TALES

We thought we'd let you know about our Russian adventure to the St Petersburg Biennale 1999 ("Dialogues"), in which we represented the U.K. where, two weeks later we were informed that we'd won the award for the most innovative and imaginative piece in the exhibition.

Things started off fairly well, the pieces that were selected to be shown were carefully and securely crated with loving attention to detail, entrusted to DHL, and dispatched for safe arrival at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. So supremely confident in our undertakings, we settled down, with weeks to spare, in the local pub to consume copious amounts of lager, in anticipation of the Vodka fest to come.

Come the day of our departure our car started and even managed to limp its way to the airport with plenty of time to catch the flight. So clutching our discounted tickets courtesy of BA and The Dostoyevsky Foundation, we shot off into the grey yonder.

Having, arrived in Russia and, been stared at for 25 minutes by the customs officers (who had obviously just come off the set of a Bond movie) we were greeted by our intourist representative, who had nearly all her own black teeth, we were escorted to the awaiting four wheeled rusty box held together with selotape and wishful thinking. After smashing the bootlid with her anvil like fists our chauffeur loaded our luggage and took us to the Hotel St Petersburg, where we refreshed ourselves by bathing in cold liquid rust.

First job was to telephone the Exhibition hall only to discover that our work hadn't arrived with only 2 days before the grand opening. So we organized a meeting with the curators for early the next morning and decided to have a drink or two in the hotel to calm the sense of impending doom. We were rather surprised at the number of young scantily clad female guests that frequented the bar, and by the number of fat German businessmen that disappeared with them for 10 minutes at a time. It was only at 2 o'clock the next morning that we realised what the score was, when we were rudely awoken from an exhausted slumber, by a phone call from the receptionist asking if we needed a fuck. Neither of us needing a fuck just then (and having no money), we declined.

With artists from over 21 countries involved it was less than helpful to have the main curator speaking only Russian. However with a great deal of help from Artist/Curator Oleg Yanushevski we managed to get to the customs building where our art was impounded the next day, and with Oleg acting as translator entered into negotiations to free our work.

After eight hours straight of heated debate even with Oleg's diplomatic skill it was blatantly obvious, by the way the guard kept playing with the safety catch on his Kalashnikov, that we were stuffed, with only two hours to go before the Grand Opening. With our tails between our legs, and no art to show, we retired to the hotel bar to get absolutely shit faced.

An unknown amount of Vodka later, while discussing what on earth we could do, it happened. All we had between us was a bog roll and a bar full of whores, and the blinding revelation that we were fucked, our art was fucked and for us the exhibition was fucked.

So we used the last of our roubles to relieve the johnny machine, in the bog, of it's contents. We then struck a deal with the working girls in the bar, where they could have the johnnies for free, and 20 roubles for every one they brought back us having been used, meanwhile we sat at the bar getting more and more pissed until we had enough used condoms and then retired to bed (after pulling the phone out of the wall to stop the nuisance calls).

The next morning we filled our pockets with fishy smelling rubber and toilet roll from the hotel room and got a carbon monoxide filled gas chamber on wheels down to the gallery and installed the piece (including customs documentation,which cannot be shown in Russia, and photo's of the work still impounded) and called it "FUCKED", and swiftly left the country.

You may like to know that we were invited back the next year to do a performance piece involving a red bicycle, sanitary products and a naked Russian woman.