Essays

Notes on Genesis
The Red Corner
Review of 'The Quality of Being Nothing'

The Red Corner

In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God….
(Genesis 1:1)

‘Word’ is translated from Greek as ‘logos’, which also could be translated as thought, reason, or an idea. An idea is the starting point for any new creation. New ideas come around all the time and those that survive and flourish are the ones that enrich the social aspects of our lives - culture is continually evolving. Biologists tend to describe gene as a unit of evolution, meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) for a unit of cultural evolution. It explains the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena in a way similar to biological evolution, through variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance.

Let’s take the ‘red corner’ as an example of such cultural mutation. In pre-revolutionary Russia the red corner was a place of honour in the house where a family’s religious icons were displayed. A little oil lamp would be lit there, the red corner served as a space for prayer and quiet contemplation. Kazimir Malevich was the first to utilize the idea of a red corner in the First Suprematist Exhibition in Russia in 1915. His famous Black Square painting was displayed across the corner of the gallery just as a religious icon would have been in a Russian home. In this way Malevich’s gesture propagated the new religion of Modernity and celebrated the birth of the new era. Later on in the USSR religion was completely condemned, the pre-revolutionary red corner was transformed into a Soviet red corner with portraits of party leaders, slogans, newspapers, posters and other Soviet propaganda. Every institution had one: schools, universities, offices, and canteens. The religious red corner used to occupy a special place in the house and was an integral part of family private space. The Socialist red corner was anything but private - it induced and propagated community spirit. Spiritual beliefs were transformed following Socialist doctrine from personal to social. In the USSR the salvation of one’s soul after death was replaced by the possibility of reaching outer space, the excitement of technological progress and the rapid development of Soviet science. To many Soviet citizens the notion of starting a new Socialist civilization on Mars in the near future was more easily imaginable than the prospect of Heaven.

The red corner as a space for hopes, dreams and utopian thinking has mutated several times in the last century and I wonder what could be an equivalent of the red corner now in Post-Communist, oil-driven, capitalist Russia? As a Russian-born British citizen this is not so easy for me to imagine. I have lived in England for several years now and I keep looking for that significant space. What is the contemporary equivalent social space for the production of new meanings and spiritual thoughts? Or, has such a notion become irrelevant in today’s society? Do we as artists have a duty to carve such a space in contemporary culture?

Yelena Popova
March 2010