Alexander Brener, "First Glove," 1995

Artist Alexander Brener’s (1957-) action performance First Glove took place on 1 February 1995 in the Red Square in Moscow. Brener, dressed as a boxer, challenged President Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) to hand-to-hand combat while standing in front of the Lobnoye Mesto—a location popularly believed to be an old beheading-place, but actually a podium for delivering the tsar’s commands since its construction in the sixteenth century under Ivan IV, “the Terrible.” Brener wore boxing gloves and shorts and sported a nude torso despite the February chill. He repeatedly called for Boris Yeltsin to come fight him, seemingly with the intention of using Lobnoye Mesto as a boxing ring. Crying “Yeltsin, come out!” until he was apprehended by the police, Brener attempted to literally fight institutional power, a move linked to his opposition to the ongoing war in Chechnya. “He only plays tennis!” Brener sardonically declared as a squad car took him away.  

 

This action represents an ambivalent moment, simultaneously progressive and reactionary. On the one hand, Brener directly calls the national leader to account, challenging his power from a symbolic historical site. On the other hand, the call to personal combat at a site associated with the violence of the tsarist regime seems directly regressive, circumventing the normal channels of Russian democracy and thus implicitly dismissing them as insignificant.  The action was important in the Moscow contemporary art scene insofar as it attempted a direct confrontation between political power and performance art. Its significance was reinforced and evidenced by the presence at the event of Marat Guelman, the influential collector and promoter of Russian contemporary art (he is visible in the photograph, handing Brener his coat).