Kremlin Doppelgänger, 2008–2009

Anna Jermolaewa was brought up in Petrograd (present day Saint Petersburg, Russia). She suffered persecution in 1989 due to her editorial work for the magazine Democratic Opposition. She subsequently left Russia and has since been living and working in Vienna. Her video works, predominantly designed as documentaries, reflect the everyday, allegedly stable dimensions of our reality, and uncover its ambivalent, absurd, and bizarre aspects by employing a variety of filmic devices.
In the photographic work Kremlin Doppelgänger, shown here, Jermolaewa focuses on the symbol of Russian state power, present all over the world in the press in the form of pompous military parades. The artist displays a copy of history-seeped Red Square in Moscow, namely, the Kremlin Palace Hotel in Antalya, Turkey, which is especially popular among Russian holidaymakers. Here, in nostalgic surroundings, visitors may happily play in the water, sunbathe, enjoy a meal, or shop. In the video of the same name, even Mikhail Gorbachev’s doppelganger appears at the poolside and talks about his life in politics – each morning, the retired engineer stencils his birthmark on his forehead.
Jermolaewa initiates a dialog between reality and fiction, between the historic monument and its reproduction full of different content and values. She thus draws attention to the mobility, reinterpretation, and exchangeability of cultural or national ideas and their icons in the age of globalization, and the general fictitiousness of history. Which of the two phenomena is the more ominous, the original symbolic site or its copy, remains a matter of debate. (AM)