Andrey Kuzkin
Andrey Kuzkin
(b. 1979, Moscow; lives and works in Moscow)
Main Question.
2013
Video (26’ 59’’), C-print, dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Since the start of his career, Moscow-based artist Andrey Kuzkin has engaged in radical performance, testing his own vitality and ability to concentrate. His explanation of the performance Main Question is as brief as it is impersonal: “A person has cut the question ‘What is it?’ into their body.” In describing his work this way, Kuzkin shows that he has no intention of imposing unnecessary readings on the viewer, making the work speak for itself or extending his experience beyond the personal. Every so often all people (here Kuzkin describes himself as “a person,” choosing not to specify his age or sex) ask themselves “What is it?” when facing circumstances a human is unable to overcome.
The idea for the performance came to Kuzkin about a year before he presented the work to the public. He spent a long time on the inner work, gathering the psycho-emotional resources required to make the effort. The path that he traveled in that time is probably part of the performance, as inner work and the search for a foundation are part of what sociologists call invisible labor, which is in fact inseparable from production. Another part of the work, Kuzkin argues, is the moment when one has to make a decision and begin. That moment for him is a decisive point beyond which “the fear and pain subside.”
AM