Thugs wreck Moscow gallery, beating its owner

2006-10-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

MOSCOW A group of men burst into a gallery of contemporary art here, destroying work by an ethnic Georgian artist and beating up the owner, Marat Guelman.

Guelman is well known for his display of politically inspired and irreverent art and, most recently, his attacks on neofascists for their dislike of non-Russians and of Western influence on Russian society. He said the attack Saturday was carried out by 10 men who looked like skinheads. It was the latest incident to raise questions about xenophobia and freedom of expression in this country.

On Friday, officials seized 11 pieces of art that Guelman had exhibited. The art was on consignment to a London gallery owner, Matthew Bown, who was taking the pieces out of Russia when he was detained at Sheremetyevo-2 airport on Friday.

The photo collages that were seized included one depicting President Vladimir Putin, President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden lounging in boxer shorts and another of a veiled suicide bomber with her skirt held up to reveal racy lingerie.

Bown was allowed to leave for London, but the artwork was not released.

It is unclear whether the seizure of the artwork on Friday and the attack on the gallery were related, coincidence or driven by news about the airport seizure on the radio and the Internet. Guelman has made a fair number of enemies this year because of his public criticism of neofascists and nationalists. He is now on a list of "enemies of Russia" that is being circulated on the Internet by Russian neofascists.

Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was murdered in her apartment building on Oct. 7, was also on the list, as are many prominent human rights advocates. Politkovskaya made her name as a searing critic of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya.

Guelman has also angered Orthodox fundamentalists with his criticism of their influence on politics and for displaying artwork they consider anti-religious. Although he has long cultivated connections with the Kremlin, he has been increasingly critical of Putin.

It was also unclear whether the attack on the gallery and the Georgian art was related to anti-Georgian sentiment that has surged this autumn.

Tensions between the Kremlin and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia led to a crackdown on Georgians in Russia this month. Among many other measures, the government has deported hundreds of ethnic Georgians deemed to be in Russia illegally.

In a telephone interview Saturday after he was discharged from a hospital, Guelman said he had been treated for a broken nose and other injuries.

He said men dressed in dark blue and wearing hats and heavy boots charged into the gallery at around noon, forced the employees against a wall, seized their phones and then proceeded to vandalize the artwork and attack him.

"They started to beat me with their shoes, with chairs," he said. "Then they threw a computer at me. It was awful."

He said pieces of graphic art by Alexander Djikia, an ethnic Georgian artist who lives in Moscow and has lived in the United States, were destroyed and paintings by him were damaged. Djikia could not be reached for comment.

The official RIA Novosti news agency said Saturday that the Moscow prosecutor's office had opened a criminal investigation into the gallery attack.

Aleksandr Brod, the director of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights, which tracks xenophobia and hate crimes in Russia, said the gallery attack highlighted troubling currents. Brod is also on the list of "enemies of Russia."

"Such demonstrative attacks on famous people are becoming the norm," he said. "This is a big misfortune and serious grounds for the authorities to stop and think," he said.

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2005-12-05T02:00:00.000-08:00

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Thugs wreck Moscow gallery, beating its owner

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