Libertionne. Anna Tishchenko
our dear TV audience.
A skinny girl resembling a mouse looked through the doorway without knocking. The gnome greeted her with a snarl.
“Sarah! Well, it’s about time. Is the poster ready for Little Red Riding Hood?
The mouse nodded, went over to the presentation stand and with her smartphone transferred an image of a languid youth in a red bonnet (he wasn’t wearing anything else) surrounded by a bizarre cocktail of muscle-bound men and just as muscle-bound werewolves. The text read: “A global blockbuster! Passion and treachery! Bestiality, rape, murder and the eating of flesh! All this and more, at all cinemas throughout the empire! For ages 6 and up.”
“We need to go,” Melissa delicately reminded them, “or else we’ll be late for the exhibit. Good luck, James, with your tricky matter.”
“I’m also leaving, as my workday is ending,” the gnome said, and walked toward the exit. Reaching the doorway he turned to the screenwriter. “Oh yes, I almost forgot. Our contract with the pet store is ending, so, Lucy, my dear, please relieve Mr. Snork of her eight cats.
“How?”
“Well, I think they caught distemper.”
And he gracefully darted behind the door.
The new word in art
The car stopped near a huge, ghastly building, its architecture resembling an industrial factory. Above the gloomy entrance hung a five-ton polished slab with the laconic message: “Garbage factory. Art gallery.” Solid and massive, you understood immediately as you passed this tombstone-looking slab, that this place exhibited serious art for a serious public. If the names of bars and clubs sometimes induced in Tiberius a question, sometimes a smile, and sometimes complete bewilderment, then with the name of this cathedral of art he was in completely agreement. Well, perhaps it was a bit too honest, but overall… Inside it was noisy and crowded; the entire world was there for the exhibit opening. Looking at the walls, Tiberius sighed with relief. They were empty. That meant there would be a performance, not an installation. He was afraid of installations – you never knew where to expect them. At the last exhibition he embarrassed himself when he threw some garbage into a bin that was obediently sitting near the entrance to the hall. He hadn’t noticed a sign nearby informing visitors that this was an installation called “The Consumer.” And a lawyer friend of his had spent a month dealing with a lawsuit over the conduct of several robot janitors who at the end of an exhibition had thrown away a pile of ripped-up cardboard boxes, which, as it was ascertained that same evening, had comprised an installation called “Liberation.” With performances it was simpler – you wouldn’t mistake the creator for a piece of garbage.
They sailed past the huge line at the entrance thanks to Moopechka; he made a phone call, and a pale, sickly-looking youth quickly came out to meet them from the building, and led them past security.
“Tibby, this is the great Naitch!” Moopechka said, introducing the pale young man. For some reason he forgot about Melissa, and she could only look reverently at the creator, not venturing to introduce herself.
“I know you,” Tiberius smiled. “Last year I was with my friend Michael Storm at your performance “My Day.”
He recalled the theatrical hall rented for this purpose, crammed with people. The organizers wisely locked the doors, the lights went out, and only the stage was lit. On the stage was a couch, and on the couch rested Naitch, his hand placed on his head. For the first ten minutes the crowd observed a respectful silence, staring at the completely immobile figure. Then, when it became clear that the essence of the performance consisted of the creator’s complete absence of action, a certain agitation began. Tiberius, whom nature had more or less graced with intellectual ability, if not conscience, made his way over to the guards and whispered that he had an urgent need. Apparently his example was an inspiration to many, as a few minutes later when he sat in the car, he saw dozens of art lovers rushing into the parking lot.
“Naitch, my dear, you don’t look so well,” said Moopecha, his voice snapping Tiberius out of his flashback.
“You see, Paul,” Naitch replied, lowering his voice to a whisper, “today the theme of the performance is ‘The artistic process’… And so, I have to defecate in front of the viewers…”
“Oh, how clever!” Moopechka clapped.
“Right here,” Naitch pointed to a square pedestal in the very center of the hall. On a snow-white surface, a chrome vase had been installed. They stood for a while looking respectfully at the improvised altar where the sacred act would be committed. Melissa furtively took a photo of herself with the pedestal in the background. The artist broke the extended pause wistfully.
“I’ve done a similar performance as a test at the Crisis club. There was, shall we say, a technical glitch. To avoid repeating that, I’ve taken precautions. That is, a laxative.”
“And?”
“And if this cursed performance doesn’t begin right now, it won’t happen at all.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Moopechka nervously. “I’ll run and catch the curator, that baddie, he’s probably messing around at the bar. We need to start right away!”
“Hold on, Paul,” groaned the unhappy creator, leaning backwards against a fake-marble sculpture. It was a copy of the Venus de Milo, indistinguishable from the original, but adorned with a black military cap and a spiked collar. The nipples of the unlucky goddess of love were decorated with metal clamps festooned with pink silk tassels. While Tiberius was thinking whether or not the sculpture was a continuation of the tradition of dadaism, with its strangely manner of drawing a Salvador Dali mustache on the Mona Lisa, or was it an advertisement for a typical pleasure store, or both at the same time, as was frequently the case in the art world, with the plight of the great artist growing worse and worse. Something had to be done immediately, and Tiberius decided to engage in some cultured small-talk on the topic of art in order to distract the unhappy artist from more pressing issues.
“Tell me,” he said to the creator, who was making strange motions near the legs of the placid and serene Venus, and his complexion was in perfect harmony with the sculpture, “I understand how it is with installations, that you can sell them, but how can you extract a financial benefit from a performance?”
“Oh,” said the artist, livening up a bit, “usually this is really a challenge, but to be honest you don’t really need this, because the main idea is to generate buzz, to make a big splash, to become famous, and then they’ll buy whatever, any old, how to say it…”
“Bi-products of vital functions?” hinted Tiberius considerately, trained to clothe his true thoughts into tolerant words.
“Yes, yes, that’s right. But in the case of today’s special event, it’s possible to obtain the actual goods themselves. Now where is Paul with that nasty curator? What, did they go to the bar to goof off?”
“Really? And where’s the novelty?” Tiberius inquired sweetly, as if by chance.
“What are you trying to say?” barked the creator, insulted to the core. He was so indignant that his face began to turn slightly red.
“But everyone knows,” Tiberius continued innocently, “that Piero Manzoni, in the year 1961, sold ninety tins of his own excrement, each one with an inscription stating that it contained “100% natural Artist’s Shit”, sold by weight for the same price as gold. Thirty grams in each tin. The idea is that people like the word “natural.”
“Oh…”
“By the way, the tins exploded, for obvious reasons,” Tiberius continued, ignoring the melodic ring of his smart, informing him that he once again had incurred a fine for using expletives, “and their lucky owners were left with nothing.”
“I didn’t