10/ Courbet’s Funeral

2014
By Evgeny Granilshchikov
Duration: 13:33 min.
Recommended by Aleksandr Blanar

How does this work investigate “hope?”
"Courbet’s Funeral speaks about political events in Russia, but Evgeny managed to speak about it in a romantic way. When you see his work, you believe that there is hope and everything will be good one day.” —Aleksandr Blanar

About the work:
The video was made of footage recorded from February to April 2014 and explores the recent political history: the earliest protests against the war in Ukraine and Bolotnaya Square case trials, and the time preceding the economic crisis. The work reflects the moment of anxiety and uncertainty about the nearest future, with semi- documentary footage of everyday life reminiscent of hopes that have got indefinitely suspended. Courbet’s Funeral is a collage, blending video poetry with documentation, fiction with reality and politics, and creating complex associations rooted in personal and national histories. The film has preserved the tension and the confusion of the era which gets dissolved in the pink lighting of the final party scene to a Motherfathers soundtrack.

Update from the artist on February 27, 2022:

“On February 24, an unimaginable catastrophe occurred. It was unexpected for us all. I woke up at six in the morning and read the news. My world ruined. Putin sent troops to the lands of Ukraine. Just like in a nightmare, I could not imagine that Russian soldiers could shoot at Ukrainian ones. We all have friends and relatives in Ukraine, in Kyiv. These days I correspond with them and my heart breaks.

Putin made this decision alone. People in Moscow are demoralized. Every day in different cities people go to anti-war rallies. Unfortunately, these rallies are not massive yet. People don't understand how this could happen. Mechanisms of propaganda work on all TV channels. Yesterday, at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow, riot police took away people who came with flowers.

In Russia it is forbidden to pronounce and call everything which is going on "War". The Ministry of Defense does not speak about the dead. Our social networks stop working, so that people can not exchange information. A lot of state-paid bots create a distorted picture of the world in social networks. Bots write comments supporting the war.

But the truth is that people, society in Russia is against the war. On February 24, we all realized that Putin and war are synonymous, and we all turned out to be hostages. I hope that society will consolidate, we will all go to the streets, also the mothers of soldiers whose sons are now dying near Kiev. This horrifying moment in history has relegated my country to the past. This is a historical trauma. Fratricidal war. I can't speak as an artist anymore, this is not the time for art.

E.G”