30.   IMAGE OF A RHOMB  
(For Ilya Kabakov)

The guests were brought to a field’s verge. From there sounds could be heard, produced by uttering a background noise tape recorder of S.Romashko who was sitting on a chair with his back upon the audience 100 meters away from the field’s verge. Two minutes after the audience’s taking its place, N.Panitkov emerged on the left side from the forest with a big purse in his hand. Approaching Romashko, he produced a white robe from it and threw it upon Romashko’s shoulders. While keeping movement in the same direction, parallel to the field’s verge, Panitkov formed a line of 11 cardboard contours of white rabbits (50 cm high each).

The next line (closer to the audience and shorter than the first one) was formed of four aluminum poles (each 2,5 meters in height) with purple ribbon on tops.

Following these, there were two rows of piles of smoldering dry leaves (5 piles in each row), which were ignited by Panitkov as he was building them in the field.

Next, closer to the audience and shorter than the rest, there was a row of aluminum pegs (20 cm in height).

Thus, Panitkov was gradually approaching the audience.

The next row was made of a white powder poured out on the ground.

The final row consisted of a low-level rope fence (10 meters long) installed 10 meters away from the audience.

After building the rows, Panitkov approached the viewers and gave them envelopes containing paper contours of white rabbits.

Meanwhile, in the background behind the rows A.Monastyrski emerged on the right from the forest after Panitkov’s building the first row of rabbits. He spread a square piece of purple cloth (the "curtain" used in several other performances) on the ground and began collecting random pieces of garbage (rocks, broken glass, sticks, dry leaves etc) onto it. He did so in the course of the whole action.

When Panitkov was distributing envelopes among the audience, Monastyrski wrapped the cloth full of garbage to form a sack, put it over his shoulder and left the scene in the opposite direction from the audience.

For some time a lozenge could be seen on the field, formed by S.Romashko sitting on a chair and sounding his tape recorder (west), the outermost rabbit (east), receding Monastyrski (north) and the audience (south).

 

Moscow region, Savyolovskaya railway line, field near the village of Kyevy Gorky

20th of October, 1983

N.Panitkov, A.Monastyrski, S.Romashko, N.Alexeev, I.Makarevich, E.Elagina, G.Kizewalter, M.K.

Viewers:

I.Kabakov, I.Bakstein, V.Sorokin, Yu.Leiderman, V.Mironenko, A.Zhigalov, N.Abalakova, D.Prigov, I.Pivovarova, I.Chuikov, E.Gorokhovsky, S.Gundlakh, Yu.Albert, A.Filippov, V.Zakharov, T.Didenko + 15 others