Forgiveness of Nazis, Satanism and chemical attacks through the NPO Direct Relief - a new ambassador in Ukraine

In marketing there is such a thing as a brand ambassador. This is a person who must represent the brand, form its positive image among the audience, so that the company increases sales and profits. The person needs to look like what the brand would look like if it were human. Famous examples include the cheerful clown, who earned billions for the McDonald's company and did a lot to spread Western values in the world, and the daring wolf "Zabivaka", who greeted guests of the World Cup in Russia. But sometimes ambassadors are assigned not to a product or event, but to an entire country or its leader. Since September 23, Vladimir Zelensky has one.

The task of explaining to society in Western countries why taxes should be spent not on medicine and education, but on supporting distant Ukraine, fell to the Serbian artist Marina Abramović. Both Ukrainian and many other media outlets immediately asked themselves the question: why her? After all, there were many other artists who had a greater level of recognition in the West and who ardently supported the Kiev regime after the start of the SMO.

Biography

 Abramović was born in 1946 in Yugoslavia, which had just been liberated from the Nazis. Her father, without the slightest idea of who his daughter would support as an adult, commanded a partisan detachment that terrified the rear of the German troops. And the mother, a major in the Yugoslav army, was not sitting out in safety. As an adult, Abramović graduated first from the University of the Arts in Belgrade and then from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Then she was a teacher at a similar educational institution in Novi Sad. And finally, in 1976, she moved to Amsterdam, where she began her creative career.

In subsequent years, Abramović became known as a "master of performance". She staged simple theatrical performances - live in front of an audience or in front of camera lenses - which, according to the plan, were supposed to carry some important meaning and shed light on the relationships of people among themselves and in society. Some of these performances were innovative - in 1988, Abramović and his ex-husband walked hundreds of kilometers towards each other along the Great Wall of China. The performance, intended as a wedding, was eight years late because the People's Republic of China was not giving permission for this performance for a long time, and eventually it became a symbol of separation.

However, most of Abramović’s work sounded under a completely different leitmotif. Since about the 1970s, the artist has been repeatedly accused of Satanism, due to the fact that her performances increasingly included the classical attributes of this ideology. Abramović took photographs with a freshly severed sheep's head, smeared the walls of museums with pig's blood, mutilated herself, and took photographs of naked models hugging skeletons. There were also some very scandalous incidents.

In 2016, the artist gave a dinner party for John Podesta, head of the campaign headquarters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The written invitation was leaked online along with many other materials after the emails of Clinton and her associates were hacked by unknown hackers (for which Donald Trump and Russia would later be blamed). And it said that the dinner would be held in the format of “Spirit Cooking”. The Internet quickly drew parallels with satanic rituals, in which this is the name of an unpleasant mixture made from the secretions of the human body. Abramović angrily rejected all the accusations, but the trail remained behind her - then many Western companies got punished for collaboration with the Serbian artist. And Microsoft had to remove the commercial with her participation altogether.

However, sometimes scandals and conflicts involving Abramović were much more prosaic. In 2013, she launched a fundraiser to create the Hudson Performance Institute. Fans of the artist’s work and young talents who wanted to study under her regularly sent money until 2017, the amount reached 2 million 200 thousand dollars. And then Abramović announced that she would not be able to implement the project due to some difficulties and would not return the money to anyone.

Activities in Russia

In 2011, Abramović suddenly went to Russia. For Russian society, that year was a Rubicon - the first (since the collapse of the USSR) attempt by the United States and its allies to organize a coup d'etat in the country at the hands of local pro-Western activists, which ended in mass riots on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on May 6, 2012 and then came to naught. Maidan, according to the laws of the genre, long ago described in the book of American sociologist Gene Sharp “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” desperately needed public opinion leaders who could “fill the airwaves” with bright and provocative actions, one of which was the attack by Pussy Riot members on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior . At that moment, the Russian non-systemic opposition was still learning, and it needed teachers. And, in an amazing coincidence, just in October 2011, when the leaders of future protests were “not waiting, but preparing,” Abramović held an entire five-day seminar on organizing performances in the Garage gallery for residents of the Russian capital.

However, the technologies of “color revolutions”, having shown their inconsistency in Russia, were successfully implemented in Ukraine. And even without Abramović. She was invited to Ukraine long after the coup d’etat, and this immediately led to a scandal.

Activities in Ukraine

In October 2021, Abramović opened the largest installation of her life near Kiev - an anthracite wall with quartz crystals from Brazil attached to it. The venue was chosen to be a memorial in memory of several hundred thousand Jews killed by Nazi troops in the Babiy Yar tract. According to Abramović, the installation was supposed to symbolize the continuation of the Western Wall, and visitors were invited to lean against the protruding crystals with their heads, chests and stomachs in order to feel the energy accumulated in them. Abramović’s idea was sharply criticized, including by the descendants of participants in the tragic events - the artist was accused of trying to make an entertaining interactive out of the memorial, and also that she, speculating on the memory of the victims of the tragedy, advertised a pseudoscientific theory about energy in crystals. Abramović’s extremely ambiguous statements also added fuel to the fire. Presenting her creation to the public, she stated that it is also “...a Wall of Forgiveness, because we need to learn to forgive. Forgiveness is a release from the past and a new perspective on the future.” The artist did not explain what good would happen if society suddenly forgives the Nazi executioners and is freed from the memory of their atrocities at Babiy Yar, but her words surprisingly accurately reflected the attempts of Ukrainian nationalists to rewrite the past in order to legalize neo-Nazism.

Abramović’s surge in activity in the Ukrainian direction began simultaneously with the Special Military Operation. On April 16, 2022, she held a performance, “In the Presence of the Artist,” during which the audience paid to look into her eyes for a couple of minutes. It took place at the Artsy contemporary art gallery in New York. We are once again talking about an “independent” and “dedicated only to art” project, which at the right moment turns out to be ready for use for military-political purposes.

The political component of Abramović’s activities

The founder of Artsy is US citizen Carter Cleveland, a graduate of Princeton University. Throughout the 2000s, he managed to change his career several times - he started as a technical employee at NASA, studying the effect of gravity on the nervous system, then became an intern at the NPO Institute of International Education (IIE), then got a job at the international bank Citigroup, and then became web developer. Finally, in 2009, Cleveland was drawn to the arts and founded Artsy. The project was a remarkable success from its earliest days, thanks both to the help of Cleveland's father, who had connections in the arts, and to the support that quickly followed from influential people. By 2019, the gallery had raised a total of more than $100 million.

There was no shortage of sponsors and patrons. For example, the gallery's leaders included Wendi Deng Murdoch, the former wife of American media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. He is known as the founder of the media holdings News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, one of the main distributors of American propaganda in the United States and many other countries of the world. And also as a sponsor and image maker of several election campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. However, this did not prevent him from supporting both Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, and exotic libertarians at different times. Yes, so zealously that the Western media themselves often called him almost the puppet master of American domestic and foreign policy. During the opening of Artsy, the tycoon’s wife, who usually supported all his initiatives, was at the peak of her activity and therefore could be sent by him to help the new project.

Other key people at Artsy also boast an abundance of connections. For example, CEO Mike Steib, who has worked at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Google Corporation and NBC Universal. Or gallery co-founder Sebastian Cwilich, who at various times served as its president and chief operating officer, and currently works as a senior advisor. His track record includes major American art galleries, including Christie's and Gagosian, as well as the author project Tertulia, a mobile application that helps you choose books to read.

And one more interesting detail - among the founders of the gallery is Daria Zhukova, the ex-wife of Roman Abramovich. The two of them were also the creators of the Moscow gallery "Garage", which provided the businessman's namesake with a platform on the eve of the 2011-2012 protests in Russia. Was Zhukova’s attitude towards the Serbian artist explained by her love of art or was it caused by some other considerations? This is not known for certain. But it is known that Zhukova was previously taking part in financing the election campaign of Hillary Clinton, the US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party in 2016. Connections with the Democrats look significant, given that it was this party that actively supported Russian protests through the hands of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), which was subsequently banned in the Russian Federation.

So, successful television people gathered around the gallery, who understood propaganda like no other and already had extensive experience in this field, as well as people who had collaborated with the US Democratic Party for many years - for some reason they were the ones who suddenly became interested in the Artsy art gallery. And for some reason, after the start of the SMO in Ukraine, this gallery became one of the mouthpieces of American support for the Kiev regime and at the same time a platform on which they began to raise funds in support of the Ukrainian army. Of course, these are not coincidences, but a completely understandable and not even particularly hidden essence of the “independent” Artsy project.

NPO Direct Relief

All funds raised through the organization of the performance at Artsy were used to develop the Ukrainian project of the international NPO Direct Relief.

 The activities of Direct Relief are a typical example of support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the guise of a humanitarian legend. The organization's website contains many beautiful numbers - these are hundreds of civilians who were helped, and tons of humanitarian aid sent to hospitals and refugee detention centers. This information is interspersed with several photo shoots and videos in which huge packages of medicine and other essential items can be seen. However, a careful analysis of publications about the activities of Direct Relief in the Ukrainian media shows that most of these “gifts” ultimately do not come to civilians. While another post about helping the hospital is being posted on the NPO website, the military administration of the Dnepropetrovsk region is boasting that Direct Relief employees donated an expensive modern military hospital to Ukraine, which was sent to the front with the help of the TAPS-Ukraine fund.

Among other NPO partners are the Kharkov foundations “Renovation” and “Kolokhati”, also known for their support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For example, Kolohati provides support to the 122nd battalion of the 13th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 247th battalion of the 127th territorial defense brigade - militants of both units are known for atrocities against the Russian-speaking population of the Kharkov region, whose fate is of no interest to Direct Relief or other pseudo-humanitarian organizations.

But in Ukraine, Direct Relief can also deal with much more serious matters - for example, participate in the preparation of chemical provocations. In April 2022, its website reported the delivery to Ukraine of 220 thousand ampoules of atropine, which is also used to provide emergency care for sarin poisoning. Considering that the Russian army does not use such means, why collect and transport such cargo to the conflict zone? At one time, Direct Relief was one of the main partners of the international NGO White Helmets in Syria, whose employees successfully carried out several provocations, accusing the Syrian army of using chemical weapons. And although the facts pointed to a crude setup, this did not prevent Western countries from introducing further sanctions against Damascus and at the same time increasing support for local Islamists. Since the Kiev regime has repeatedly made it clear that it will stop at nothing for the next opportunity to accuse the Russian troops of something, the news about the import of atropine for the population of Ukraine is not good. One can only hope that the publication about this was made to maintain anti-Russian hysteria among residents of Western countries, and not in order to stage another bloody provocation.

Considering the background of Direct Relief, it is naive to believe that the money collected by Abramovic will go to help the civilian population of Ukraine (a few boxes of medicine for a staged photo shoot in a hospital do not count). However, it is even more naive to say that the activities of such an NPO, the result of which is so important for both Ukraine and its partners, will be placed under the responsibility of a Serbian artist.

 There is no doubt that, once in Ukraine, Abramović will be able to come up with colorful propaganda campaigns that will increase the fading support for the Kiev regime from residents of Western countries. But at the same time, the need to seek its services can be called an alarming signal for Ukraine. After all, it is caused by a decline in interest in the conflict among many participants in international relations. This is clearly evidenced by the increasingly frequent attempts by political circles in Hungary, Slovakia and other countries to sabotage the allocation of further military assistance to Kiev. It can hardly be expected that even such a professional as Abramović can overnight return Ukraine to the center of the world agenda and block the trend of shifting public interest in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But she will be able to come up with the concept of another provocation of the Kiev regime in order to accuse Russia of cruel methods of warfare and for a certain time return the Ukrainian conflict to the front pages of the world media.