Outspoken, unapologetic and utterly engaging, Russian-born artist Konstantin Bessmertny has called Macau home since 1992. As the territory faces a period of transition, the artist talks to CLOSER about personal survival, and shares ideas on how Macau could best endure. Bessmertny is currently preparing a retropective show in the city, set to open at the Macau Art Museum next April
We enter the Coloane home of artist Konstantin Bessmertny and could very well be interviewing him for an issue of Architectural Digest, so sleek and uncompromising is the space he shares with his pianist wife Gala and children.
However, as one of the most distinguished artists working in Asia today, the subject of discussion inevitably revolves around his work, but not without also touching on history, popular culture, literature, comedy and, despite protests of being adverse to it, politics. Bessmertny is fluent in all aspects of the human condition.
Born in 1964 in Blagovesthensk in the former USSR, art came early to the young Bessmertny, something he refers to as a “genetic mutation” that manifested itself when he was just six. Despite protests from his family who feared that he would end up living a debauched life of alcohol and women (the common perception of artists at the time) his talent was too good to ignore.
Today, he is known for his technical mastery, having studied at The School of Fine Art in Blagovesthensk, the Fine Arts Faculty at The Pedagogical Institute in Khabarovsk and The Institute of Fine Arts in Vladivostok. He has exhibited from China to London, represented Macau at the Venice Biennale and has a number of awards to his name.
How one of Macau’s most celebrated artists ended up, well, in Macau and how he sees the future of his adopted home, are topics discussed, with a good dose of ‘everything-else-that-makes-the-world-go-around’, of course.
Macau CLOSER: Since arriving in Macau, many of your works seem to intertwine your love of history and Macau’s dense past. Can you tell us about this?
Konstantin Bessmertny: The Maritime Museum was my first commissioned work in Macau. The director asked me to make a painting. You can see it when you walk in, it’s a huge piece that took me months to complete. Working with a Chinese and a Portuguese historian, we spent hours deciding on the best way to represent Macau. So including Macau and its past in my work probably started then. But I also knew a lot of people from different areas, Jesuits and Catholics, for example and I have always had an interest in history.
Sometimes foreigners are more local than locals. For example, I was recently in Madrid, showing an old Portuguese friend some works by Velasquez in the Prado Museum and he was surprised to learn that Velasquez was in fact, Velasquez da Silva. He was from Seville, the son of a Portuguese Jew from Porto, so Velasquez was a foreigner in Spain and most people don’t even know this. Many names from El Greco to Dali can be used as examples of this point.
This is what happened in Macau. There were treasures lying around, often on the streets that no one dared to touch.
I like a critical, sarcastic point of view on a subject. I prefer a take on a serious subject as a comedian rather than a politician, for example, trying to say serious things.
How do you view your role as an artist?
I’m a humble man, just doing my job. I’m like a carpenter; if I need to do a job for someone and make a chair, I have to do it well and do my best. The rest is absolutely secondary; notions of fame and popularity etcetera.
I believe in the idea of a cultural footprint; every society leaves behind a cultural footprint. We of course contribute to this cultural footprint, artists do that more than anybody else. Whether the artist was a rich one or poor one, this is irrelevant. What matters is their contribution to the footprint. If you pass by an old building that has fallen apart and a corner has survived, you see it and respect the work of the stonemason and his craft of 100 years ago. Even the work of an unknown artist that survives the test of time is brilliant.
Our duty is to do as much as possible to influence bureaucrats and rich people. It’s not about making a lot of money, real artists want a challenge. Success in art means getting another job.
We could do more in Macau, artists could contribute more. Being an artist is hard work, from early morning to late at night. Unless an artist becomes a big star, they are just an employee. If you become recognised, you have a certain number of buyers and you have to produce, and you have to produce faster and more than ever. It’s good if you have a style you have created, in the way that Picasso did; he could produce six to seven pieces of work a day and there was a demand for it.
Do wealthy people in China or Macau buy your work?
Macau never had that kind of sustained market. Sometimes when colonial style houses were being built somewhere there was that type of market, but I didn’t really fit into it because I don’t like to do things on demand.
An example of this is when I did an early show of watercolours. It was a commissioned show and on a survival level it was easier to sell, and I had great knowledge and experience of the medium because we did it at school and in college and I loved it. It’s not my medium, but I liked it so I did it. I did a watercolour of the St. Paul’s Ruins and of course they asked for another one, and another, and another….I did St. Paul’s from one side, I had some ideas, and then from another, but after a while I had to say: sorry, I don’t do watercolours anymore.
So you stop yourself from becoming commercial and I try to do that all the time. Regarding Macau, yes there was a market for this and other artists succeeded more.
Where does culture flourish? Where there is a concentration of money, but there is also another ingredient – taste.
Could Macau have a large art fair?
Macau could do many things, but it has to be done intelligently. It has to be done at a superior level, but unfortunately it’s like we are the younger brother of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a more open-minded approach, but Macau does it with its own resources and that’s a problem. It could be better and easier, but they always struggle.
But Macau is not Macau, it belongs to China and China has a say here, so it’s a political issue. Macau is in a transition where they have to make a decision about what to do next and I hope they make the right decision.
Many artists in Macau, like Ung Vai Meng, made a call to have a political role in the city. Have you ever felt this need?
No, not at all. I’m anti-political, always. My focus is on the things I am trying to get done. In an interview with Matisse during the Second World War, when asked why he was painting flowers and naked girls during all the carnage, he replied that art should be outside of politics. Art should be above these things, a place to achieve and not be submerged in all the dirt that lies around. Everything can be improved, but I believe this change starts in your own house, from your family. If you want to clean, then just clean your house, clean in front of your house, save energy, go green, recycle, improve things around you and be an example to others.
I still think that individually we can achieve a lot, even moving politics. Politics represents specific groups, so you definitely won’t be alone. I believe in meritocracy; these types of governments are probably the best.
What are you working on at the moment?
I have a show in London this year in November/December with Rossi and Rossi. As galleries are struggling to survive nowadays, it’s corporate capitalism at the highest level, so only the big fish survive. When you see your beloved dealers and galleries struggling, you want to help them. So I’m trying to be supportive to everyone, everywhere. There are lots of ongoing projects, with Austria and Japan. There is also a show planned for Hong Kong; because of the London show I have to have a preview show in Hong Kong. There are also individual projects happening during Art Basel.
I try to influence the things I like, and sabotage the things I dislike. In this way I have a lot to choose from now, there is a lot of fragmentation everywhere. I have made a lot of decisions, but what I am focused on more now is overproduction in art. When people see a mountain of art produced, they cannot see the best art. I think we need to go through the pile and clean it up and that’s what I do on my side. Less is more. Not to set limits on myself, but to spend more time on each project, and also I like to do site-specific.
If I have a commission I try to influence it, to discuss things and not have people interfere too much; to do it honestly and to put my message there.
Macau Museum is planning a show this year. I would love to do a show here as it allows me to make bigger works. There are a number of works that have never been on show here, they have been in storage. We have agreed to go through everything in the new year, and it is planned for April.
I have this idea of an old car as a mobile gallery. In Hong Kong I’ll park it somewhere as a normal car, but the interior will be like a gallery with lights and installations inside. You will have to go into a parking lot or look for some specific location – an unexpected, experimental way of showing art. I’m working on it now.
What is Macau’s art scene lacking?
Should Macau start everything from the top, do it like London or Hong Kong? No, do it better. You don’t have to invent many things, just use the best of Basel. The artists are already in Hong Kong, so just invite them to stay for an extra week and call it “The best of Basel Hong Kong in Macau”. It’s not difficult to transport the materials, and you choose the best galleries, treating Hong Kong like a stage to have much better things here.
Or take the Macau Biennale for example. I was part of it early on and won two prizes at it in 1994. Macau had it when very few others did; it was only Venice and São Paulo. Then they stopped it. If we restarted it, we could actually say that the Macau Biennale has existed since 1991. Back at that time there was nothing, it was a desert. So there are so many things just lying around here, just take and use them!
Macau people are divided about what they value. When looking at their history they are torn: it’s Portuguese history and it’s Chinese history. If you cut the major history out of Macau, what is left? A little fisherman’s village. A simple, no-go, no-fun place. If you not careful, you are taking away nine out of ten volumes of history of the place.
Macau has a lot of things, the Biennale, the cultural heritage, but how to live and survive in such a small place with so many societies, crossroads? Macau could develop in so many directions. It used to play the role of Venice, it was called the Venice of Asia. Traders came to wait for permission to go to China; even the artist Giuseppe Castiglione came to Macau to wait for permission from the emperor to go. In some shape or form, everyone came through Macau, so it should develop this side of it.
Konstantin Bessmertny has been living in Macau for 23 years. He tells CLOSER about how he first came to be here and why he stayed.
“The idea to live in Macau was based on survival. My first solo show (in Blagovesthensk) was early, compared to others, when I was 14 years old. I was selected and awarded medals and some galleries saw my work and asked if I would like to exhibit.
“After finishing university I was already working with a gallery in Vladivostok, which had ties to galleries in the USA. Here in Macau there was a dealer who was very active and wanted to do something at Leal Senado Gallery. In Macau, in the Leal Senado Gallery the person in charge was Herculano Estorninho, a famous artist influenced by Smirnoff, a Russian artist and architect, and when he saw my work something clicked.
“Leal Senado held an exhibition of young Russian artists. Perestroika was much in fashion at the time and I also spoke some English. I was invited to come to Macau to help to put on the show and also to give some interviews, if needed.
“In December 1992 I came to Macau, flying to Guangzhou first. When I saw the place I thought: Wow, this is like before the end of the world, this is the way the world should perish. The air was humid, lots of bicycles, all dirty, pollution, rubbish everywhere. Today Guangzhou has changed a lot and I love it now.
“I fell in love with Macau at first site. When I entered Macau it was clean, tidy, a very concentrated place. As I love history, I knew that Macau was the gateway for Portuguese and Jesuits and missionaries from all over the world. Most things came through Macau, and it was quite funny that I came to Asia through Macau. It was a pleasant surprise and the exhibition went well.
“However, I never expected to stay here for long. But the gallery asked me to stay in Macau for a year. But we also realized that we were trapped, there were things that needed to be followed up, finished, waited for.
“My wife is a classical pianist. Father Lancelote Miguel Rodrigues asked her to work at the music school.
“Later, I had options to move to Hong Kong, but art-wise, Macau was more active than Hong Kong at that time. Hong Kong was a desert, apart maybe from the Art Centre and the Fringe Club, there was nothing. For an artist, Macau was a perfect place.”
A man of books
Konstantin Bessmertny is now also publishing books. The Last Dumpling – Art & Cook Book was just published by the Macau Cultural Creative Industry Association. With a beautiful and quite peculiar graphic design, the book puts together some fragmentary writings by the artist, a lot of collages and some of his artwork. A very good humoured and sarcastic book, it has chapters such as “Basic Table Manners and Rules”, “How To Choose a Restaurant”, “How To Drink Alcohol”, “If You Forget Your Apple ID and Password” and “Macau, History of Bad Habits”. Nothing you might expect will be in this book, where the unexpected rules. Shelves filled with books were always part of Bessmertny’s universe. Having a history teacher mother and a house full of them helped. “I was reading regularly, I like to self-educate myself”, he says. The Last Dumpling – Art & Cook Book is available at Macau Creations shop (www.macaucreations.com).
