on the issue of Northern Territories; "Rapprochement of Japan and Russia", Hokkaido.In Niagara Falls solving the problem of "Wonders of the World". Supremacist Meditation" - Mongolia.
The lecture will be illustrated by slides and video Films:
1. "The Gift to the Pacific Ocean», 1994.
2. "The Trip to the Statue of Liberty», 1994.
3. "German Atlantis», the underwater exhibition in the Olympia Stadium, Berlin, Deutsche Welle International TV, 1996.
Cherkashins have presented lectures about their art at the following institutions:
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