SIMON TOPAROVSKY

The meaning of the words “pillar of shame” will become clearer if we replace them with the phrase “Hall of Shame”, more familiar to Russian ear. But the word “column” is, of course, an exact match, not devoid of pathos, to the artist Simon Toparovsky from Los Angeles and Ariel Soulé of Milan.

The name of the exhibition refers to the events of XVII century, when, during the plague in Milan, men were arrested on false charges of spreading the disease and executed. Events reflected in the story by the XIX century Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni, were the artists’ beginning inspiration. Four rooms of pieces using painting and sculpture, mixing media to create the installations.

The methods used by the artists suit the Modern Museum’s declared task perfectly – to show how to develop the tradition of modernity in the present time. Soulé and Toparovsky talk to the audience in a language of metaphors and symbols that are woven into a complex narrative. Some metaphors, such as yellow rats pestilence, scattered on the floor in one of the rooms of the museum, are very bright and clear, while others (such as fingers, held in the Buddhist mudra, images of the succulent plants, like the aloe repeated through the installations) might require special explanation. In this case, there are multi-curator comments posted near each installation. But, certainly without further explanation the installation is enough and leaves a very strong impression.

The authors have consistently pursued the viewer through all the stages that accompany any act of “collective madness”: panic, suspicion, the search for the guilty, torture and abuse, and, finally, death.

Particularly impressive is the last part of the installation – “Punishment.” The wheel, which symbolizes one of the worst medieval execution techniques – the wheel, against the famous “execution wall” of the Museum basement,