Sunday, September 24, 2006
I might go out tomorrow if I can borrow a coat to wear
Took a trip to the Izmaylovo Art Market today. The motivation for this journey was twofold: first, to buy kitsch, and second, because the guidebook promised dancing bears. Although for the most part I decry the attempted domestication of these, the largest extant terrestrial predators, as the dancing bear is as Russian as apple pie is American, I felt the need to get a beardance under my belt during my time here. The market is situated on the site of the boyhood home of Peter the Great, but its tsarist ancestry is completely undiscernable today. The market itself is constructed of retro-wooden kiosks and shanties, surrounded by enormous, rusting statues of folklore characters (situated menacingly on the periphery, where the likelihood that they will crush someone as they crumble is minimized) and further out, the decaying 1980 Olympic village and hotel and an inexpressibly scary-looking gutted skyscraper and smokestacks. A consummately Muscovian setting, in other words. Although the market is largely filled with babuschkas hawking craftwares and furs to tourists (indeed, I encountered more Anglophones here than anywhere else I’ve been here, and was even treated to the dulcet tones of some legitimate Ugly Americans, who, in haggling with one of the shopkeepers, could be heard to remark, “No, not in rubles! In dollars. Got that? AMERICAN. DOLLARS.”), it does live up to its title as an “Art Market” , as when you wander into the back of this labyrinthean bazaar, you find seemingly endless rows of paintings by the locals. This area of the market is largely deserted, as Cubist representations of crying clowns is doubtless a less appealing Russian souvenir than Soviet surplus belt buckles. For lovers of high camp, however, it was a delight, and I would urge representatives of the Museum of Bad Art to send an expeditionary force there. Among the delights espied were a series of portraits of puppies with eyes as large as the rest of their body, some racy closeups of women in black lace’s shoulders (that whole stand seemed to be filled with the Russian equivalent of black velvet paintings), and this frickin awesome painting of some Viking dude standing in the tundra, menacing holding his sword towards the viewer. Had the difficulties involved in getting back over the Atlantic with such an item not been so great, I certainly would have made purchase of it. So, to return to the issue of the bears, upon entering the market, we saw an enclosure holding three chained bears, but they were not dancing (incidentally, their presence put the lie to a t-shirt available in the market reading “I went to Moscow and there were no bears” and bearing [pun most definitely intended] an ursine icon inside the Ghostbusters symbol). On the way out, the bearkeeper was in the enclosure doing his thing, though, which seemingly consisted of having the two brown bears sort of lick the side of his face, then spinning a plate on a stick while the third bear (a rare Asiatic sun bear) “danced”. I wasn’t expected much, certainly not sashaying around on roller skates while playing an accordion in a tutu, but still somewhat more than the bear pitifully straining against its chain. This was exactly in keeping with the standard of Russian entertainment I have thus far experienced, however.
Took a trip to the Izmaylovo Art Market today. The motivation for this journey was twofold: first, to buy kitsch, and second, because the guidebook promised dancing bears. Although for the most part I decry the attempted domestication of these, the largest extant terrestrial predators, as the dancing bear is as Russian as apple pie is American, I felt the need to get a beardance under my belt during my time here. The market is situated on the site of the boyhood home of Peter the Great, but its tsarist ancestry is completely undiscernable today. The market itself is constructed of retro-wooden kiosks and shanties, surrounded by enormous, rusting statues of folklore characters (situated menacingly on the periphery, where the likelihood that they will crush someone as they crumble is minimized) and further out, the decaying 1980 Olympic village and hotel and an inexpressibly scary-looking gutted skyscraper and smokestacks. A consummately Muscovian setting, in other words. Although the market is largely filled with babuschkas hawking craftwares and furs to tourists (indeed, I encountered more Anglophones here than anywhere else I’ve been here, and was even treated to the dulcet tones of some legitimate Ugly Americans, who, in haggling with one of the shopkeepers, could be heard to remark, “No, not in rubles! In dollars. Got that? AMERICAN. DOLLARS.”), it does live up to its title as an “Art Market” , as when you wander into the back of this labyrinthean bazaar, you find seemingly endless rows of paintings by the locals. This area of the market is largely deserted, as Cubist representations of crying clowns is doubtless a less appealing Russian souvenir than Soviet surplus belt buckles. For lovers of high camp, however, it was a delight, and I would urge representatives of the Museum of Bad Art to send an expeditionary force there. Among the delights espied were a series of portraits of puppies with eyes as large as the rest of their body, some racy closeups of women in black lace’s shoulders (that whole stand seemed to be filled with the Russian equivalent of black velvet paintings), and this frickin awesome painting of some Viking dude standing in the tundra, menacing holding his sword towards the viewer. Had the difficulties involved in getting back over the Atlantic with such an item not been so great, I certainly would have made purchase of it. So, to return to the issue of the bears, upon entering the market, we saw an enclosure holding three chained bears, but they were not dancing (incidentally, their presence put the lie to a t-shirt available in the market reading “I went to Moscow and there were no bears” and bearing [pun most definitely intended] an ursine icon inside the Ghostbusters symbol). On the way out, the bearkeeper was in the enclosure doing his thing, though, which seemingly consisted of having the two brown bears sort of lick the side of his face, then spinning a plate on a stick while the third bear (a rare Asiatic sun bear) “danced”. I wasn’t expected much, certainly not sashaying around on roller skates while playing an accordion in a tutu, but still somewhat more than the bear pitifully straining against its chain. This was exactly in keeping with the standard of Russian entertainment I have thus far experienced, however.
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