Marina Alvitr
Ivan Plusch’s installation “Red Vein” portrays the regime in Russia as a character. Pieces of red cloth, stretched out, are painting themselves red, failing to realise that they have not yet become outdated and faded. Sometimes paint spills onto the sawdust, staining it pink, but this will soon be hidden – new, clean bags of sawdust stand nearby at the ready. The regime is people who, as in Ivan Plusch’s other works, turn out to be merely a set of stretched out strips: on the canvas of a painting and in the space of an installation. Faceless, mixed up all together within space and time, they turn out to be strips of fabric that are painting them selves in the cult colour of the previous epoch. Has the regime in Russia changed or merely donned a mask for a while, repainting it to be like the old one?
Stretching out from barrels that resemble those used to transport the natural resources of our country, the pieces of red cloth are wound onto reels for wire that symbolise commu[1]nication and the dissemination of information, the attempts to restrict it, and patriotic propa[1]ganda. The two main pillars of the regime are communication lines and natural resources.
On entering the viewer sees two searchlights, he is placed, as if under interrogation, qon a par with criminals merely because he is looking – does one have the right to look at the regime so directly?! The searchlights are on a large wooden “box” that represents either an execution chamber or a barrack for prisoners – after all, the regime is based namely on prohibition and accusations. The installation poses the question of whether our country is returning to its frightening past of despotism and violence...
