Sergey Shabohin
Slit. Counter-monumental queer

In Sergey Shabohin’s artistic practices, a revision of institutional forms of visual violence is surprisingly intertwined with a critique of mechanisms repressing queer sexuality. In both cases, a key role is played by a strategy of resistance against idolatry – whether related to historical memory or intended to suppress free expression, including minority sexual orientations. The symbol of both is the “monumental” single-channel narrative that pushes all forms of dissent against political and moral domination, manifested through bio-power, to the margins of social life.

The “slit” is a visual and activist metaphor for a breach in this narrative, challenging the appropriation of historical memory and reclaiming space for freedom and queer sexuality. The vagina and anus are the two mandorlas of this revolt, referencing the symbolism of the darkroom and serving as emblems of Shabohin’s personal and radical artistic stance.

The total installation takes the form of a labyrinth consisting of eight modules, transitioning from black through various shades of gray to white, where different strategies of queering monuments and history are displayed. In this modular composition, the artist diversely highlights the motif of intercepting and reconstructing meanings implanted in public space by the usurping political instance. The simplicity of the minimalist structure contrasts with the richness of the visual information contained within. The strategy of counter-monumental queer exposes the mechanism of the “condomization” of historical memory, which shields and blocks a direct relationship with its sources. Forbidden memory closely neighbors forbidden desire for sexual self-affirmation.

Based on film recordings, images, and objects, this retrospective narrative is stretched along a topographical axis of three locations – Berlin, Poland, and Belarus. The thread connecting these places is the dialectic of losing a home, the attempt to find a safe refuge and sense of belonging, and a nomadism whose inevitable and culminating motif may, though not necessarily, be the experience of homelessness.