Andrei Bilzho

An Offside Position

Andei Bildzho. From the project 'An Offside Position'

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Andei Bildzho. From the project 'An Offside Position'

Moscow, 22.06.2018—29.07.2018

exhibition is over

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Curator: Anna Zaitseva

For the press

Andrei Bilzho. 'An Offside Position'

The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow presents Andrei Bilzho’s exhibition 'An Offside Position'.

This exhibition is about football, but not only football. Above all it tells of the atmosphere gripping the stadium during a football match, as conveyed by Andrei Bilzho with his inherent sense of humour and using his favourite characters, including the famous Petrovich.

‘My love of football is strange, if not perverse. More precisely, my love of football is compulsive and very selective.

I’m not actually a supporter. I’ve only been to one match in my life, at the age of 13: Torpedo were playing against Lanerossi Vicenza at the V. I. Lenin Stadium. How could I have known then that I’d fall in love with Italy, live in Venice and visit the wonderful city of Vicenza that was built almost entirely by Andrea Palladio.

Back then I missed all the goals. There were five of them. Torpedo won with a score of 4–1.

I wasn’t looking at how the footballers played, but at the fans. Their reactions. Afterwards my classmates laughed at me for ages. I only watch football when there’s a European or world Championship. Then the passionate spectator rather than supporter awakes deep inside me. The unpredictability of what happens transfixes me. Documentation is fascinating. The drama unfolds before your eyes, over and over again. Joy and tragedy. Highs and lows, both literally and figuratively. Dirty tricks and nobility. Stupidity and flexibility. Cunning and naivety. Laughter and tears. Talent and mediocrity. Heroism and cowardice. Dedication and utter apathy. Demonstrativeness and self-absorption.

On the football field nothing can be hidden. I’m interested not so much by the game itself, or that alone, as by the details. The behaviour of players not only during the game, but outside it. I’m interested by how they rejoice, how they suffer, how they get angry, how they concentrate. A footballer’s hairstyle and tattoos are interesting. How the trainer spits is interesting. How he scratches, and where. Is he able to control himself, or not. And why as a rule the trainer wears a suit and tie. The result of the match interests me least of all.

This exhibition is about what surrounds football. An ironic look at this milieu.

The view of an outside observer.

When the exhibition opens I’ll be in Italy, on the island of Ischia, near Naples.

I’ll be watching the football there, in street cafés. This is the fourth World Championship I’ve watched there. I drink chilled white wine and discuss what I’ve seen with my friend Giovan Giuseppe Cigliano, restaurant owner, artist and formerly a captain on long-distance voyages. We have much in common. Our attitudes to many things including football are similar. Be healthy and keep yourself in control.’

Andrei Bilzho

Andrei Bilzho is an artist, caricaturist, essayist and animator, also founder of the Petrovich restaurant-club. A psychiatrist by training, he is a candidate of medical sciences. Born in Moscow. Since 1975 his caricatures have featured in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Sobesednik and other publications. For fifteen years he was chief artist-caricaturist at the Kommersant publishing house. It was at Kommersant that Petrovich, Bilzho’s best-known character, first appeared in the early 90s, as a collective image of the modern ‘little man’. ‘Petrovich is an urban madman who is allowed to say a lot... Through this character I can relate almost everything that bothers me and interests me.’ (A. Bilzho)

Since 1996 Bilzho has worked for television. He gained great popularity by participating in Viktor Shenderovich’s satirical programme ‘Itogo’, where he played a doctor from the ‘Small Psychiatric Hospital in the Town of N’, telling stories from his practice. An animated serial about Petrovich, created by Bilzho, was broadcast on the ORT and NTV channels.

Andrei Bilzho is the author of more than ten books, including ‘Azbukvy’ (Alphabet Letters), ‘Anamnesis. The Truth about Petrovich’, ‘Notes of a Passenger: 24 Cars with Commentaries and Drawings by the Author’, ‘My Venice’, etc.

Currently Andrei Bilzho writes several blogs and contributes to the magazines Diletant, Snob, Russkii Pioner, etc.