Artist Nastya Livadnova: “I get paid for loving totalitarism”

WHILE WE WERE DISCUSSING THIS MATERIAL, YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO DO AN ANTI-INTERVIEW. IT STRUCK ME THAT EVERYTHING YOU DO IS, IN A SENSE, “ANTI.”

When I thought about our conversation, to be honest, I was a little scared. In my head, I immediately pictured a dialogue with a set structure of questions. But I can’t always lull my words into neat semantic constructions. Fragments slip out “in between,” and they say much more about me. In general, the interview as a format frightens me — it feels like a declaration of meanings chosen in advance. It seems to me that the most sensitive, the most sensual conversations happen precisely when you’re unprepared. Which is why I’m completely unprepared for you now.

AN INTERVIEW IS, IN PRINCIPLE, AN AMBIGUOUS GENRE. IT INVITES THE READER INTO THE HERO’S WORLD, BUT IMPOSES STRICT LIMITS ON THE INTERVIEWER: PREPARATION, TIME CONSTRAINTS, INTERACTION WITH THE EDITORIAL OFFICE, THE TASK OF JOURNALISM. WHEN I THINK BACK TO MY FAVORITE INTERVIEWS, IT TURNS OUT THEY WEREN’T INTERVIEWS AT ALL — JUST CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE. EVEN NOW, I FEEL WE’RE BREAKING ALL THE RULES, DISMANTLING THE GENRE. AND I SEE THE SAME IN YOUR ART — YOUR WORKS ARE ABOUT TELLING YOURSELF, SHOWING YOUR EGO, DESTROYING CONVENTIONS AND REVEALING THAT SPACE “IN BETWEEN.”

At university we were given lectures on art, and one of them was dedicated to practical advice — for instance, “how an artist can get into a gallery.” I prefer a world where such questions don’t come to the forefront. They surface artificially, people must strain themselves to have such conversations. I, on the contrary, am drawn to immediacy, vitality, insistence, selfhood, expression, care, love — all the magic of the moment in between. I exist in a system of coordinates where the author occupies the central place. And in such a system, one must understand: the sovereign cannot be dethroned in their own state.

SO WHO, THEN, IS NASTYA LIVADNOVA? ON INSTAGRAM (EDITOR’S NOTE: META PLATFORMS INC. IS BANNED IN RUSSIA) YOU CALL YOURSELF “THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MY OWN BRAIN.”

Nastya Livadnova is an author. In my view, there is no higher genre than that. Yet I still dream of becoming a one-hundred-percent version of myself online — while knowing perfectly well the futility of such an idea. After all, that performance is always for one single chosen spectator. Everything shown on the internet is just a preview.

IT SEEMS TO ME THIS IS YOUR WAY OF OPPOSING THE ENTIRE ART SCENE. THE CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN ARTIST ISN’T LIKE THAT. HE “RESEARCHES” SOMETHING, READS BOOKS, ENGAGES WITH SOME SORT OF AGENDA…

The word “agenda” always sounds unnatural. I can hardly imagine that an interesting mind would obediently follow a trend and repeat the phrase “in my stinking works I research…” — and that spectators would care. In the end, when we all come home at night, we fall onto the couch and ask ourselves much more intriguing questions. For example: “why does it feel so vulnerable when someone puts a finger in your navel?” Of course, at first glance it seems trivial — until it doesn’t. I used to love poking certain people in the navel, as a non-obvious “hello,” until it was made clear to me that this is intimate territory, not to be crossed. Even when intimacy is the essence of the relationship.

All other musings about the grand and the potential feel to me utterly contrived. I’m no Aquarius to muse about “freedom,” but a sensitive Cancer who knows how to live through the in-between and prefers actions to thoughts. Which is why all my sentences are built not on speculation, but on “I feel.” After all, I only ever want to work in the 7D genre. And what do you mean, exactly, by “agenda”?

IT’S A KIND OF PACKAGING — FOR THE VIEWER, OTHER ARTISTS, CRITICS, INSTITUTIONS. BUT I LIKE CRAZY LONERS: EVERYONE CLIMBS THE MOUNTAIN, AND THIS ODD ONE RUNS TO SWIM. EVERYONE DIVES INTO THE WATER, AND HE’S ALREADY UP IN A TREE.

I, on the contrary, feel like the most ordinary, boring girl. I’d like to say more, but today my brain is dull.

It scares me when conversations about art are carried on with pompous seriousness. That way, the bags will never take flight. It feels like a well-planned crime in which everyone involved is armed to kill the adventure. Of course, kindergarten-level vandalism is always wonderful — but only when people exchange glances instead of just small change.

Hmm. If I had to condense all my feelings about this into a single sentence: I am in modest rage.

IT’S STRANGE TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT. RECENTLY YOU’VE DONE QUITE A LOT: A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT WITH SERGEY SAPOZHNIKOV AT XL GALLERY, YOUR SOLO SHOW THERE, A PROJECT WITH USHATAVA, AND YOU’VE BEEN INCLUDED IN VARIOUS RANKINGS. NOT TO MENTION YOUR WILD PRODUCTIVITY: ENDLESSLY POSTING NEW VIDEO WORKS AND PROJECT DOCUMENTATIONS.

You’re exaggerating. For me, productivity is the ability to sustain discipline every day in relation to one’s most sincere, overarching intention.

It doesn’t always work. Around you are dozens of sudden “tasks” demanding your focus. Or dozens of small “advantages” that test your aim for resilience. Lately I’ve been especially questioning the supposed equivalence between grand external visibility and productivity. As if the idea “do as much as possible everywhere” were a knowingly false trajectory toward self-satisfaction — a passionate energy you want to surrender to in order to reap fruits faster. But the magic of the shortcut is that it’s actually the longest road. And as on the first day, we still stand at the starting line of our own capacities.

I don’t feel productivity in relation to myself. Rather, I constantly face the question of focus accompanied by lightness. But as a fortune-teller in Rostov once reminded me, Moscow wasn’t built in a day either. A traveler must stock up on patience.

DO YOU REALLY GO TO FORTUNE-TELLERS?

In my family, both my grandmother and great-grandmother read fortunes. My mother can foresee certain situations and talk to the dead in her dreams, while everyone else rests from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

This is that state of “no time, no distance.” Intuition runs strong along the female line in our family. We literally feel everything. Some might find it unsettling, but fortunately not us.

Once, back at my parents’ house, a question wouldn’t let me go. My mother advised me to go for a coffee-ground reading. I love the ability to combine seriousness with light silliness — to give chance a chance. During the reading I decided to record our dialogue. I liked the expressiveness of our conversation so much that I even thought about cutting it into samples for an album. I don’t know how I managed to provoke a kind sorcerer, but I did. I must have asked too many questions. Suddenly, a stern voice fell upon me: “Nastya, why do you want to know everything so quickly? Moscow wasn’t built in a day. Be patient.”

SINCE WE’RE SPEAKING OF THE IRRATIONAL: HOW DO IDEAS FOR YOUR PROJECTS EMERGE? DO YOU PLAN EVERY DETAIL OR DOES EVERYTHING HAPPEN SPONTANEOUSLY?

Everything the viewer sees online now, I saw a couple of years ago in my head. Sometimes I get bored with my present self.

My works are like an invisible diary of memories I never planned, but kept. Can that be called a plan? Probably not. And yet, such a process has its own sequence, its own focus on an emotion you, as the author, decide to highlight. I’m not about meticulous planning, but I am about the seriousness of intention and attentiveness to circumstances.

Of course, it’s frightening to realize that I look at my entire experience as one big opportunity to turn it into work. Give me more words, and I’ll sniper them into a storyline of my own history. There is no “you” in my stories — they’re all about me. Even when I’m thinking only of you.

In general… a thought is so easy to lose. I try to treat this phenomenon carefully. Especially when we’re mid-sentence. I hope I’ve managed to maintain some discipline in this text.

AND HOW DO YOUR COLLABORATIONS WITH ARTISTS, MUSICIANS, BRANDS UNFOLD?

As if answering the question “how are you feeling?” Engaging and always unexpected.

I see every collaboration as a celebration, an exchange of ideas. For me it’s deeply curious and important. I call this process “going out for air.” You never know what will surprise you — something you’ll later adopt into your own behavior. But at every celebration, I prefer to remain myself to the fullest, and I expect the same from my colleagues. This principle draws to you precisely those you yourself would like to work with.

It’s no secret that I’m not easy. I’m demanding, unmanageable.

When you invite me to work, you’re inviting a gaze that can be pleasing or uncomfortable. But that doesn’t matter. After all, you liked it in the first place precisely because it didn’t fear being uncomfortable a billion times before. I don’t feel compromise in myself when I’m at the helm. Any process has this not-so-funny joke: yes, it’s collective work, and without everyone’s involvement nothing would happen — but failure is always the responsibility of exactly one person: the sovereign. Which is why I have a principle: only do what I’m sure of. That’s what it means to work on your own territory. That is exactly what I expect both of myself and of others.

For example, recently our team shot a video work for SBP4’s song “Light”, where I was lucky enough to act as director and casting director. The casting, as you might imagine, went brilliantly — we had an incomparable lineup of protagonists. All originals. For the first time, the casting director was pleased. On set, there was idyll and mutual understanding.

After the release, I often heard remarks about the incompatibility of the music and visuals. I love that observation. I find in it a kind of multi-genre violence. There was something to it. Like: “the greedy viewer wanted compromise, but the picture refused to give it.”

To me, it’s naive to expect that video and audio owe anything to each other. They’re two completely different mediums, each of which must be itself to the fullest. Even in a music video. If the picture wants to be non-obvious and unmanageable, let it. Demanding anything from art is like staring at walls when you should be looking beyond them. This paragraph is like a picket of my lonely rescued thoughts. #FreePicture #please

THAT’S A BOLD STATEMENT IN AN ERA WHEN EVERYONE STRIVES TO BE DELICATE AND ADJUST TO OTHERS.

I can hardly imagine compromising in self-expression. The only concessions in which I see a vast potential to unlock truly important states — and thus cannot refuse — are those within relationships with loved ones. Family is the base for self-expression. And I strive only for the base. Signed with love, your family-oriented Cancer.

My mother sometimes asks me whether the client was satisfied. But I don’t feel I’m fulfilling anyone’s order in any collaboration. Rather, I get paid for loving totalitarianism — in the most joyful sense. I have a rather rare talent: the ability to always be myself. And that talent is my main work.

Also, I love people, and I love working with them. I think that’s the most important thing to keep in mind while reading these words of capture. Once again: I love people, and I love working with them.

THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE AT LENGTH WAS FOR THE BOOK “THE 2010S”, ABOUT CULTURAL PROCESSES IN ROSTOV-ON-DON. YOU ENDED WITH: “2023 IS A TIME FOR ACTIONS ACCOMPANIED BY REFLECTION.” HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE PRESENT NOW?

I feel that right now is a time of crimes — crimes that impress by their calculation and, unfortunately, wound with their randomness.