WHAT RUSSIAN WOMEN WANT: A GALLERY

Moscow, said Gogol, “doesn’t like to do anything halfway. If the aristocracy decide to party, they will party until they drop and won’t worry if it costs more than they have in their pockets.” Replace the 19th-century novelist’s nobility with today’s nouveaux riches and the spirit of Russia’s capital seems pretty much the same. There is nothing halfway about the petro-dollar tycoons with their gas-guzzling Hummers, gilten-crusted nightclubs and haute-couture girlfriends. So, when it comes to the art biennale that opens this week, you can’t expect Moscow to behave like some bashful newcomer — even if it is one. A team of eight international curators — fronted by the “commissioner” Josef Backshtein — have been hired. Together they stage a sprawling, multifaceted event. Footnotes on Geopolitics, Markets and Amnesia is the theme — and if you don’t know what that means, the catalogue offers no illumination. Gabble about “macro-economic battles” and “neo-liberal reality” meet all the currently acceptable standards of artistic impenetrability. Besides, Backshtein has been far too busy battling hydra-headed problems. “The amazing thing about this biennale,” as one astonished Muscovite told me, “is not that they have put it on, but that they thought they could put it on when they knew that the bureaucracy would be a complete and utter mess.” The principle exhibition, for instance, was originally...
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