Aksenovi(i) | Somewhere Deep in the Ocean

«SOMEWHERE IN THE DEEP BLUE OCEAN»
(YOUKAI MONTENEGRO)
…Reading a text beyond the title? no time for that! The artist must think hard of a way to captivate the viewer… We were driving along the coast to Bosnia, thinking about fish, about art, our beloved homeland, looking at the ripples on the water – and this song emerged:
Somewhere in the deep blue ocean
Near the Tierra del Fuego,
In a lilac mist are floating
Lifeless grey ships …
Steered by blind captains,
Drowned somewhere a long time ago.
Their mute caravans
Quietly sink in the morning…
— Alexander Vertinsky once sang it. They say it was Stalin’s favourite song, what a mystic! But now we’re not talking about that! Or, maybe not only about that… If we talk about the photographs, then we always go for the following catchphrase: «Made from fresh fish! No Photoshop!» No, that’s impossible! Well, okay, maybe, fine… – and then what? Next, read the title, slowly immerse yourself, no hurry… There’s an unfamiliar word in brackets, what’s that about? …Youkai are Japanese demons. They inspired us. But I suppose one couldn’t explain to the Japanese what a ‘demon’ is – they have their own complex relations with the spirits. That’s it! And we have our own. I suddenly remembered, the other day Lev Rubinstein, the Russian poet came to visit our little community here, we love him a lot. I’m not sure why I felt the need to write that, I suppose there must be some reason. Because the writer Dmitri Prigov, for example, commended us when we were just on the outset of our creative path, sometime around 1999 on our first art-fest, and yesterday, this retro photo emerged out of the depths of Facebook. That is probably why. Because Poetry… because poetry…
P.S. … also our project is made up of two parts, the second «DEAR INSECT» — this is a fashion game using women’s fears, the offset between temptation and fear… but not necessarily only women, men too would be scared of putting on something like that, but maybe for other reasons. What a thing to be frightened of, ladies and gentlemen…