Karskaya.com

Karskaya’s work is crucial because, for decades now, it has stood out as a symbol of freedom and poetry. This makes it far more meaningful than most of the categories in which the public’s judgment is confined, or than the fame surrounding artists’ lives. In 1959, Jean Paulhan wrote that “Karskaya leads two different lives at once – and I know very well why: if she can lead two different lives, why not a third one? Why not seven or nine?” Or more, we might add. Karskaya gives us this precious ability of being manifold, therefore free and inventive, even in happiness or in disaster, and in the most concrete and immediate of worlds. All lives are possible, provided one is diligently disobedient. Provided one transgresses – though not all the time – falsely noble frames and materials, provided, too, one is attuned to keeping with one’s true inner movements and to the chance events of everyday life, without, however, forsaking the earth for oracles or abstractions. In her work, personal stubbornness or meaningless details have as universal a meaning as the deepest concepts. Several trips, to Spain, Mexico, the United States, the series Les Invités de minuit (The Midnight Guests) or Connusinconnus (Knownunknown), the Lettres sans réponse (Unanswered Letters), the Gris Quotidiens (Daily Grays), the affectionate welcome given to the past in the “Livre des Ancêtres” (The Book of Ancestors), a beloved child’s remark (the Billi-Billis), the Collages with their constant protest against unfairly discarded objects, the peerless, wild and warlike example of the nomads in Gengis Kahn’s Tent – all these elements make up very special moments, giving us impressions of Karskaya’s alchemy which we can all share, reject or perhaps even experience. And let us not forget this decisive, intimate truth: Karskaya is Russian, really and truly Russian. She is the Russian truth of our lives and of all poetry.
- Michel Troche (1980)