In the last days, it has been reported that the Russian government has been accused of having censuring conducts towards art. The case was raised after the repeated accusations made against the editor of the Andrei Sakharov Museum, who may even risk going to prison due to his exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006”.
On May 14th , the association Human Rights Watch denounced what is defined “an action of persecution” towards Yuri Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum. The cause of the Russian government’s fierceness against the museum director would be determined by the exhibition planned by the latter, a production called “Forbidden Art 2006”, which opened its doors in Moscow in March 2007. After an investigation that started last June, Yuri Samodurov was accused of “incitation to religious hatred”. Indeed the images exposed, according to the people in charge of the investigation, would be offensive towards Christianity.
During the Soviet period and until a few years ago, the Russian government persecuted “subversive” artists as much as the Orthodox Church. However, nowadays the reconciliation between the religious and the political spheres has sometimes led to results of censure towards those ideas or conducts that are judged to be too critical towards the spiritual authorities.
The case of the exhibition in question is one of these. The “Forbidden Art” exhibition was intended to be a protest against the censure in art which, according to the organizers, would have taken place since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000.
Since then, it has been rumoured that the control of artistic expressions has become stricter. For instance, last autumn, the minister for culture blocked the participation at international exhibitions of many works coming from Russia because their exposure would have been considered “damaging” for the country. These works, and others declined at the Second Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moscow as well as by the various galleries, were instead exposed at Samodurov’s exhibition.
This certainly did not thrill the government authorities and the religious representatives who have decided to take corrective action. The mainstays of the governmental action are found in the so-called anti-extremist legislation, a series of regulations criticized by many parties, which would have been used in different cases against political dissidents and that are now used even to stand in the way of artistic operators.
On the other hand, Samodurov is not new to inquiries. In 2003, the editor had organized the exhibition “Caution: Religion!”. The exhibition exposed works considered to be critical towards the Orthodox Church, in which contemporary artists reinterpreted traditional religious symbols. In that situation, a group of dissidents penetrated in the museum compromising many of the 45 paintings exposed. The exhibition cost Samodurov a steep fine (the accusers’ request in that case was for three years of prison).
If today a court should hold him guilty for the offences he is charged with, it would be unlikely for him to be able to avoid prison, given the reiteration of the offence. The Sakharov Centre could be forced to release an official announcement in which it dissociates from its editor’s position to avoid closing down definitely.

(translated by Giorgina Arcuri)