The residence I took a picture on silk depicting the volcano Teide, made on purpose, in case the installation or sculpture do not succeed. And so it happened: Helga had already left, in general, no one with whom to discuss the details and circumstances of the work.
So I calmly embroidered in the garden. Here, at the pool, I really like — in the evening, just before sunset, the pool seemed to glow white and blue on a dark green trees. And after a few moments all disappears, comes southern night.

TV Culture ester March 10, 2002
Report from the exhibition "Femme Art. Women artists in Russia XV — XX centuries" in the Tretyakov Gallery, which was held from January 22 to April 3, 2002. Interview with Tatiana Antoshina takes Elena Nekrasov. Report Irina Kulik.

A myth tells us that travelers from West Europe gave Montenegro its name: from the top of the mountain they saw a crowded square… And it looked black. The country was always fighting invaders, so many men died, that the land was black with the mourning of their wives and mothers.

Having arrived in Cetinje and Budva, and later in Kotor, I got and absolutely different impression: Montenegro stunned me with its beauty, and I gave it a new name: MONTEROSSO. It means both the Red Mountain, and the Beautiful Mountain (that’s why the names of the Red Square and of Krasnoyarsk, or a beautiful town on a high river bank, appeared). I haven’t seen such beautiful nature and so many beautiful people as in Montenegro. On my first day of the trip to the country I kept taking photos: in front of my eyes, in the windows of the car, infinite mountain landscapes floated by. At night, falling asleep, I saw these landscapes in front of my eyes like imprints on film. But they were not green, as they were in reality, they were red, like photographic negatives. That’s how I got an idea to print Montenegro views as the negatives from the color film.

There was an amazing party to the music of the No Smoking Orchestra with dancing in the street on the opening day of the Cetinje Biennail IV. I hanged my photos of pink red landscapes in the pale red interior of a restaurant, and stuck labels with one of these photos on the bottles of red wine. The label featured the name of wine (and of the country as I saw it: “Monterosso”). Many participants of the event didn’t even notice the “new brand of wine”, and new photos exhibited in the streets of the city, not at an exhibition hall. The chief of the restaurant assured me that the photographs of the Monterosso series looked as if they had always been there.. So, the project was a success, both as a performance, and as a mystification. It was born by the trip, and it was displayed at the Cetinje Biennail IV in the summer of 2002.

When I was back in Moscow, I got a proposal to design the6 interior for a restaurant. It was a fascinating opportunity to go on with this project. I regarded the Monterosso Café as a unique installation space, a tiny part of Montenegro in Moscow, an image which appeared in my mind under the impression of the county, of the Biennail, and of that party. So, the project was not just a non-spectacular event, it also included a design product.

Tania Antoshina

2003

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