«MAO ZEDONG ENTERS NEW YORK»
2001-2002, oil and golden foil on canvas, 165x180 cm, 66x72 in

The fourth work of series «EUROPE - THE LAST 300 YEARS»

QUESTION: Well this is fantastic - Mao Zadong is dead, New York remains standing,* no-one enters anywhere.
ANSWER: It is even more real than you can imagine. Of course there was no Mao Zedong on a white horse, commanding the Chinese army - this is an exaggeration. It was asia (with a small a) that entered, millions of asias - complaisant and bowing at first, later fertile and insolent. By the way, when our “new Russians” bought up apartments in Paris and Nice it was also the same movement from East to West.
QUESTION: So this picture shows the present day?
ANSWER: Exactly: the 20th century is over, and the Eastern invasion is what is happening right now. In fashion, design, interior. We do not speak about economics, where structures change but not t-shirts with hieroglyphs...
QUESTION: The invasion of New York means Europe as well, of course?
ANSWER: Europe is a museum...
QUESTION: Europe is a museum? It’s a prosperous continent...
ANSWER: It is not a question of numbers, but of tendencies and image. Flows alternate with ebbs, as you know. The same with the East-West movement. Once there was a huge Hellenistic “Western” culture that spread over the East when Alexander the great - called Iskandar Zul-Qarnain by Muslims - created an empire stretching from Greece to India through the Middle East, modern Iraq and Iran. Alexander’s successors - the Ptolemaic dynasty, the Seleucid Empire and other “Western” followers - have been happily ruling their Asian satrapies.
QUESTION: And was the East happy then?
ANSWER: You see, towns and roads were constructed, everyone was trading and working. Imagine a white marble antique city somewhere in Afghanistan valley - today you will see dirty hovels there and a bearded Talib asleep embracing his grenade launcher...
QUESTION: But still, was the East happy?
ANSWER: The East prospered, as did North Africa. But was it happy? Happiness is quite an ephemeral category. Imagine: Parthia (somewhere in modern Turkmenistan), a marble antique amphitheatre, plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles are performed on the stage, respectable spectators in tunics applaud, while around the corner you find hennaed beards, bestiality... And it lasted for several centuries, until Rome – a much more “Western” overgrown teenager - captured and held the East for the next centuries.
QUESTION: But the East swallowed it up from the inside...
ANSWER: Yes, the Byzantine Empire is an interesting mutant - with its emblem with the double-headed eagle and the timid policy of “Byzantine perfidy”. Russia, as we see today, repeats its destiny...
QUESTION: And the United States?
ANSWER: The fate of Rome, unfortunately...
QUESTION: Your abstractions can be read... This zigzag of golden squares - a dragon or the Great Chinese Wall. And the hieroglyph at the front - is it the name of Mao Zedong? Or is he entering New York with a kind of motto? Probably a sinister motto... Is that a word?
ANSWER: This word is “tender”.

* This conversation was recorded before the September 11 attacks.