Exercise in Cultural Citizenship Between Individual and Collective

~ Center for Interdisciplinary Studies ~ and ~ Institut de la Communication ~ UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management Master thesis: Exercise in Cultural Citizenship between Individual and Collective by: THEODORA MATZIROPOULOU Supervisor: SILVIJA JESTROVIC, PhD Belgrade, October 2013 Contents Résumé ......................................................................................... 7 Introduction ............................................................................. 14 Hypothesis and methodology of research ......................................................... 17 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................ 18 The Case Study of Costakis Collection ..................................... 20 When blinds open and light enters the room: Costakis Collection of Russian avant-garde .................................................................................................. 20 The closed book of Russian avant-garde ............................................................ 23 Collecting the Avant-Garde: a personal excavation ........................................ 25 The apartment on Vernadskii avenue: a worksite for democracy ............ 28 Thaw and the bulldozers – the clashing stones of ‘60s and ‘70s ................ 30 Clouds begin to appear: negotiating an exodus ............................................... 33 A travelogue of a collection ..................................................................................... 34 The Case Study of ‘Our Great Circus’ ....................................... 38 Joining our Great Circus ........................................................................................... 38 Symplegades, dragons and the mythical monsters of censorship ............. 39 “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Great Circus called Greece” ....... 40 Theater as a political rally ...................................................................................... 48 Conclusion ................................................................................. 55 Bibliography ............................................................................. 57 Appendix .................................................................................... 61 2 Acknowledgements Thank you. To my mentor Dr. Silvija Jestrovic, whose lectures inspired me and helped me conceptualize this thesis. Her generous help and guidance have been important. To my always ‘teacher’ Dr. Dr. Efi Voutira. I owe her a great depth of intellectual gratitude. To Evelina Kotridou for guiding me, providing me with sources and advising me in such an inspiring way. To Maria Tsantsanoglou for her suggestions and for opening the ‘blinds’ were closed years ago. To my parents, for making my studies happen all these years. Their support is priceless. To my sister, who is always there. A funny, creative tornado. To Dimitris for his unending support and unconditional love. 3 Abstract This thesis focuses on cultural acts that could be read as exercises in cultural citizenship. The aim is to examine, through two main case studies, cultural acts as expressions of political resistance. The two case studies: “Our Great Circus” and “Costakis collection” are situated in different spatial, social and political contexts. Nevertheless, both of them are events of great importance for different reasons, which will be analyzed in the paper. The main common ground is that both of these cultural acts become dissenting acts and cultural citizenship becomes what Holloway Sparks has called “dissident citizenship” exercised by citizens that lack democratic participation but want to claim it (Sparks, 1997:74). While it is crucial to acknowledge the civil, political and social rights as promised by the attainment of citizenship, Marilyn Friedman has argued that citizenship is more variegated and multiple: “It can be an identity; a set of rights, privileges, and duties; an elevated and exclusionary political status; a relationship between individuals and their states; a set of practices that can unify – or divide – the members of a political community; and an ideal of political agency” (2005:3). Indeed this is the topic examined in this thesis: a relationship between individuals and their states and how a set of practices (in this case cultural acts) function as a political agency on individual and collective level. This year State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki celebrates the 100th anniversary after the birth of the collector. During the exhibition “The Costakis Collection and the Russian Avant Garde. 100 years after collector’s birth”, there will be a special tribute to the collector. The author finds the conjuncture ideal to question collector’s motivation and examine this motivation as a cultural act had been done under the prism of expression of cultural citizenship. Art collectors are motivated by a variety of incentives and needs they try to meet and as a result they are engaged in process of art collection. Costakis started collecting works of art of the lost Russian Avant-Garde. He searched and found objects lost in attics and basements basically in Moscow but also in Leningrad. He literally 4 rediscovered and collected Russian Avant-Garde, which was lost since Socialist Realism became the official state policy after 1932. 1275 pieces of his collection belong to State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki. This example questions an art collection as an individual exercise of cultural citizenship and if this practice of collecting works of art was a conscious or unconscious exercise of cultural citizenship. Extremely interesting is the case of the theater play “Our Great Circus” as well. This case study touches the collective exercise of cultural citizenship through a theater play took place during turbulent times in Greece. “Our Great Circus” is a legendary theater play written by Iakovos Kambanellis and introduced to the public in Athens back in 1973, during Dictatorship time in Greece. In 1973 Tzeni Karezi (the main actress) asks Iakovos Kambanellis, whose plays have been performed by ‘Karezi- Kazakou’ troupe, to write a play with a partisan message. The texts, however, had to go through the censorship committee. In order to pass the censorship, the play was presented as a historical comedy. It was delivered to the competent committee partially, unordered and enriched with episodes, which were not intended to be played but to provoke the censors and act as "lightning rods" (Kambanellis, 2012: 20; 2010:14) for the rest of the oeuvre. “Our Great Circus” is an allegorical play narrates the history and suffering of the Greek state from the arrival of King Otto in 1833 until the Nazi Occupation of the country. Considering these seven years of Dictatorship in Greece as a very important part of country’s modern history it is clear that such an important cultural act should be questioned and investigated more as an expression of cultural citizenship transformed into “dissident citizenship” (Sparks, 1997:74). This thesis is based on several resources: • Existing theories of citizenship are used to examine different models of citizenship practices • Existing theories of cultural citizenship are used to analyze the link and differences between citizenship and cultural citizenship • Existing research has been done on the two case studies, which is analyzed in this paper • New qualitative research that was conducted for the purpose of this thesis: 5 interviews with experts, analysis of previous interviews already exist, visits in audience and artists that are connected with the two selected case studies The main hypothesis of this thesis is the following: ‘Cultural acts are exercises in citizenship’. As specific hypothesis have been: 1. Art collection can be an expression of cultural citizenship on an individual level. 2. Festivalization of a cultural act can be an expression of collective citizenship. Costakis started collecting works of art of the lost Russian Avant-Garde. He searched and found objects lost in attics and basements basically in Moscow but also in Leningrad. He literally rediscovered and collected Russian Avant-Garde, which was lost since Socialist Realism became the official state policy after 1932. Costakis came against great obstacles in his attempts to gather information and collect the works. Nevertheless, he found his way to access this forbidden and forgotten art and to remove “the thick layer of oblivion under which the Russian avant-garde was buried” (When Chagall cost less than a sack of potatoes, 1997). He himself believed that the failure to appreciate the value of the avant-garde artists was a tragic mistake; he was conviced that “ one day people will need and learn to value this art”. As Margitte Rowell, the curator of Guggenheim Museum put it, “when we first saw the collection, we understood that the history of art of the 20th century should be rewritten”. More than 400 000 viewers attended the performances of “Our Great Circus”. Performances in ‘Atheneon’ theater have been declared as the “most massive political rally” until the events of the uprising of students in the Polytechnic faculty. Some testimonials of the audience show clearly the impact of the play on the repressed society. “When we want to feel human beings we come here”, claimed a couple when they were asked why they come to the theater again and again. An excellent example of how a cultural act itself or participation in it can be perceived as an exercise

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