Remembering Mark Verlan. The artist who bridged poetry and apocalyptic jest

Mark Verlan’s exhibition at the Cocoşul Roşu in 2016. The drawing of the cat in the UFO represents the artist’s signature that can be found in his artworks, but also on Chișinău’s walls. Photo: Giovanna Di Mauro

These stories show that Verlan was an artist who did not take himself too seriously, but they demonstrate his incredible talent. Born in Cocieri in 1963, Mark Verlan studied at what was once called the I.E. Repin Institute of Painting of Chișinău. He used to say that he took the name of Marioca, Son of Rain when he understood that the only thing he wanted to become in life was an artist. This happened on a rainy day, and he felt that “he was born in the rain”. However, his friend Ovidiu Tichindeleanu recalls that he took this name in 1995 during one of his performances (Barbie’s funeral) in a very dry summer in Chișinău. It would not be surprising if there were other versions of the origin story. Verlan told tales, changed them and answered questions in a playful way. As his interlocutors, we would never be sure what really happened, but we would not care, because our focus would be on his eclectic personality and fervid imagination. He would make us feel entertained, then fascinated and finally lost.

Stiob and the political mockery

Harald Szeemann compared Verlan to Dieter Roth, the Swiss artist whose art was created from found objects. Like Roth, Verlan used objects that he found in the street to create exceptional artworks, transforming them into poetic objects. He treated pieces of glass and old photographs as surfaces on which he used to write letters in his beautiful calligraphy. He wrote letters every day to imaginary or real people, such as his sisters, whom he loved very much. In these loving letters, in which he imagined living in a past century, his romantic personality emerged. This sensitive trait of his character together with his irony is revealed in his unique artworks.

Mark Verlan’s art is not easy to classify into a specific genre or movement. According to his nephew, Mark Verlan Jr, the artist created a style that cannot be found in any other artistic movement. He coined the term ultra-stiobanism to describe his uncle’s artistic style. The term comes from the Russian word stiob that anthropologist Alexei Yourchak identified as a form of parody that imitated and inhabited the formal features of authoritative discourse to such an extent that it was often difficult to tell whether it was a form of sincere support, subtle ridicule, or a peculiar mixture of the two.

Stiob developed between the 1970s and the 1980s in the Soviet Union and involved an over identification with the dominant discourse while pushing it to its limits so that it was almost impossible to discern facts from invention, political support from dissent, creating uncertain and confused interpretations. One of the most relevant examples of stiob was a mock interview in 1991 with musician Sergei Kuryokhin during a popular cultural TV programme called Pyatoe Koleso (The Fifth Wheel). During this interview, Kuryokhin spoke for more than one hour about his encounter with experts who studied the Bolshevik revolutionaries. After a nonsensical discussion about the October Revolution and the psychedelic properties of mushroom consumption, Kuryokhin concluded that Lenin might have been a mushroom himself.

This description and the general idea of stiob seem to correspond to Verlan’s work in which he approaches the depicted subjects in a derisive way. Those who have curated his exhibitions testify to this mockery, but also to the difficulty in recognising the exact message that the artist wants to convey. It is indeed difficult for us, the viewers, to understand if the artist invites us to mock or have sympathy for the characters in his paintings. In this game of truth/untruth, we lose a sense of reality and enter a Verlanian world made of irony, dreams and tricks.

In his portrait of Vladimir Putin, Verlan depicts the Russian president dressed as Cesar, with a kind smile, directly looking at the viewers. His face seems friendly, but his hand is crushing the cat’s head, revealing a different nature of the portrayed subject. The painting was accompanied by a letter and video addressed to the Russian president. Verlan was complimenting Putin and offering him the painting (which, of course, was never delivered to the president). The title of the painting, the painting itself and the letter accompanying it demonstrate Verlan’s ability to make fun of those in power in a subtle and symbolic way. At first, the viewer can smile at the painting, but then a bitter feeling appears, provoked by the discomfort seen on the cat’s face.

Verlan loved animals, he spent most of his life rescuing and sheltering stray dogs and cats. His love for animals was so strong that he was often seen walking in the streets of Chișinău surrounded by pets. He loved cats so much they often appeared in his paintings. If the cat in Putin’s painting is suffering under Putin’s hand, it can mean that the artist wants us to question his representation of the Russian leader. In this game of interpretations, he invites us to decipher the enigmatic signs and hints he has hidden. Some of these signs sometimes consist of messages written with characters inspired by the Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Japanese alphabet.

The playful aspect of his paintings can also be found in portraits of Buratino who often appears together with political leaders. Buratino was a fictional character of the book The Golden Key (1936) by Aleksey Tolstoy, who found inspiration in Le Avventure di Pinocchio (The Adventures of Pinocchio) by Carlo Collodi. In the story, Buratino is a long nosed puppet who lives with his father and goes through different adventures. It is a recurring character in Verlan’s paintings and Verlan Jr told me that, when as a child, he used to pose as Buratino for his uncle. As it was for Putin’s painting, in Buratino with Lenin we can see Lenin looking at the viewer with a serious expression. In his right hand he holds a wooden sceptre (which is actually a stick), while a terrified Buratino stands on his left. At first glance, this seems like a normal portrait of the Bolshevik leader. However, if we look closer, we can see that flying seagulls are defecating on Lenin’s head. These three irreverent provocations (Buratino, the wooden stick and the seagulls) are small tricks that Verlan used to mock Lenin. Buratino’s scared face is there to remind us to not believe first impressions and to not trust this leader. It is however in the details of the paintings that one can recognise the artist’s technical mastery and deep sensitivity. The moon in the painting of Lenin and the stars in that of Putin create a delicate effect in the background, contrasting with Lenin’s harsh expression and Putin’s dubious smile.

Apocalyptic views

Verlan used to say that inspiration for his paintings mostly came to him in dreams; in fact, some of his works look like oneiric scenes in which the depicted characters themselves are asleep. New York Under Water (1994), for instance, represents an apocalyptic scene in which water submerges the Statue of Liberty. Underneath, the Twin Towers stand in the background and fish swim around the statue. On the right side of the painting, a transparent capsule shows a woman and a cat is peacefully sleeping on a bed. On the night table, two bottles of champagne stand. The surreal aspect of this painting transports the viewers into a world that is ending, but in which human beings are not bothered, as they conduct their daily activities. It is a painting that seems to anticipate the apocalyptic feeling that we are currently living during the COVID-19 pandemic. In another underwater painting, Which Way Dreams Push Us (2016), one can see a sunken boat with a house on top of it close to a wreck of a submarine and incongruous cars in its vicinity. The painting can be interpreted as the end of the world after a nuclear attack. The presence of the submarine is reminiscent of the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000, when the Russian submarine sank because of an accident during a naval exercise.

Once again, one can notice Verlan’s admirable technique, especially in the clouds and sky of New York Under Water, and in the rays of sunshine underwater in Which Way Dreams Push Us. The use of nuance and detailed care build texture and make the painting almost realistic, creating an impressive visual effect in which he majestically replicated the transparency of water and light in the skies.

I only met Verlan once. It was in February 2016, during an exhibition of his work, organised by artist Pavel Brăila at the Cocoşul Roşu (The Red Cockerel) in Chișinău. The Cocoşul Roşu, located in the old town, is an artistic space where artists meet to attend workshops, concerts, exhibitions and cultural events. I was in Chișinău for my fieldwork and someone told me about the exhibition and the possibility of meeting, and perhaps interviewing, Verlan. I arrived at the Cocoşul Roşu earlier and could see the installation of the exhibition. It was the first time I saw all his work in one room and felt so inspired that I could not wait to meet him. When he finally arrived, I asked him if we could fix an appointment for an interview. Perhaps because of the linguistic barrier, Verlan was more interested in small talk.

I did not manage to get an appointment, but I realised how amusing and creative he was. In fact, a few minutes after our conversation, he sat on a chair with a cat on his lap, telling the audience a story about the apocalypse, while looking at a dented and scorched globe, one of his artistic creations. The story was about karmic death that the world will one day encounter. Then, the earth will be reversed: big states like the US will become tiny islands and small states, like Moldova, will cover continents. The tone of his voice was sarcastic and provocative, and everybody laughed at his jokes. And this is exactly how I want to remember him: surrounded by his art, stroking a cat, while talking about the end of the world with a smirk on his face.

The author would like to thank Maria Breskaya for the translations from Russian; Mark Verlan Jr, Pavel Brăila and Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu for the interviews and for sharing their stories.

Giovanna Di Mauro is a lecturer at Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, where she teaches a course on peacebuilding through the arts and a course on frozen conflicts, and a Student Affairs Officer at the College of Europe, Natolin Campus.

Art, Mark Verlan, Moldova, post-Soviet art