Shifra Kazhdan and Ksenia Peretrukhina

(b. 1973 and 1972, Moscow; live and work in Moscow)

Long Live the Art of Tatlin!, 2000/2018
Video, 4’ 44”
Courtesy of the artists 

Concept: Ksenia Peretrukhina
Reconstruction of costumes: Shifra Kazhdan
Participants: Alexandra Arakelova, Marcel Vaessen, Thalia Verkade, Valentin Diaconov, Andrei Kiyanitsa, Ekaterina Koryukina, Aleksei Lobanov, Alexander Radzievsky, Polina Tarshis, Sergei Shcherbakov
Camera operators: Viktor Durandin, Andrei Kirillov, Irina Malikova
Photographers: Timur Bagov, Oleg Shagapov

Around the time Factory of Found Clothes began dressing in white chemical protective suits, the art communities of Moscow and St. Petersburg were introduced to another white-clothed phenomenon: Shifra Kazhdan’s paper suits that existed somewhere between art, theater, and alternative fashion. One of their most memorable appearances was in Long Live the Art of Tatlin!, a performance directed by Ksenia Peretrukhina that took place in St. Petersburg on September, 23 and 24, 2000. Performers dressed in Kazhdan’s paper reconstructions of Vladimir Tatlin’s normal-odezhda, or “normal clothing,” strolled across rooftops, stared into the distance, and marched across Palace Square with a sign that read “Tatlin.” Following on from the paper architecture of the 1980s, Kazhdan’s paper clothing was an artistic and emotional homage to 1920s constructivism and hinted at the ephemeral nature of avant-garde utopias, in particular Tatlin’s utopian dream of putting an end to fashion and providing the masses with comfortable and functional clothing. A film documenting the performance was screened on Russian television as part of the program Genius and Villain: Vladimir Tatlin. A newly edited version has been created by the artists for The Fabric of Felicity.