Russia Fines Museum Aides for Art Said to Ridicule Religion -nytimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/international/europe/29russia.html?8hpib
————————————————————————

March 29, 2005

Russia Fines Museum Aides for Art Said to Ridicule Religion
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

MOSCOW, March 28 - A Russian court on Monday convicted a museum director and
a curator of inciting religious hatred with an exhibition of paintings and
sculptures that, to many, ridiculed the Russian Orthodox Church.

In a criminal case that tested the boundaries of artistic expression in
Russia, the court ruled that the exhibition at the Andrei Sakharov Museum
was "openly insulting and blasphemous." It rejected the prosecutor's appeal
to sentence the two defendants to prison, however, and instead fined them
the equivalent of $3,600 each.

The case against the exhibition, titled "Caution! Religion," has deeply
divided Russia's religious and artistic groups ever since it opened briefly
in January 2003, provoking alternate charges of censorship and animosity
toward religious believers. Monday's verdict satisfied neither side
entirely.

Yuri V. Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum, which is named for the
late Soviet dissident and human-rights advocate, said he was relieved by the
nature of the punishment, though not by the court's ruling. He said he had
gone to court with his prescription medicines, assuming that he would
immediately be imprisoned.

Still, he said, the court's verdict asserted the state's power to dictate
the limits of artistic expression. "In essence," he said in a telephone
interview, "the court declared a certain kind of art unacceptable."

Aleksandr V. Chuyev, a member of the lower house of Parliament who played a
role in pressing prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the museum,
agreed that the verdict would set a precedent, but one he considered
healthy.

He said the case had established the legal foundation for prosecutions
relating to other exhibitions, as well as pornography, films and other works
that offend the faithful. He cited a recent exhibition by an artists'
collective called Russia 2, which addressed similar themes at the First
Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art last month and also prompted calls from
Orthodox leaders for criminal prosecution.

"The people and the authorities now understand that religion and the
feelings of believers should not be touched on," Mr. Chuyev said in a
telephone interview. "They should understand that their rights end where the
other person's begin."

The exhibition had been open only four days before six men from an Orthodox
church in Moscow ransacked the museum, damaging or destroying many of the 45
works on display. Criminal charges against four of the men were dropped,
while two others were acquitted last year in a trial that led to the new
charges against Mr. Samodurov; the museum's curator, Lyudmila V.
Vasilovskaya, who was also convicted and fined on Monday; and one of the
artists, Anna Mikhalchuk.

Ms. Mikhalchuk, who exhibits under the name Alchuk, was acquitted Monday.
She said the verdict in effect erased the separation of church and state in
today's Russia. "I am afraid the formulation of the court's ruling will be
used as a precedent for the authorities," she said. "It practically crosses
out Russia on the list of secular nations."

The works addressed spiritual and political aspects of the Orthodox Church,
whose influence over politics, if not society generally, has grown since the
Soviet Union collapsed.

One sculpture depicted a church made of vodka bottles, a biting allusion to
the tax exemption the church received in the 1990's to sell alcohol. A
poster by Aleksandr Kosolapov, a Russian-born American artist whose work
often satirizes state symbols, depicted Jesus on a Coca-Cola advertisement.
"This is my blood," it said in English. The court refused a request by
prosecutors to destroy the artworks, ordering that they be returned to the
artists who created them.

The Rev. Aleksandr Shargunov, a priest from the church, St. Nikolai in
Pyzhi, whose parishioners attacked the exhibition, derided the fines as too
lenient. He described the exhibition as a deliberate and hostile provocation
and called for more stringent laws against desecration of icons and other
sacred symbols.

"The prophecies say that once God is insulted, expect trouble," he said.
"And this is what happened."

Copyright 2005