ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 142

ICUL CTION
C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

Leonid Dutov

R e v i e w

Special Issue

Before starting to elaborate about your
production, we would suggest that our
readers visit
https://vimeo.com/user6066556 in order
to get a synoptic view of your
multifaceted artistic production. With
the aim of telling our readers a bit
about your methods, we would like to
ask you how you developed your style
and how you conceive the ideas for your
works.

I would not suggest watching all the
videos now, but apart from The Broom,
you could watch Love
(https://vimeo.com/80301540), Selfie
(https://vimeo.com/127335525) and
Untitled (https://vimeo.com/68962345).
My method of work is really simple.
Everything that I do is conceived when I
exist in the moment, here and now. It is
rather difficult to sustain this state in an
aggressive information space, which all
of us live in these days, and it is never an
act of enclosure. It is interesting and
absorbing, and it is always a challenge
because one cannot permanently be in
such a state because something always
happens, something that takes you out of
this state and it is always vivid and
unique. To put in other words, I am in a
perpetual state of surprise and out of my
astonishment a statement arises.
For example, one astonishing person and
writer, James Merry, moved to Russia
from England and has been living in
Moscow and teaching English for over 10
years. When we met and I asked him why
he lived in Moscow, he answered that
Russia is the liveliest and the most
holistic land among all those he visited
and yet Russians have almost completely
lost their connection with it. And he
settled in Moscow, because, in this sense,

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Moscow is the darkest spot on the
country’s map and if he is able to help at
least one person here, in Moscow, to
restore their connection with the land,
then he will help the world significantly
more than anywhere else. He talks to his
disciples in the language of Dwarves,
communicates with trees, and travels by
bicycle through the country. The text I