An Artist, (He) Don't Look Back

Last week, my dear friend Lauren (http://laurichka-samizdat.blogspot.com/) emailed me that she had met a performance artist, Kimbal Quist Bumstead (www.kimbalbumstead.com).  This young man, traveling across Russia and doing art pieces along his way, was headed to Ekat next.  This past

 weekend Ekaterinburg joined many Russian and European cities in celebrating Muse

um Night.  On this day, our local museums were open late and presented all kinds of cool events.  Although I’ve heard in other cities, it went all day and the museums were free, Ekaterinburg gets an A for effort!  So, after some email correspondence, I went to see Kim’s performance at the Museum of Fine Arts.

My experience with performance art is nonexistent, but that night, I became not only a spectator, but an integral participant.  Before he began, Kim, whose curly blond hair makes him easy to identify, asked me how I felt about audience interaction and if I was claustrophobic.  I answered good and no, respectively, but if I were clever I might have asked some questions of my own!  From my seat in the front, I could see Kim’s materials: long rolls of butcher paper, string, masking tape, cardboard, a bottle of vodka and a bunch of plastic shot glasses.  Uh oh!

After being introduced, Kim got to work.  He took me by the hand and led me to a museum bench in the center of the performance space (which was actually just the main gallery of the museum).  We sat down and each had a shot of vodka.  Next he taped my hands together, tied me up and laid me down.  Kinky.  Then he started wrapping me up in the butcher pape

r and taping it together, prompting the little boys around me to argue whether I was a Russian mummy or a birthday present.  Finally, Kim poured another shot of vodka down my gullet and covered my face with a piece of cardboard.  He then pulled a man out of the crowd, gave him some vodka, and made him a standing Russian mummy.  Compared to that schmuck, I, lying down and able to move my head and look around, was lucky.  My feet were tied to his torso, so that when he moved my legs were pulled.  Those same little boys wondered if, when the paper came off, the man and I would have switched places.  Then some spectators (actually my friends who Kim had met before the show) got cardboard taped to the palms of their hands.  They were 

given vodka and small pieces of paper and instructed to draw the wrapped bodies.  In the end, Kim taped their pictures to the string connecting me and the man, and then taped the cardboard-handed spectators to us.  WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?  Kim says this is not the right question.  Better to ask, “How does it make you feel?”

I can say with no exaggeration that this was one of the strangest experiences of my life.  As I told the tv journalist who interviewed me afterwards, it’s hard for me to make sense of the piece, since I didn’t actually see it.  But I did have the feeling of losing my wits (from the vodka) and power (from the tape and paper).  Plus, it was hot as hell in there!  

After the performance, I hung out with Kim and some other cool kids he met here.  He is a “couch-surfer,” part of a community that hosts travelers and in exchange gets free accommodations when traveling.  So since arriving in Ekat that morning, he’d met the curator who helped organize his performance, his couch-host, plus another local girl who was currently hosting two super-cool Dutch couch-surfing artists.  As it turns out, Kim is half-Dutch, so they were all talking in that wacky language!  In fact, the aforementioned standing mummy was one of these two, and he has the coolest name since Kimbal Quist Bumpstead: Marnix.  Perfect name for a cool cat, human or feline.

So in the past few days I’ve hung out a lot with this little group, who’ve become a random but loving family.  Last night we all saw Kim off at the train.  His train-car was full of departing soldiers, and some of them had girlfriends, but only Kim had four girls and one very tall boy chasing running the train and waving handkerchiefs.  I’m so lucky to have met this amazing kids and I know they’ll have plenty of crazy adventures on their travels throughout Russia and the world.  Maybe traveling is itself a kind of performance art.  If so, these kids are stars.

Speaking of traveling, in about a week I’m going to Altai with fellow Fulbrightnik and Europe-companion, Matt (http://mattinsiberia.wordpress.com/).  Altai is a mountainous region, famous for its breathtaking natural beauty.  It’s been Matt’s dream to check it out and if there’s one thing I support, it’s living your dreams.  So in a couple weeks, expect some gorgeous pictures and man-versus-nature stories.  Here’s hoping man wins!