Diana Machulina

Born in 1981. Lives in Moscow. Graduate of the Institute for Problems in Contemporary Art and the Surikov Institute. Contributed to special projects at the 1st Moscow Biennale (2005), and special projects and the main program at the 2nd Moscow Biennale (2007)

Rubber soul

he work Rubber Soul is based in a story told to me by a friend who works as a journalist in Kiev. Ukraine is one of the few countries where patients at psychiatric hospitals have the right to vote. During the last elections, my friend interviewed a mentally ill person who was taking part in the voting. When asked a question about the difference between the previous and current elections, he answered, “It has gotten much better now because before, they gave us pencils, and now, they’ve given us pens.” That which is obvious to the mentally ill in the Ukraine is something that is not seen by ordinary Russians. Those who are offering us a false right to choose are successfully taking us for crazy. The force of the Russian powers-that-be lies in the erasure of any oppositional view.
The idea of the erasers with needles refers us back to prison traditions: with the use of such stamps, prisoners get the more popular tattoos, pushing pieces of rubber with needles into their skin and then filling in the pierced outline with ink. The surreality of these objects reminds us of a work by Man Ray– an iron with metal spikes on the surface meant for smoothing things out. Behind smooth speeches hide sharp conflicts; language and reality itself become surreal due to the impunity and abuse of discretion of those in power: among other things, the rubber stamps visualize the “ears of a dead donkey” and the “vertical line of power.” In a bureaucratic country, pencil and eraser become weapons, the deciders of fate, and paper begins to bleed.

Diana Machulina