house of cards: the poetry of lev rubinstein
by Douglas Messerli
Lev Rubinstein Compleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties, translated from the
Russian by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky (Brooklyn, New York: Ugly
Duckling Presse, 2014)
Russian poet Lev Rubinstein (b.
1947) is generally described as a conceptualist artist, and is associated, as a
founding member, with the group called the Moscow Conceptualists. But before
we begin to categorize his poetry,
it is helpful to perceive that Russian conceptualism, at least as Rubinstein
and others practice it, is not focused on a shell into which content is
purposefully or accidentally “poured,” but is best conceived as a literary form
into which very specific, even if quite disjunctive content is shaped by the
poet into a more abstract expression of ideas.
If conceptualists from the United States (Kenneth Goldsmith, for
example) might begin with an overriding construct such as a single daily issue
of The New York Times or a series of
radio weather or traffic reports (as in Day
of 2003, Weather of 2005, and Traffic of 2007), allowing the content
to be defined by the form, Rubinstein focuses upon fixed units of content which
function together in a manner converging upon a more abstract whole.
If the medium determines the message (or, at least, determines the
structure of the message) in works such as Goldsmith’s or Vanessa Place’s, one
might argue that the message essentially determines the medium for the Moscow
Conceptualists, a message which, sometimes upon reflection, is transformed into
something more abstract or conceptual. And in connection with this, if the
audience of US conceptualist works reperceives
the message because of its new context (through the reading of newspaper
articles embedded within a bound book, for example, instead of in newsprint, an
aural weather or traffic report within the format of a printed page), in
Rubinstein’s works the associations actually help to determine not only the
meaning but to redefine the actual construct
of the work—forcing him or her to ask is this “drama,” “film,” “fiction,”
“aphorism,” “19th-century parody?” etc.
Similarly, while Rubinstein’s poetry seems to have a great deal in
common with the works of the Fluxus poets of the earlier generation in the US
such as Jackson Mac Low and others, like John Cage, who used chance-generated
systems, there are significant differences. Having worked as a librarian,
Rubinstein uses library file cards to define what might be described as
stanzas, lines, or other units of his poems. The cards are not shuffled or
presented in random order, but represent fixed components, which the skilled
translators of this work, Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky, describe as
something akin to units of breath, created by the pauses within the sequence of
cards. In book form these read, given the limits of space, as stanzas—most
often numbered—which might arguably be better represented by separate
pages—although I would argue that to do so would isolate them in a manner that
does not match the performative experience.
Some of Rubinstein’s works, in their patterned series of linguistic
abstractions, remind one, at times, of Mac Low’s work. One hears in the
narrative directions of Rubinstein’s “Farther and Farther On” (1984), for
example, echoes of Mac Low’s The Pronouns”
of two decades earlier.*
Rubinstein:
7
Here, the sharpest bout of
nostalgia grips you.
How it comes about is unknown..
8
Here, one shouldn’t stay for too
long. Later it will probably become
clear why.
9
Here each has his own floor and
ceiling.
Each has her own borders of falling
and soaring.
And not just here.
10
Here, everything reminds you of
something, points of something,
refers to something.
But as soon as you start to
understand what’s what, it’s time to leave.
Mac Low:
He makes himself comfortable
& matches parcels.
Then he makes glass boil
while having political material get
in
& coming by.
Soon after, he’s giving gold
cushions or seeming to do so,
taking opinions,
shocking,
pointing to a fact that seems to be
an error & showing it to be
other than it seems,
& presently paining by going or
having waves.
Then after doing some waiting,
he disgusts someone
& names things.
(from “lst Dance—Making Things New—6
February 1965”)
Yet, as critic Michael Epstein
hints,** there are elements of what has been described as “the new
sentimentality,” an aesthetics of nostalgia and detached meta-realism in
Rubinstein’s work that one would never encounter in poems by Mac Low or Cage.
And even if, through the influence of Rubinstein’s fellow poet Dmitry Prigov,
he redirected his poetry from sentiment
to what is characterized as a “new sincerity,” parodying models of Soviet
ideology,*** Rubinstein’s works are filled, as Epstein notes of another
post-Soviet poet, Timur Kibirov (addressing Rubinstein in his own poem), with
words such as “soul,” “tear,” “angel,” beauty,” “truth,” etc., that would be
unthinkable in either current US conceptualism or in works by Fluxus writers or
those influenced by Cage.
Clearly Rubinstein’s early conceptualist work, most notably the 1975
poem “The Regular Program,” which outlines a process of poetic writing as it is
actualized before the reader’s eyes, contained no such language:
paragraph nine.
Grants the real possibility oriented in the newly outlined
circle of concepts;
paragraph ten.
Where there is time to think;
paragraph twelve.
Points to the deficiency of the
existing cosmogony;
paragraph thirteen.
Points to the necessity of defining the circle of
alternative concepts;
paragraph fourteen.
For the first time urges one to concentrate and think;
(“The Regular
Program,” [1975], pp. 177-178)
But within a decade Rubinstein had
already moved to a comic, yet oddly sincere, dramatic ode to a nightingale in
what almost might translated as “A Little Night Music,” titled by Metres and
Tulchinksy as “A Little Night Serenade”:
8
Hark! Here next to branches’ veil
The heart skips for nightingale!
9
Mischief-maker nightingale
Sings away in the shady veil!
10
From the secret shade of
leaf-veils
He watches us, the nightingale!
11
The angel of night, nightingale,
Whistles for it amid branches’
veil!
12
In the moonlit shack of branches’
veil
He has settled, O nightingale!
13
The muses’ captive,
nightingale,
In the secret shade of leaf-veils:
14
He sits amid the branches’ veil—
The muses’ darling, nightingale!
15
A lonely man and nightingale—
Together in the leafy veil!
16
(Applause.)
17
—I wonder if premonitions come
true or not.
18
—What premonitions?
19
—Well, there are certain
premonitions…
20
—About what?
(from “A
Little Night Serenade” [1986])
Obviously, we comprehend that Rubinstein is purposely evoking the dead
moralistic world of 19th century poetry, in which, as he later
writes in the poem, “A man is not a real man / If he’s really not a real man.”
But his is not an either/or world, and it is intentionally difficult at moments
to determine what are the absurd maxims and what are the genuine sentiments of
the poet and poem:
68
A man must sing a song
If his heart demands it!
69
A man must love
Or he’s no man!
70
A man must come to suffer—
That’s how he cleanses himself!
71
A man must sleep—
His head is aching!
72
A man needs all
He cannot do without!
73
A man must live
If he’s a man!
If this is ironic, we cannot quite
separate these somewhat absurdly prescriptive definitions of a man from at
least a moment’s truthful commentary; and if these comments have any element of
truth behind them, then might not the singing, sleeping, sighing nightingale of
the first part be seen as also representing some elements of truth?
In short, in Rubinstein’s work what might at first appear to be simple
doggerel is, at times, suddenly imbued with new meaning. Perhaps that is also
what happens, in some senses, in the U.S. conceptualist works in which context
changes our comprehension of the content, but here the content itself is
reenergized, and it is not only the difference (Derrida’s la differance) that matters, but the simultaneity of meanings and
the sentiments behind them.
These maxims are banal and are still somehow significant, representing a
kind of “and/and” pattern that is very different from American thinking. In a
sense, through his library card units, Rubinstein creates a kind of “house of
cards” which, while subject to demolishment at any moment, still provides a
temporary domicile.
This pattern is particularly evident in a poem such as “Elegy” (1983):
1
Sometimes you ask yourself, “Could
something else be possible?”
—and it seems at that moment that it
could.
2
Sometimes you think, “This will never
ever come to an end”
—and the end is indeed nowhere in
sight.
3
Sometimes you wonder whether it’s
worth it to inhabit natural
processes. And is it indeed?
4
Sometimes it wouldn’t hurt to point
out the fact that something
nevertheless is happening, isn’t it?
5
Sometimes it’s appropriate to note
that at present, everything is coming
Together and a kind of pattern, one
might say, is becoming visible.
****
35
Sometimes you rush hither and thither
in search of peace, but all you need
to do is wait and it will come.
36
Sometimes you seem to be approaching
something, but moves ever further
away.
37
Sometimes, approaching the forbidden
line, you’ll think for a minute
and then step over it.
38
Sometime you literally can’t afford to
lose a minute, but for some reason
You keep putting it off…
(from “Elegy”
[1983], pp. 274-279)
For Rubinstein, the negative can suddenly become a positive and vice
versa. Again and again throughout his work what might be comic becomes serious
or at least emotionally viable, a morally bad choice can be represented as a
possibly good one, or a positive moral choice can just as easily be perceived
to be a silly syllogism. Things change even when they stay the same, as he
expresses it in “From Beginning to End” (1981):
From the beginning, it’s the way it
usually is. At the same time, so that it’s as if
there was nothing before this, and
there will be nothing after.
Basically the same. At the same
time, so that it’s as if everything’s just begun.
Approximately the same. But so that
eh feeling of the first impulse is preserved
fully.
In the same spirit. But in such a
way that the feeling of freshness and novelty
does not weaken for a moment.
Everything the same. And at the same
time, so that the feeling of confidence gets
stronger and stronger.
As before. At the same time, so that
it’s completely clear everything is in order,
everything in its place.
****
The same. But so that emerging
doubts are either resolved by themselves or rejected
as far-fetched.
Same. But so that there is no place
for any doubts at all.
Same. Continue on the same
principle. But so that a constant recording of
positive states does not somehow
lead to negative results.
And so on, until the end. But in
such a way that a vague feeling remains that
There is also a real possibility of
something else.
(“From
Beginning to End” [1993], p. 296)
Similarly, in “Melancholy Album”
(1993)—in which, significantly, even a chicken sounds like a nightingale—the
central figure “gets lost” to “come back, against all expectations.”
Just when all sense of self has been obscured, when the past seems to be
utterly meaningless and one’s own significance in the world appears to be
pointless, individuality (the “I”) reappears again, repeating its existence
over and over, almost like a mantra: “Now, here I am!”
23
Now…
24
Now, here I am!
Could I have dreamed…
25
Not even in a dream…
26
…just yesterday…
27
(Repeat four times)
28
So…
29
So here I am! Hard to believe, and
yet….
(“Here I
Am” [1994], p. 375)
If this reminds one a bit of Stephen
Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here,” we shouldn’t be surprised, suggests Epstein in
reiterating some of the purposeful sentimentality of the Moscow Conceptualists,
for, as we all recognize, profundity can also exist in the simplest of
expressions. Rubinstein’s world is not one or the other, but both, a world in
which even the tropes of simple truisms can be somewhat restorative, depending,
in part, upon the audience’s acceptance of them.****
Throughout Rubinstein’s work there is almost a sense of exhaustion from
the attempts to make sense of a meaningless past, and, accordingly, his
narrator often cries out simply for a peace, a rest, a time to contemplate and,
perhaps, to restore patterns of meaning that have previously proven to be
useless:
15
Dear friend,
After a life of the rat race and
hurrying to catch trains, it would be great to
sleep for a long time, without dreams.
16
Dear friend,
After the successful completion of yet
another campaign, let’s not prepare for
the next thing—let’s rest.
(“Friendly
Messages of 1983” [1983], p. 125)
Epstein describes these phenomena through a slightly different lens:
It now becomes clear that all the
“banal” concepts have not simply been
undermined and replaced: they have
gone through a profound metaphor-
phosis and are now returning from
another direction under the sign of
“trans.” This applies not only to
Erofeev’s “trans-irony” and Prigov’s
“trans-lyricism.” It also applies to
something that could be called “trans-
Utopianism” This is a rebirth of
utopia after its own death, after its
subjection to Postmodernism’s severe
skepticism, relativism and its
anti- or post-utopian consciousness.
Here is what several Moscow
artists and art scholars of the
post-Conceptual wave have said about
the subject: “It is crucial that the
problem of the universal be raised as
a contemporary issue. I understand
that it is a utopia. It is done completely
consciously, yes, utopia is dead, so
long live utopia. Utopia endows the
individual with a more significant
and wider horizon” (Viktor Miziano).
In the end, Epstein argues, and I
agree after reading Rubinstein’s works, that this new “sentimentality,”
“shimmering aesthetics,” or new utopianism—whatever you want to call
it—represents a new era in which the Postmodern, now part by a larger stage of Postmodernity,
will likely take us in different directions than Postmodernism itself.
Hopefully, I argue, it might take us out of a world in which, as Umberto
Eco has posited, all values are necessarily parenthesized, and we can once
again speak of “love,” “nature,” “experience,” even “reality” in a way that is
once more meaningful and fresh. Parodying Pushkin, Rubinstein again raises just
such questions of how we can find value and meaning in a world in which will
end merely in our deaths:
9
Dmitry Alexandrovich, I couldn’t
agree more: there is still friendship
and love in the world…
10
Then why is happiness searching for
us, but still can’t find us? We are
somewhere around the corner…
11
Everything is new in the world. Yet
nothing is new. Everything
depends only on who you are…
12
This is how life is: the rivers
drain away, and the seas dry up, and we
Still live…
13
Everyone dies. And this one too. And
he’ll be buried…And forgotten
like all the rest.
14
This is how life is: you just can’t
make any plans. You’d better let
take its own course from the start.
(“The Poet
and the Crowd” [1985], p. 346)
Even through a melancholic dialogic
discussion from Pushkin, one can, after all, glean truths that offer new
meaning for life. In the simultaneous realities that Rubinstein creates in his
poems one can laugh at and learn from something at the very same moment, as the
message shimmers between poet and reader, the poet and the crowd.
*Interestingly, both of these works
were adapted to other performative genres, Rubinstein’s becoming an audio-video
and performance piece, what Metres describes as a “field installation”; and Mac
Low’s poetic “instructions” were performed as a dance.
**Michael Epstein, from “On the
Place of Postmodernism in Postmodernity,” Russian
Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture (New York and
Oxford: Berghan Books, 1999), pp. 456-468.
***Prigov describes this also as “a
shimmering aesthetics,” which creates a “shimmering relationship between the
author and the text” that occurs in the author’s “immersion in the text and
distance of the withdrawal from it.”
****What might be fascinating,
although I shall not purse it here, is to consider this “and/and” perspective
in light of the Russian government’s insistence on promoting multiple false
explanations of the truth of international and internal events, such its
explanations for events in Ukraine and other conflicts.
Los
Angeles, January 19-20, 2015
Reprinted from Hyperallegic Weekend (February 7, 2015).
