Vladimir Mironenko

Seizure of Power

The artist devised the ‘Plan for Seizure of Power’ in the spring of 1991, while completing a scholarship in Paris at the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques, which was then headed by Pontus Hultén, former director of the Centre Pompidou. This was the title of his new project, for which he received research assistance from the French Ministry of Culture. On 19 August of the same year, when the State Emergency Committee actually seized power over Russia, Vladimir submitted his passport for a new visa to travel to France, where he intended to carry out a completely different ‘seizure of power’. In his project he referred to utopia, to the realisation of a dream. This referred to the author’s seizure of power over the fate of an artwork. All decisions on the destiny of works would be taken by the company Vladimir Mironenko World Service (VMWS) rather than by curators, critics, collectors, galleries or museums. All institutions would be abolished and all power given to VMWS. The age-old dream of every creator had come to fruition. But not in real life, in a special space called the Neutral Zone. It is always located ‘in between’. In the twilight between day and night, between the wall and the surface of the artwork, between the transparency and opacity of the material and somewhere on the borderline between ruling powers and radio frequencies. In a strip of indiscernibility where nothing can be clearly seen, heard or understood. This intermediate and vacillating state, filled with a subtle, scarcely noticeable creative energy is, according to the author of the project, the birthplace of art itself. This is paradise for the artist, where everything is possible and every dream comes true.

Vladimir Mironenko was a participant in the legendary art group Mukhomor (1978–1984) and in the most significant events in unofficial art of that period. The ‘Seizure of Power’ project has already been exhibited in Paris and Stuttgart.