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An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 The action Sharik is an example of maximum simplification and the artist’s humorous and silly approach. In this action he used shaving foam and film editing, which allowed him to create a balloon that appeared out of nowhere and disappeared without a trace.

 An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 The action Sharik is an example of maximum simplification and the artist’s humorous and silly approach. In this action he used shaving foam and film editing, which allowed him to create a balloon that appeared out of nowhere and disappeared without a trace. 

Sharik, Shirokyi Buerak

Moscow Lights, which was first shown at the 2nd Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2020), tells the story of how the publisher Gluschenkoizdat Press moved from its native Kaliningrad to Moscow. The reasons for the move are described briefly and vaguely (financial problems) and neither the activities of the publisher nor the identity of its founder are revealed. Kirill Gluschenko’s project is one of Russian art’s most successful examples of founding a “quasi‑institution” in recent years. During its existence Gluschenkoizdat Press published several photo books on the post‑socialist cities of Eastern Europe (Pskov, Dresden, Kaliningrad) and organized a monumental “summary exhibition” of its activities, Our Days are Rich and Bright (former building of the Moskva furniture factory, 2016). 
 
 The title of the video is taken from the name of a café that opened in June 1976 on Moskovsky Prospekt in Kaliningrad. The café itself does not appear in the film. Nevertheless, Kaliningrad, with its mixture of buildings from the German and Soviet periods, is the central character. 
 
 For Gluschenko the aesthetic of a European city with a regular urban plan is an object of nostalgia and admiration. And even the era of stagnation does not seem so uncomfortable: at that time, in place of complete freedom, intellectuals and creative people had access to a wide range of flexible strategies of doublethink. A person could immerse themselves in their profession and no one would touch them. They could work half the year officially and spend the other half doing their own thing or simply sitting in the boiler room and writing poetry. Gluschenko’s film immerses the viewer in a blissful state of timelessness that is apolitical and even noble.

 Moscow Lights, which was first shown at the 2nd Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2020), tells the story of how the publisher Gluschenkoizdat Press moved from its native Kaliningrad to Moscow. The reasons for the move are described briefly and vaguely (financial problems) and neither the activities of the publisher nor the identity of its founder are revealed. Kirill Gluschenko’s project is one of Russian art’s most successful examples of founding a “quasi‑institution” in recent years. During its existence Gluschenkoizdat Press published several photo books on the post‑socialist cities of Eastern Europe (Pskov, Dresden, Kaliningrad) and organized a monumental “summary exhibition” of its activities, Our Days are Rich and Bright (former building of the Moskva furniture factory, 2016). 
 
 The title of the video is taken from the name of a café that opened in June 1976 on Moskovsky Prospekt in Kaliningrad. The café itself does not appear in the film. Nevertheless, Kaliningrad, with its mixture of buildings from the German and Soviet periods, is the central character. 
 
 For Gluschenko the aesthetic of a European city with a regular urban plan is an object of nostalgia and admiration. And even the era of stagnation does not seem so uncomfortable: at that time, in place of complete freedom, intellectuals and creative people had access to a wide range of flexible strategies of doublethink. A person could immerse themselves in their profession and no one would touch them. They could work half the year officially and spend the other half doing their own thing or simply sitting in the boiler room and writing poetry. Gluschenko’s film immerses the viewer in a blissful state of timelessness that is apolitical and even noble. 

Moscow Lights

An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 The action Fountain was one of his most difficult ideas to create. It took a year and a half to prepare. The artist spoke to engineers, firefighters, and harbor workers so that his flight would look plausible. In the end, to make the action happen, he borrowed a GP‑21 hydro‑loader from the river port. Le Jen’s walk on a cloud of splashes lasts only a few seconds and he shows his excitement at seeing his work transform the power of water into a poetic metaphor for the artist's freedom to create in both nature and society.

 An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 The action Fountain was one of his most difficult ideas to create. It took a year and a half to prepare. The artist spoke to engineers, firefighters, and harbor workers so that his flight would look plausible. In the end, to make the action happen, he borrowed a GP‑21 hydro‑loader from the river port. Le Jen’s walk on a cloud of splashes lasts only a few seconds and he shows his excitement at seeing his work transform the power of water into a poetic metaphor for the artist's freedom to create in both nature and society. 

Fountain. Saratov, Volga

An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 In the action Becken, organized during his residency at Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Germany, Le Jen dived into a specially prepared tank of water under a red basin. The artistic effect was born from a reversal, a substitution, which made something usually impossible possible, while the labor preceding the “miracle” was hidden by a clever shot.

 An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

 In the action Becken, organized during his residency at Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Germany, Le Jen dived into a specially prepared tank of water under a red basin. The artistic effect was born from a reversal, a substitution, which made something usually impossible possible, while the labor preceding the “miracle” was hidden by a clever shot. 

Becken (Basin), Bad Ems, Germany

An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007.

 An architect by education, Misha Le Jen turned to performance art in 1990, inspired, as he says, by the Foucault pendulum in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He had the idea of making a painting using the movement of the Earth. To make it, he built a flying machine he called Leplane‑a suspension device that fixed the artist's body in the air, allowing him to assume a new position in relation to the painting surface. He later defined his performances as “consistent rejection of the superfluous in favor of pure action, a striking gesture.” 

 Le Jen interacts with nature and life as a combination of forces that are beyond human control, yet fascinating to study and live. He inherited his interest in the world around him and his approach to creativity as a practice that is integrated into life and natural for a human being from his grandmother, the well‑known Saratov artist Valentina Chelintsova. A positive and active view of the world‑which means the artist is full of hope and enthusiasm in their creative impulse‑seeks simplification rather than complexity, which brings Le Jen's work closer to the craft of inventors rather than to a fundamentally hermetic conceptualism that denounces reality. 

 To date he has created over sixty actions, some of which were documented in the eight volumes of Catalogues of Actions covering the period from 1993 to 2007. 

Catalogues of Actions (1993–2007)

Andrei Monastyrsky is one of the main ideologues of Moscow Conceptualism, a leading contemporary artist, and a co‑founder of the group Collective Actions, which began producing spatial and time‑based actions in 1976. Over the years group members have included Nikita Alexeev, George Kiesewalter, Nikolai Panitkov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, and Sabine Hänsgen. Most of the actions were documented and published in fifteen volumes entitled Trips Out of Town. 

 The two‑hour video recording Depot was shot at Depot railroad station on the Savelovskaya line on January 30, 1990 for Andrei Monastyrsky’s installation Trip to the West. The location was not accidental. This was where Collective Actions participants met the viewers of their first actions in the mid‑1970s in order to accompany them through the forest to the Kievogorsky Field, which was the main place for the group’s events. The film is a minimalist sequence of views of railroad platforms, bridges, technical elements, trains, and the landscapes surrounding the station. The fixed shots of views are accompanied either by their usual background noises or the voices of Monastyrsky, George Kiesewalter, and Sabine Hänsgen reading excerpts from the Handbook of Snow, edited by D.M. Gray and D. H. Male (Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat, 1986), in Russian, German, and English. The book consists of three parts: “Snow and the Environment,” “Snowfall and Snowcover,” and “Snow and Engineering.” 

 This film is the first in a series of video recordings (mostly made by Sabine Hänsgen) which not only document actions but also have their own aesthetic meaning as part of a “new demonstration space.” In the preface to the seventh volume of Trips Out of Town Monastyrsky stresses that, in his view, these videos focus on exhibiting the flow of events. Viewers are more involved with the metaphysics of place than the documentation of a particular action. 

 The short, thirty‑minute version of Depot was shown on April 29, 2022 as part of the eponymous action by Sabine Hänsgen, Elena Biserna and Henry Andersen at the Oscillation festival in Brussels.

 Andrei Monastyrsky is one of the main ideologues of Moscow Conceptualism, a leading contemporary artist, and a co‑founder of the group Collective Actions, which began producing spatial and time‑based actions in 1976. Over the years group members have included Nikita Alexeev, George Kiesewalter, Nikolai Panitkov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, and Sabine Hänsgen. Most of the actions were documented and published in fifteen volumes entitled Trips Out of Town. 

 The two‑hour video recording Depot was shot at Depot railroad station on the Savelovskaya line on January 30, 1990 for Andrei Monastyrsky’s installation Trip to the West. The location was not accidental. This was where Collective Actions participants met the viewers of their first actions in the mid‑1970s in order to accompany them through the forest to the Kievogorsky Field, which was the main place for the group’s events. The film is a minimalist sequence of views of railroad platforms, bridges, technical elements, trains, and the landscapes surrounding the station. The fixed shots of views are accompanied either by their usual background noises or the voices of Monastyrsky, George Kiesewalter, and Sabine Hänsgen reading excerpts from the Handbook of Snow, edited by D.M. Gray and D. H. Male (Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat, 1986), in Russian, German, and English. The book consists of three parts: “Snow and the Environment,” “Snowfall and Snowcover,” and “Snow and Engineering.” 

 This film is the first in a series of video recordings (mostly made by Sabine Hänsgen) which not only document actions but also have their own aesthetic meaning as part of a “new demonstration space.” In the preface to the seventh volume of Trips Out of Town Monastyrsky stresses that, in his view, these videos focus on exhibiting the flow of events. Viewers are more involved with the metaphysics of place than the documentation of a particular action. 

 The short, thirty‑minute version of Depot was shown on April 29, 2022 as part of the eponymous action by Sabine Hänsgen, Elena Biserna and Henry Andersen at the Oscillation festival in Brussels. 

Depot

Acquired from the artist

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Мастер

Misha Le Jen was born in Khvalynsk (Saratov Oblast). He graduated from the Architecture Faculty of Leningrad Engineering and Construction Institute. From 1987 to 1990 he was a member of the art group Zheltaya gora (Saratov) and from 2011 to 2024 was art director and curator of the museum and residencey Artkommunalka. Erofeev and Others. Selected solo exhibitions: Six Actions with a Ball, Pasinger Fabrik, Munich (1994), Horizon and Other Actions, Saratov Radishchev State Art Museum (1997).

Le Jen Misha

Kirill Gluschenko was born in Kaliningrad. He graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art (Moscow) and the Photography Department of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Selected group exhibitions: The Way of Enthusiasts , Casa Dei Tre Oci, Venice (2012); Detective , Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2014); Space Force Construction , V‑A-C Zattere, Venice (2017); General Rehearsal , Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2018); 2nd Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2020). He is a winner of the Innovation Prize in the nomination New Generation (2017), the Marion‑Ermer Preis (Leipzig, 2018), the Architectural Book Award (Frankfurt am Main, 2019) and the competition Best Book Design From All Over the World (Frankfurt am Main, 2020). He is the recipient of a grant from the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony (2018).

Glushchenko Kirill

Andrei Monastyrsky was born in Petsamo (Pechenga, Murmansk Oblast). He graduated from the Philology Faculty of Moscow State University. He was a founder (1976), theorist, and author of large‑scale actions in the group Collective Actions. He took part in the Biennale of Dissent (Venice, 1977), the 50th (main project, 2003), 52nd (main project, 2007) and 54th Venice Biennale (Russian Pavilion, 2011) and also documenta 12 (Kassel, 2007). He is a recipient of the Andrei Bely Prize for his important contribution to the development of Russian literature (2003) and the Innovation Prize in the nominations Theory, Criticism, Art History (2010) and For Creative Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2015).

Monastyrsky Andrei

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