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Pussy Riot Goes Hawaiian, Part I of VI
by Gordy Grundy
In Hawaii, the anniversary of the singular event, a great performance of portent, glamour and significance, was recently celebrated by the many hard-working artists, actors, performers and island dreamers. This is their story...
Artist Masami Teraoka said, “Let’s make art” and they did. Pure art rumbles, bubbles and springs forth, like the eruption of a magnificent geyser. As the plume spray drifts and evaporates in the wind, the beauty of the gesture is the impermanent purpose. A site-specific, immersive interpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest was conceived, planned, strategized and rehearsed for a singular performance. Russian director Viktoria Naraxsa, a Pussy Riot partisan, Masha Kechaeva the stage and costume designer and a local pick-up crew of actors, craftsmen and producers have presented a beautiful and transformative dream. With one performance, the event lingers as a memory lost to the trade winds.
In the arts, collaboration is a beautiful risk. Artists are often imprisoned in their studios, minds and habits. Collaboration oxygenates the art-making process. Creation is the goal and destruction is the chance.
Most often, artists are isolated islands. Masami Teraoka is an artist who lives on an island.
OF A LIKE MIND
Painter Masami Teraoka loves Pussy Riot, the brave Russian arts collective. Out of his great respect, he wanted to work with them. His adoration grew with a logical progression. In the early part of this century, after a long study in Europe of Medieval and early Renaissance art, the O'ahu-based artist became fascinated with religious history, influence, power and ritual, as well as its inherent oppression, deviancy and hypocrisy. With The Cloisters Last Supper Triptych Series, the painter devised capital pieces of muted color and gold leaf. In the figurative work, religious fervor bled into sexual ecstasy, brutality and madness.
At this time, in February of 2012, a Russian arts collective, Pussy Riot, overtook the sacred Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Their impromptu punk rock concert on the altar of the Orthodox Church was an international scandal, an angry protest to the heavy boot heel of President Vladimir Putin.
In short order, the three female leaders of Pussy Riot, all quite beautiful, were arrested and harshly imprisoned. Said Teraoka, "Pussy Riot’s concert had symbolized a perfect theme. Suppressed individual freedom versus oppressive government control." The band's visages began to appear in Teraoka's paintings. "My major large triptych series eventually moved into a Pussy Riot Series."
THE FEVER
An islander, Teraoka wanted to work with Pussy Riot. "I was inspired by their vision and philosophy. Basically, they are asserting human rights and individual liberties. When I watched their concerts, I was convinced they are a powerful group."
After appeals in court and years in prison, the remaining two Pussy Riot jailbirds emerged from the gulag as international celebrities.
Teraoka's passion was well known to his gallerist in San Francisco. The artist recalls, "The initial contact had sprouted from the Catharine Clark Gallery. (Catharine) went to see the Pussy Riot performance (at the Warfield in San Francisco) and she managed to give my book Ascending Chaos to their team manager."
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
The painter tried to make contact with Pussy Riot leader Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova, but that is not a simple thing to do. It is easier to book Katy Perry or Rihanna for a First Birthday. (In the Hawai'ian culture, a First Birthday party is as sacred as a Beverly Hills bar mitzvah. In the post-colonial contact past, most Hawai'ian babies never made it to their first birthday, now a true cause for celebration.) Ever earnest, Teraoka finally made contact, through Facebook, with Viktoria Naraxsa, a Pussy Riot director and choreographer. At the time, she was in New York with Nadya Tolokonnikova.
Fear is very much a factor in the Moscow arts community. After release from prison, Nadya Tolokonnikova found herself to be a pariah, a political liability. She was having trouble recruiting talent for her projects. No one wanted to play in her mine-filled sandbox.
Now in her late Twenties, Viktoria Naraxsa grew up in Khabarovsk, a harsh city in eastern Russia. She recalls, through her translator, "Even at age five, I understood what a hellish, sad place it was." The support of loving parents was a buffer to the town's "aggressive, war-like mentality. There was no medium. You were a bully or were bullied. Any odd one was out. I had one friend."
Meeting through a mutual colleague, Nadya and Viktoria became fast friends. Choreographer Viktoria Naraxsa was directing the debut of a stage musical, loosely translated as "Cockroach," by Korney Chukovsky, the Russian Dr. Seuss. Viktoria gave Nadya a small role as a piano player. This casting choice may have been a factor in the banning of the play. It was alleged that the text defamed the glory of President Vladimir Putin.
The two strong women shared ideas and values. They began to collaborate. Viktoria directed and choreographed the stunning Pussy Riot video, Chaika.
In New York City, Viktoria began to receive messages from a famed Japanese-American painter based in Hawai'i. The artist was proposing some sort of collaboration based upon their common values of freedom and expression. Viktoria shared the many missives with her friend Nadya. Naturally, language almost sank the new ship. Teraoka and his associates bombarded the Russians with a series of messages that were lost in translation. Misinterpreted ideas, business budgets and schedules overwhelmed the now maddening project. Says Viktoria, "Then Masami sent a letter from the heart. He spoke of his childhood in Japan and his values. It (became) a merger of interests."
In Part II of Pussy Riot Goes Hawaiian, the Russian artist, who does not speak English, realizes that Teraoka has never had a firm command of the language. Can Fine Art rise above the sharp spires of the Tower of Babel?
Keep your eye on Art Report Today for Part II!
This article first appeared in Artillery, the national contemporary arts magazine based in Los Angeles.
All photos by Neal Izumi
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GORDY GRUNDY is a Pacific-based painter. His visual and literary works can be found at the site: www.GordyGrundy.com.
