Stories about the doubles were told by Nina Bereznitskaya, Sergey Guskov, Andrey Parshikov, Alexandra Rudyk and Sofia Terekhova.
Ded Pakhom
In 2015 this renowned mystic appeared in the “Battle of Psychics” show on the TNT channel and in November this year the TV-3 channel launched a program “Supernatural Selection” featuring Pakhom traveling throughout the country in search for people with psionic abilities. As a psychic he managed to terrify the dwellers of the “damned village” Ozerskoe while in some places he managed to encourage and restore peace of mind to those who lived there. Ded Pakhom is one of the many embodiments of Sergey Pakhomov, a renowned actor, artist and showman. Last summer he appeared in the guises of Anatoly Kashpirovsky and Alan Chumak at the “Living Water” exhibition in the Regina gallery. Earlier he imper- sonated the character of “Poekhavshiy” (The Mad) from Svetlana Baskova’s film “Green Elephant” (1999).
Monk Rabinovich
The earliest reference to Monk Rabinovich dates back to 2006 – he is featured in Viktor Pivovarov’s scroll “Sutra of Fears and Doubts” standing on his head near a bewildered dog. The most substantial of Monk Rabinovich’s material output is the series “Gardens of Monk Rabinovich”, containing 30 paintings created in 2012-2013 and shown in 2015 in Berlin. If you, in your innocence, have any doubt about who is the artist behind this character, we can tell you the secret – it is Viktor Pivovarov himself. In his oeuvre the image of a garden can be traced back to 1976 (the “Garden” album). This is the garden of collective memory which resonates with every person’s experiences.
A Person
The most humble and unassuming alter-ego appeared as part of Andrey Kuzkin’s exhibition “The Right to Life” (2016). The artist’s performances were presented on tablets fea- turing a photograph and a description of the same type: “a person did this and that”. In order that he could dissociate from himself and take a critical look at his output, the artist suggested viewing these works as though produced by “a person”, pretending that “Kuzkin” himself had no hand in it.
Pastor Zond
Pastor Zond was created by Vadim Zakharov during his time in Germany, where he relocated in the 1990s. Although the Pastor was conceived as a fictional character in the course of time he became a reality through the recognition he received from the museum community. In the project “Funny and Sad Adventures of Foolish Pas- tor” (1996) Zakharov in the guise of the pastor (or was it Zond who took on the appearance of Zakharov?) obstinately fights windmills in Spain, sumo wrestlers on Japa- nese islands and visits a dacha in Moscow Oblast, all while maintaining a continuity with regards to his conceptual self. In 1997, Pastor Zond, having reached the end of his journey, disappeared, leaving behind, in the artist’s words, his cassock in St Peter’s Cathedral. Although the story is confined to the period between 1996 and 1997, the character continued contributing to the chronicles of conceptualism behind the scenes (the “Pastor” magazine continued to be published from 1992 to 2001).
YanTamkovich-Friske
The figure of Yan Tamkovich-Friske is familiar to the public, though in different incarnations. Appearing for the first time in 2014 as Individual Entrepreneur, he heralded a new trend. In the course of workshops run by artist Anastasia Ryabova and critic Alexandra Novozhenova in the Rodchenko School in 2015 and 2016, a concept emerged that artists are not who they say they are. Through discussions with students it turned out that they considered themselves not proletarians of the creative industries (as, for example, Rodchenko did) but rather “small business owners”. And so in May 2015 Individual Entrepreneur held his first exhibition “Immortality Certificate” in Center Red, where he installed gravestones for artists, art and cinema critics, political activists, as well as teachers and directors in the Rodchenko School. He created their doubles in order to bury them. At the same time he started actively setting up fake social media accounts for his victims. Yan Tamkovich was lucky enough to play a special role – Nikita Tereshchenko, the person behind Individual Entrepreneur, started calling himself Yan Tamkovich-Friske. The “real” Tamkovich persistently resisted, even called himself the “original” but nothing helped. As a result he began introducing himself as Yan Ginzbourg at every possible opportunity. The imitator was victorious. The “original” and the “copy” even had an altercation at one of the “Nights of Vernissages” at the Vinzavod Contemporary Art Center, the video of which was a hit in artistic circles for a while. In November 2016 Tamkovich-Friske and Individual Entrepre- neur held a gay-wedding in Center Red (“Bound to Death. Equal Marriage”). In Friske’s words, a child was born to them. Later Tereshchenko did other impersonations. For example, in November 2017, audiences at Tamkovich-Friske’s exhibition in the ART4 Museum were treated to “Kind of Gallery ‘Coat’”, which parodied Alexander Petrelly’s practices.