NEWS

Extremists Attack Gallery Deemed To Be Anti-Putin

By Maria Levitov

Staff Writer

MOSCOW — Ultranationalists donning heavy boots and knit caps stormed one of the city's best known art galleries Saturday, beating owner Marat Gelman and destroying paintings by the Georgian-born artist Alexander Dzhikia.The attack on the Guelman Gallery, on Ulitsa Malaya Polyanka, took place around noon.

As the 10 suspects flooded the gallery, they ordered two female workers against a wall before tearing down the artwork, smashing computers and pounding Gelman.

"It was monstrous," Gelman said shortly after being released from hospital where he was treated for scrapes and bruises.

The attack came one day after artworks — including one showing a scantily clad President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President George Bush and Osama Bin Laden frolicking in bed — were removed from a plane at Sheremetyevo Airport. The artworks were en route from the Guelman Gallery to an exhibition in London.

A criminal investigation into Saturday's attack has been launched by prosecutors, RIA-Novosti reported. The Prosecutor General's Office could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Ultranationalists and other far-right extremists see the Guelman Gallery as "a hotbed of cosmopolitanism and anti-Russian values," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of the Panorama think tank.

Pribylovsky suggested there might be a link between the gallery's irreverent treatment of Putin's image and Saturday's attack. "Gelman is an artistic person," he said. "He chooses on his own which master to serve."

Gelman made a name for himself in late 1990, when he opened the Guelman Gallery, which quickly earned a reputation for housing some of the country's most avant-garde art.

In the mid-1990s, Gelman delved into politics, serving as a consultant to the Kremlin.

In 1995, he founded, with Kremlin-connected analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, the state-friendly Foundation for Effective Politics think tank.

Gelman's ties with the Kremlin extended beyond the era of President Boris Yeltsin.

In 2003, he was one of the masterminds behind the creation of the nationalist Rodina party, which Kremlin officials hoped would channel votes away from the Communist Party in the parliamentary elections.

And in 2004, he served as a political consultant to Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin's candidate in the Ukrainian presidential election.

But more recently, Gelman appeared to have had a falling out with the Kremlin, Pribylovsky noted.

He put on the controversial "Russia-2" exhibit last year at the same time that the state-sponsored Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art was being held. One major difference between the two exhibits, Gelman said, was "Russia-2" made room for art that addressed themes banned from the other show such as Putin, Chechnya and the Orthodox Church.

Ultranationalist and religious groups have accused the exhibit of inciting religious and ethnic hatred.

And in June, Gelman invited Eduard Limonov, head of the anti-Kremlin National Bolshevik Party, to read from his new book, "Limonov Against Putin," at the Guelman Gallery.

On Sunday, Gelman dismissed the suggestion that there might be a tie between Saturday's attack and the Friday detention of the artworks at Sheremetyevo-2 airport heading from his gallery.

Matthew Bown of the Matthew Bown Gallery in London was transporting the 11 pieces of art from the Guelman Gallery for a London show when he was ordered off his plane and questioned by police at the airport, the gallery said in a statement posted on its web site.

Officials confiscated the artwork, telling Bown he had been detained because several of the pieces "contain representations of heads of state," the gallery statement said.

Russian officials were also concerned about an image of a suicide bomber sporting racy lingerie in a photomontage titled "The Girl Has a Date," the gallery statement said.

Amendments to the law on extremism, approved by Putin in July, define as extremist slander of a government official and public justification of terrorism.

Bown flew out of Moscow late Friday without the artwork, Gelman said.

A spokeswoman for Sheremetyevo said that she was unaware of the incident.

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