For as long as it is ineffective, magic = knowledge at rest.

- Friedrich Schelling, On the Nature of Philosophy as Science

I. The Magic of Muscovy

On the whole, the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007) wasn't that memorable an affair, but it did have its fair share of fine, amusingly symbolic and/or revelatory moments: having to weave one's way through the fur-clad, shopaholic trophy wives of oligarchs (I presumed) on the upper floor of the TsUM (Tsentralniy Universalniy Magazin, or Central Universal Store) to reach the biennial's venue dedicated to showcasing recent video art from the US (a bizarre navigational experience made even more disorienting by the relentless broadcasting, throughout the whole of TsUM, of the proceedings of the biennial's opening conference, featuring the likes of Giorgio Agamben and Chantal Mouffe); seeing art on the thirty-third floor, if I remember well, of a World Trade Center-style skyscraper still in the process of being constructed - most of the art on display, which was predominantly painting and photography, seemed to be merely waiting for the office furniture that would soon surround it); the decidedly oddball installation of Jeff Wall's Cibachromes, some of them tilted at extraordinary angles, in the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture (the selection of still-lifes and 'diagonal compositions' a sly, angular nod to the city's troubled constructivist legacy); Oleg Kulik's exuberant Moscow art extravaganza at the former wine-bottling plant Winzavod, a show simply named 'I Believe' - a choice of title we shall be returning to shortly. Best of all, however, was the experience of meeting biennial director Joseph Backstein, a highly-regarded veteran of Moscow's 1970s Conceptual art scene, in his brightly lit, paper-littered office