Multi-media artist and writer, Slava
Mogutin was born in Siberia. At 14 he ran away from his dysfunctional family
and made his way to Moscow. There, he became the first openly gay journalist in
the country. He was the first person to translate into Russian the works of
Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. He gained condemnation for his outspoken
queer writings and activism, and for attempting to register the first same-sex
marriage, with his then partner, American artist Robert Filippini. Two highly
publicised criminal cases were mounted against him and he faced a seven-year
jail sentence. In 1995, he fled to the US, where he was granted political
asylum with the support of Amnesty International. His work has been exhibited
internationally and he has published two books of photography – Lost Boys and NYC Go-Go. In 2000, he won the Andrei Belyi Prize for Literature. His
poetry, fiction and essays have been published in six languages.
I spoke with the ‘malicious hooligan’ from his home in New York.
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Can you tell me a little
about the circumstances of your problems with the Russian authorities which led
to your exile?
I was kicked out from Russia for my
queer writings and activism. The official criminal charges ranged from “open
and deliberate contempt for generally accepted moral norms,” “malicious
hooliganism with exceptional cynicism and extreme insolence,” “inflaming
social, national, and religious division” to “propaganda of brutal violence,
psychic pathology, and sexual perversions.” The charges sounded perfectly
Orwellian, but my actual “crimes” were writing and speaking out on gay issues
and my attempt to register the first same-sex marriage in Russia at the time
when it wasn’t even legal anywhere else in the world.
The roots of homophobia in
the Russian psyche appear to be very deeply entrenched. Where do you think this
springs from?
The roots of homophobia in Russia are
very deep indeed; they go back to the times of the GULAG and Stalin’s
oppression. It’s shaped by the prison mentality, according to which gay people
are the lowest cast - degenerate, degraded, subhuman. Perhaps it’s not a
coincidence that the first anti-gay law in the Soviet Union was introduced in
1934, at the same time as a similar law was adopted in Nazi Germany. And even
though homosexuality was officially decriminalised in Russia in 1993, it
remained on the country's list of mental illnesses until 1999. Unfortunately,
since my exile things have become much worse for the Russian LGBT community.
The recent anti-gay legislation is just the latest example of the rampant
homophobia, which goes hand-in-hand with the rise of the Russian Orthodox
chauvinism, xenophobia and the general crackdown on basic human rights and freedoms.
Historically, homosexuals have always been used as scapegoats under every
dictatorship and, sadly, Putin’s regime is no exception. He’s blatantly using
the anti-gay card to cement his reputation as a macho strongman and the Father
of the Nation.
You have spoken about the
difficulty of writing on gay issues when the population has been effectively
brainwashed against it. Is this also a problem that you have encountered in the
west?
I don’t think Russians by nature are
more homophobic than any other nation. Sadly, religious brainwashing and
anti-gay propaganda has a lot do to with the rise of homophobic sentiment
around the world. Ironically, I published seven books of writings in Russian
and was awarded one of the most prestigious literary awards in my native
country that I was exiled from, but it took me nearly 20 years to find a
publisher in the US - simply because my work was considered too pornographic,
or too “overtly gay,” or too “hardcore.” When my first book of writings in English
finally came out a couple of years ago, it got rave reviews from the art and
fashion press but was largely snubbed by the literary world. When I started
speaking out against Putin’s homophobic policies and calling for the boycott of
the Sochi Olympics, I got plenty of hate mail and death threats from people who
accused me of being a CIA sellout - the same absurd accusation I’d heard years
ago when I first started writing on gay issues in Russia. Does it mean that
things haven’t changed much in the last 25 years? And will they ever change?
Let’s just say that brainwashing is to blame, but it’s a lame excuse for those
who don’t know history or who learn nothing from it. As Warhol famously noted,
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them
yourself.”
When you arrived in New
York you had to reinvent yourself from scratch, and you began to explore
photography as your art form. Was it difficult to make this transformation?
I started taking pictures as a
teenager, at the same time when I started writing poetry and journalism. When I
moved to New York, photography helped me to jump over the language barrier and
became my main passion and language. My visual art is a continuation of my
writings and queer activism. I tell stories of real people living on the
fringes of our society - lost boys, beautiful losers, disaffected youth,
vagabonds and dreamers who rebel against the system, against the mainstream and
status quo. Over the last two decades, I’ve documented many urban tribes and
subcultures all over the world and I came to believe that these outsiders and
outcasts are the real heroes of our time.
Your appearance in Bruce
LaBruce’s agit-prop porn movie Skin Flick must have surprised some people? What were the
circumstances behind this?
This was,
perhaps, the last thing expected from a political refugee from Russia but I
like unexpected things. At the time when I met Bruce I had a shaved head and
was writing really dark sadomasochistic texts partly based on my sexual
explorations in New York and beyond. It was my first acting experience and my
first porn, so, naturally, it was very exciting and challenging. I played
Reihnold, a bisexual member of a skinhead gang, and Bruce wrote that part
specifically for me, incorporating my own ideas and language into it. I don’t
think I made a good porn star but doing porn helped me to satisfy my
exhibitionism and overcome certain insecurities that came from my rigid Soviet
upbringing. Looking back, I realise that I feel way more comfortable behind the
camera than in front of it.
In 2004 you formed SUPERM with your partner, the American
multimedia artist Brian Kenny. What was the philosophy behind it, and what are
some of the projects that have come out of this collaboration?
SUPERM served as a collaborative
multimedia platform for me and Brian, as well as our collaborations with other
fellow artists. It’s a sort of creative third mind activated by letting go of your
personal ego and artistic limitations. We had a long and successful run
together, made over 20 short films and mounted dozens of shows and
installations at galleries and museums around the world. But living and working
together is not always easy and last year, after over a decade of our collaboration,
Brian and I decided it’s time to focus more on our individual careers. I’m not
opposed to the idea of working with him again in the future and we already have
a couple of special reunion projects in the making.
The notion of censorship
in the arts has been a very contentious issue in Australia, following a number
of highly publicised trials in recent years. What are your thoughts on
censorship, generally, and in the arts, in particular?
From my personal experience, you can
actually ‘get away’ with much more being a visual artist than a political
activist or a reporter. I’ve been routinely censored over my whole career - first
as a writer and then as a visual artist. I stopped counting how many of my
projects were rejected for censorship reasons and how many of my images and
videos were recently censored on social media. With Internet censorship on the
rise, I think we enter the period of new Puritanism, where nudity is
immediately associated with sex and sex with porn, which is a completely distorted
perception of human nature. I think censorship of any kind is fundamentally
wrong and it hurts all of us in the end. I’m using my work as a weapon against
it.
Do you think that artists
have a moral duty to make work that challenges, and hopefully improves, the
society in which they live?
My favorite Russian poet Vladimir
Mayakovsky wrote that a poet’s pen is as powerful as a gun. Perhaps not
coincidentally, he shot himself when he realised that he had become a puppet of
Stalin’s horrific regime. When I first came to New York and met one of my
teenage heroes Allen Ginsberg, he said in our interview, “Poetry is like a
radio station that keeps on broadcasting long after you’re dead.” Allen taught
me how to speak my mind, dream big and never compromise, and I’d never forget
that. I do believe with all my heart that literature and art have the ability
to make the world a better, more tolerant and welcoming place, unlike the
career politicians who seem to only make it worse. It’s up to us - the artists -
to use our magic powers for the good of all.
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