Between hercules and a butterfly

German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers was known for examining guilt and responsibility in post-WWII Germany. He argued that political guilt could be collective, with citizens bearing indirect responsibility for the actions of state leaders. At the time of writing this text, more than 1,600 days have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I decided to ask Russian artists relocated to Europe about their views on collective guilt and responsibility.

The first person I contacted was Arina, a performance artist, producer at the Blazar Art Fair, and manager at one of the most famous galleries selling contemporary art in Moscow. Throughout her career Arina got to know many artists. We met personally at Wunder-Bar in Vienna and she shared the names of those happy to talk. During our conversation I asked her how she feels about working for an art fair organized within Russia. She highlighted their dual nature; on the one hand, art fairs receive government funding. On the other they redirect resources from war efforts to young artists – can this be interpreted as a subtle anti-war gesture?

Ksenia Nechay
My first interviewee is artist Ksenia Nechay, co-author and producer of the art-synth-pop group Slezki (translates to “tears” from Russian). Ksenia, a student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, creates work that explores relationships between humans, animals, and objects through performance, video, and sculpture.

Has your practice changed after February 2022? Did you experience guilt, despair, or hopelessness?
By early 2022, my partner and I had been working on Slezki for a year, blending pop music and irony to explore human relationships and contemporary art. When the war began, irony felt inappropriate, and we shut the project down, before reviving it once because it was chosen to join a sponsorship venture organized by the GARAGE Museum of Art. Slezki finally ended due to exhaustion and safety concerns. We decided to commemorate the “death” of the project with a “memorial” exhibition at the GARAGE Museum. We displayed our concert costumes, props, and lyrics, while a cover band performed songs from the album titled Boŭ (translates to “wailing” from Russian) at the opening. This allowed us to perform despite heavy censorship. Our lyrics avoided direct activist language, but key messages were still understood. It was terrifying – we asked the audience not to record videos.To resist the regime and dilute guilt we organized concerts supporting falsely accused political prisoners like Grisha Mumrikov, raised funds, sold our work and that of other artists. Grisha was accused of helping to organize an unrealized anti-war action and sent to a pre-trial detention center where he was purposefully sleep-deprived. In Russia, fabricated cases are not uncommon and are often used by the state to intimidate and suppress society. Grisha aka Grigory faced up to prison. Helping him I felt a strong sense of solidarity amidst the chaos.

Should Russian artists’ moral stance be evident in their work?
I believe creating out of obligation often leads to weak work.

Should artists refuse participation in projects or be excluded due to the war?
Art is shaped by its context and the war has changed the context entirely. Russian artists made a subtle anti-war statement by withdrawing from the Venice Biennale in 2022 for example. Bolder anti-war declarations could lead to imprisonment.

Is banning artists based on nationality fair?
Boycotting all Russian artists as a curatorial decision seems lazy to me. Russian artists pay a high price for speaking up. Those who stay in Russia remain silent, while those abroad sacrifice the stability and safety of their family. Excluding artists based on nationality is unfair and avoids understanding individual stories. Issues important to us, like the “body,” reproduction rights, and LGBTQ+ are banned or dangerous to explore in Russia. Personally, I faced exclusion when I moved to Vienna. A classmate asked in the chat to eradicate the use of Russian, citing her Kazakh heritage. Kazakhstan used to be a colony of the Russian empire. My suggestion to discuss postcolonial theories was dismissed. This experience left me feeling helpless and excluded even if I understand the need for distance from anything Russian. I wanted to refuse collaborating on a project with a musician from Mariupol because of guilt. However, what connected us was hatred towards our governments. I left because I didn’t want to be imprisoned. He left because he didn’t want to die. I remember laughing together on the street, and it was one of the best moments of that year.

What future do you see for your art?
My focus is to support and amplify underground voices. The rest of my time will be devoted to my art. I don’t mind if I’m rejected from projects because I’m Russian – it won’t stop me.

Roma Bantik
I approached artist Roma Bantik with similar questions. He agrees to a written exchange, recognizing the importance of discussing guilt among Russian-born artists. Born in Russia’s industrial Ural region, Roman has been based in Strasbourg since 2022, continuing his artistic practice while pursuing a master’s at the Haute école des arts du Rhin HEAR. His work explores returning materials to their original state, repurposing industrial metal into sculptures and paintings.

What project are you currently working on?
My most important series, A190B2, feels especially relevant in today’s conflicts. Created from a tank engine (B2) and a naval ammunition system (A190), I began it in early February 2022. By the end of the month, Russia invaded Ukraine. That’s when my daily performance began. For three years, I’ve walked the streets carrying heavy metal objects melted from military equipment – a quiet act of resistance, particularly while I was still in Russia, where even saying “No to war” was punishable. People ask, “What is this? Why carry such weight?” I share the objects’ history, and they respond with their thoughts, which I document and publish. Half of the book’s proceeds support children in war zones in Ukraine. Art has allowed me to transform destruction into creation.

Should artists speak out against war?
I can’t speak for others. Art owes nothing to anyone, and while it cannot stop war, it can offer critique. Guilt is corrosive – I refuse to carry it but take full responsibility for what I create and share at this moment in history. War’s roots – anger, greed, ignorance – lie within us. But we also have the power to transform them into kindness, generosity, and wisdom.

Should artists refuse participating due to war?
Refusal can be an act of resistance, but pausing artistic practice is not the answer. Excluding Russian artists until war ends is illogical – war’s consequences persist long after wars are officially over. Landmines alone take years to clear, continuing to harm lives. In this sense, war never truly ends. Conflict and peace coexist. Each of us shapes the balance. The fact that we’re having this conversation proves that, despite everything, the world still holds together.

What are your plans for 2025?
The A190B2 tour continues – exhibiting works made from repurposed military machinery. So far, I’ve shown in Switzerland, France, and Austria. This year, I’ll exhibit in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. In February, I’ll release the third volume of my book documenting street conversations from 2024.

Maxim Ekaterinovich
Maxim and I meet via video call. Immigrants spend so much time online that he longs for in-person meetings. Through our conversation, I see how deeply emigration shapes his life and work. Before meeting him, I’d heard him referred to as a “wizard.” Maxim lectures, paints, sews, curates, and now makes films. When asked to define his practice, he simply calls himself an artist. Maxim sits on a Tel Aviv balcony, having arrived just hours before. In the coming days, he’ll direct a film about an abandoned fuel tank near the beach, now a mausoleum of life – birds enter through a narrow opening but rarely escape. “On the floor, there are eggs, feathers …” A cat strolls by, and he turns the camera to show her to me.

I ask who he was in Russia and how immigration changed him. There, he was a “superhuman” – studying and selling art, drumming, assisting artists, running a film and art club. He never thought he’d leave. After leaving Moscow, Maxim learned to love Russian poetry and iconography. Discussing homesickness, he recites Leningrad by Osip Mandelstam, a poem that portrays knowing a city down to your fibers and glands. Migrants, he laments, lose this deep-rooted connection, living on fragmented memories instead. He, too, feels stuck in a liminal state – first moving from Russia to Georgia, then to Armenia and Israel, and finally to Austria. “I left Israel after I dreamt of snow falling on the palm trees in Jerusalem,” he says. Since then, he has changed flats fifteen times.
Now Maxim studies Experimental Art in Linz. “The city’s liberalism must have Hitler spinning in his grave and charging the city with electricity,” he jokes. Maxim believes in a theory that countries become cultural parents – Russia was his, and leaving it was like parting with a relative. They are good in leaving too. Moscow’s relentless pace once made him egocentric, but Europe’s slower rhythm taught him how to expand the world around him rather than inflate himself.Maxim’s mission is to give immigrants a platform. In two and a half years, he has exhibited 176 artists, all in unsanctioned shows. One took place in the Paris catacombs, another under a Viennese bridge – viewers used military binoculars to see works displayed on the opposite bank. A third tested institutional limits, with Russian artists placing works inside lockers at the Centre Pompidou, like lighting candles in Church. The pop-up exhibition was a collective act of artists in limbo – unwanted at home and not always by the Western art world.Maxim has been cursed a fascist for exhibiting artists with Russian roots. Some Ukrainian artists wanted to join his projects but feared being canceled by their own community. Many Europeans, on the other hand, he says, don’t even grasp the difference between Russians and Ukrainians, seeing Russian and Ukrainian as the same language for example. In Linz, he faced Russophobia, which is a sensitive topic for him; people refused to talk to Maxim because of his origin. But he doesn’t condemn them, recognizing the pain some endure. Currently, he’s working on Between Hercules and a Butterfly. I ask about the title. “An immigrant must be as strong as Hercules,” he says, “but is, in truth, as fragile as a butterfly.” Then he laughs – Hercules is also the name of a Russian oat porridge.