Roman Kalinovski

Trigger warning: nudity

Roman Kalinovski is a fixture in the art scene in Brooklyn, New York, actively trying to create dialogue space for the new galleries and artists who provide vital energy for the city.

Unfortunately, with all his good intentions and gracious work for the betterment of his peers, Roman is treated with a level of distain and distrust. Shunned, even.

He can be socially awkward, sure. There was definitely a mismatch with him and the energy in the Bushwick art scene, long live the Bushwick art scene. A more private Bushwick however, aligned with him perfectly.

Bushwick was deeply kinky. Young, intelligent and open people of all types came to Brooklyn after 9/11. All the kids who saw Shortbus but couldn't afford to live in Williamsburg, came to Bushwick. We all started being open with our sexuality and honest about who we were or wanted to be. Or what we thought we wanted or what we thought we should do to live in the kind of society we wanted. All this while at the dawn of the hook-up apps. There was space for all, and everyone was welcome.

In theory.

And again we return to Roman. At risk of sounding like Capote reflecting, I do identify and empathize with Roman. I imagine we had a similar upbringing and education. Early access to the internet. Courteous in his manners, classically trained in painting, erudite in art history, and always dressed professionally. I literally don't think I've ever seen him without a blazer or full suit, even in the heat.

He isn't trying to be cool, which is the first strike. Everyone in Bushwick was trying to be cool. Trying to be hip. Trying to get laid. Trying to be seen.

Roman… is trying to see.

His paintings, are evidence of that. His eye is adept. Nuanced. Unafraid of the mark, but restrained enough to fool occasionally. He has a facility with rendering light, granted aided by the source material.

But when he's good, he's good.

It's lovely to see devotion to an image and form. Roman has been focused on his form for almost a decade, and his sublimation through that form has transformed an arguably troublesome subject matter into moments of visual and emotional clarity. He fools us long enough to become complicit. I would argue the more abstract his paintings the more this is accomplished, those are usually my favorite.

Roman was blessed to find his muse early in his career: Minori Aoi. Like Dante and Kierkegaard before him, a vision of beauty has lead Roman through the long dark tea-time of the soul and taken him to the very gates of heaven.

Unlike the lovers of Beatrice and Regine, Roman has no delusions as to Minori's place in heaven. She is a model and adult film star, who only worked briefly in the latter. She has since developed a cult following; Roman being this cult's Michaelangelo.

Roman is trying to see…

…up a skirt?

Men's sexuality is always suspicious.

How dare they.

Roman's sin isn't necessarily his subject matter, though it is the root of it; his real sin is sincerity. We cannot stand love like this, despite it being a source of art and poetry forever. Unrequited love is icky, isn't it?

The comedian Norm Macdonald, god rest his soul, talked about the tragedy of falling in love with a woman in a painting on Mark Maron’s podcast:

“I still have extreme sensitivity to things, not to life things, but to literature or something like that, I have to stay away from it… Fucking paintings. Like I don't know anything about art, nothing at all, but I've had fucking experiences that have been so hard on me. Like one time I was in New York and someone dragged me to a fucking art museum, which I hate art, and I was looking at this picture of this girl and I was like falling in love with her, she was so fucking beautiful, this fucking girl in this fucking picture. And then this guy was telling me the fucking thing was drawn in the sixteenth century. Obviously this lady was dead, long dead. Here I am fucking in love with her, and so I'm like 'yeah fuck it' so hard on me for so many days…”

To be caught in desire, is anguish. Roman has built his dungeon. His captor doesn't even know he exists.

Neil Sinhababu wrote an interesting paper called ‘Possible Girls' about the morality of still finding love in the real world, despite having a “trans-world” relationship (a relationship with a fictional or real person, imagined in an alternate reality).

Don't take this to mean Roman is an incel, or whatever. He's not. He has a girlfriend. But maybe the incel spirit is part of what it is that he is getting at? What it is that is important about the work?

It's a crystal of something.

The internet changed how we all developed sexually in society.

No red pills, or if a red pill, there's a few blue, a white, a purple and a yellow too for balance.

I find it interesting how he turns these publicly available images into something private through his desires; sexual and artistic desires travel through his gesture. He privately makes intimate portraits, and when presented back to the public, they are met with mind shattering confusion.

They are beautiful, but cause ugly feelings for most. What looks like a sensitive and tender painting of a young girl, relies on an industry of the male gaze, “rape culture”, and human commodification. It is artificial intimacy, meditated through several layers of abstract chaos and power. It's as Roman describes, an “Impossible Portrait”.

Is it the ongoing series purely a glimpse at Roman's very exclusive spank bank? No. But is the philosophy of mind and desire not just further mental masturbation? Ok you got me.

But I would be lying if I wasn't still interested in what Roman is doing. I kinda want one.

The fact he keeps doing it is actually the most interesting part. It's still in his system. I wish I could want to look at anything as much as Roman wants to watch this woman.

He's very aware of all of this.

Kohei Yoshiyuki took photographs of sexual escapades in the public parks of Japan. There apparently weren't good places for couples to have sex. What I find interesting is that the couple, in ecstacy under a bush or whatever were sometimes surrounded by men watching. Seeing. Reaching. Hoping.

It's very hard to come to Roman's aid. Most people I want to talk about his work with, immediately see the problematic nature and shrivel. On the other hand the men who nod along with these works without questioning them are major sus (“suspect” for the boomers).

It doesn't help her name has the word 'minor' in it and she looks like a teen.

Still, I am compelled to write about the works. Hide your kids, hide your wife. I know I will have to answer before the council.

The paintings are beautiful, seductive, and elicits actual emotions, despite it's simulated origins. Roman cares, arguably too much, but he cares and the product is sublime. Youth, bittersweet.

So for the zodiac people still in the audience, Roman saw the black magic work on him and has been able to master and recreate a hologram of it in order to do the “great work” of turning evil into good. But digesting this dangerous poison has hurt him, but not fatality. He comes back to us with good gems and some wisdom.

Unfortunately, the wisdom he brings isn't for this moment. It is for the next generation, more and more detached from physical intimacy, burdened by a digital record and the constant perceived threat of sexual exploitation. And there are female artists addressing the many sides from their perspective. Roman might not be on the right side of this 'issue', but I think he is doing light work, providing space; contemplating the “lidergeil” as high art although works themselves are objets de mépris.

But Roman isn't thinking this. What is Roman thinking?

    Minori   is   the   most   perfect   woman   ever   and  she  deserves   to   be   worshipped   and   immortalized

This is the second strike. Everyone knows John Currin is the last straight white man who's allowed to paint objectified women. Ironically. Double strike because Roman's paintings are done out of a sense of devotional worship, not just interest or lust. Literally I don't think Roman has painted anything but Aoi for a decade. She is perfection, for him, and thus for us.

Ok, so Roman IS a white man, painting his Japanese goddess. I'm sure exoticism and colonialism is at play.

But, also, they are always at play. History is ever present. A white artist making abstract work isn't any less guilty. This all weighs heavily. Contemporary art is, more often than not, inherently a convergence of cultures. I agree it's not necessarily a moral good, but Schönheit ist jenseits von Gut und Böse.

Gross. Beauty sucks. Beauty isn't everything.

So what if Roman can make beautiful paintings, lots of people do. They're only beautiful anyway because it'someone else’s content. It's stolen images! It's patriarchal, heteronormative, western exploitation. She had no say!

It's our whole problem. Making things beautiful is fascist. Stop letting beautiful things let dark things into your life! Be free from seduction.

The paintings are a glamour, a demonic spell of beauty.

Don't shut down. Something is there that is deeply human that, while complicated, isn't bad, but just is. And in the context of fine art, should be paid attention to and understood.

Or someone should call the cops.

It's all more common than we care to admit, the undercurrent of men's lust, leading to complex and problematic behavior. Roman is just honest about his weak role in it. The victim is known. He doesn't have to hide it behind abstraction or a smirk. He's letting it all hang out, relying on our pathos.

Gross.

He's not only honest, he's articulate. These paintings are actually beautiful, some possibly masterful. Tender, loving even. Whatever the inverse of perverted is. He's taking something “low” and through his devotion and love, elevates it. Each piece like a newlywed husbands full morning vision of his new bride.

Much like Jenna Gribbon taking tender shots of her beautiful life, Roman does something similar, but his life is apparently spent watching a single adult film over and over.

Over and over.

There's something to that, as author Robert Anton Wilson tells:

There’s an old Jewish story about a man who liked to play the violin. He had this habit, though—he kept playing the same note over and over. It amused him. Perhaps it gave him a deep ecstasy. But that was his shtick: he played the same note over and over. After several years, his wife finally got to the point where even her wifely patience was exhausted and she said to him, “Max! Max! For god’s sake, Max, other men who play the violin, they don’t always play the same part of the string. They play up and down the string, and they play on all the strings. And they make melodies, and they make counterpoint, they make sonatas, they make forms. Not the same note over and over.” And Max looked up from playing his one note and he said, “They’re looking for the place. I found it.”

And again Minori Aoi.

Make no mistake; the work disturbs. It also is magnetic. Wistful and malevolent at the same time. Am I complicit? Or does Roman wash these images in his own psyche, clearing their energy, providing an innocent consideration? Can that even be done? Would we even want it to be the case?

What look like personal moments, simple and sublime, are infact a series of videos of a woman eventually deciding she doesn't want to do porn anymore. She's agreed to be there, yes but she doesn't want to be there. You would never know this, glancing at Roman's work. Or maybe there are clues.

This is unsettling.

But like a relationship where one person doesn't know it's over yet, we are left out of the reality. Minori will never break up with Roman. She can't.

Love is impossible. The version we have, the version of someone we love is, at best incomplete, but often it is largely fabrication. We barely know ourselves, how can we know someone enough to actually love them?

But we do.

But that's the trick to love. It doesn't care. It isn't about the person being loved, but the lover. The love someone has for someone else, even a fictional person, can motivate them beyond any rational or reasonable factor. We are intentionally idiots, diving in on little more than a elevated pulse. This is why unrequited love is so powerful, because it takes away the possible failure of the 'loved' and the entire power of the love in the “lover”. They are given free reign, and that dérive often gives the soul some power.

Back when I believed anything, I realized that if there was a God, they definitely don't need your love. In religions, the loving of God isn't for God. What you love is your aspiration, and how you imagine God is a great litmus test for your values. Your love for whatever you love is the motivation by which you build your psyche in space-time.

And what about Roman? Is Minori worthy of eternal consideration?

What we see is a lovely moment of light and skin. Like a memory of a youthful encounter, the glow is dreamlike. Faces with often with distant stares, objectified. It almost doesn't matter the source material. They're lovely.

Trigger warning after this image.

Is it a depiction of rape? If we go by Dworkin's definition, yes. Beyond her reasoning, we get less definitive answers. Most people don't know how to talk about consent, especially within sex work. Minori wanted to be there, for whatever reason. She wanted out later on, for whatever reason. We can't assume this was some hell for her, it may have also been some true moments of ecstasy.

The fact that question can be asked isn't great, but Minori Aoi does not seem to claim that it was. But also in what capacity would she feel empowered to say if it was? What she does say is that it was just too much for her and she didn't want to do anymore?

This is where memetics took over. Her departure from the industry created scarcity, which created demand. Her private nature also created a mythos that her fans have absorbed. She maintains a purity in their minds, able to fulfill both sides the Madonna/Whore complex.

Porn isn't an easy topic and I am too complicit to have anything more than half-hearted apology and “but is it art” babble. All I can say is I am 40 now and I have been seeing porn for 25 years. Despite it's taboo, it is a massive industry and colors our cultural landscape with its shadow. If anything is to address these things, it's art.

So much art about porn is caught up in the T&A of it, the plastic, the product, the problematic. It always feels very sexless. But these works by Roman have a very different feel. Something else is going on.

If the story of Minori intrigues you, there is an anime called Perfect Blue you should watch, if you haven't seen it yet. It's about fame and such things. Tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast.

Now, I haven't actually seen any of the Minori Aoi videos. I don't think understanding the work necessitates it, but something in it has captivated Roman and in doing so forged some beautiful paintings with a tortured place in the dialogue.

“Roman Kalinovski should really be in jail.

They are obscene, a perversion of nature. Sick. Sick! Down with the fascist spectre of beauty. The harsh cold wind that burns us all to death. Why can't Roman just enjoy all women, and all bodies? Where are the representations of other women? What is with white men and Japanese girls?!

Even his name sounds too much like Roman Polanski!”

The anger and fear bubble in some. Wouldn't it be nice to pin all the sins of man onto Roman? Make his difficult and arduous journey to understand himself and his predilections in a safe and eventually rewarding way into some dark story?

It would be convenient. ‘As a feminist’ I find Roman's attachment to the representations of this unknowing woman's body revolting. It's an affront to decency. Not only can I not throw the first stone, behind the revolt is a raised eyebrow and a tight belt.

But I'm a privileged man, brought up in a sick society.

He is privileged too. Though if that were real criteria for consideration, most of the artworld wouldn't exist.

Stick with the work. No ad hominem. There's so much more in the work that you flatten with these reductive fear modes.

Still on board? Good.

So, he started this journey of content with a very ornate shrine to Minori including a sarcophagus.

Still on board?

Minori isn't dead, mind you.

The piece titled "Minori Aoi Incorrupt”, is a take on the presentation of the incorruptible physical remains of saints. To Roman, Minori isn’t a sex object. She is beyond a mere mortal. She is holy.

Worship is gross.

I cannot fault Roman for seeing the universe in a teacup. Didn't Jesus himself go to the prostitutes and the lepers?

Another aspect of Roman's depiction of Minori, is he refuses to use anything graphic. Perhaps it's his own personal hangups, but it makes the series feel more tender, at first look, and more controlling on reflection. Like a father’s idealized version of his daughters love life, he is rewriting the history of the very reason why the videos initially received his attention. We see his idealized version of Minori, and that only.

As the Shins sing, “Caring is creepy”.

I'm reminded of Drew Barrymore telling about how when she was in Playboy, Spielberg sent her a copy with a quilt collage taped over her body with a note “Cover Up!”. It's sweet, right? Right?

Roman uses a program to collect the still images from the 15 adult movies Minori was in. He curates from there, sometimes adjacent frames, but always her. Everything “tasteful”.

Interestingly enough, Roman wasn't discouraged by people's judgmental hot takes, taking to heart much of what was told to him but not backing down. You may say he is arrested in this way, but with Minori as a cell mate, he is unapologetic in his compulsion and lets his idealization of this reclusive former stag film actress continue to dominate his creative energy.

It's a marriage, in a sense.

It definitely causes pause. Do I believe in the freedom of art? Can anything be subject? Why am I so worried about liking these paintings?

I don't know if I'm ready to be honest about who I am. Could I dare admit how many hours I've wasted looking through pornography? It's tragedy is banal. How it has shaped my expectations and experiences?

Shut the fuck up Jean Baudrillard.

The work isn't about porn, per se. It's firmly about desire and despair, porn just happened to be how Roman arrived to it.

And what of the former actress? If we normalize sex work, we need to also normalize the sex work retiree. I imagine this scenario will become more normal, as OnlyFans has actually normalized sex work. This work is for the future.

It takes all types.

The uncomfortable necessities of other humans desire, no matter what the arrangement, are a place ripe for art.

I understand that many will regard Roman's ouvre as a reflection of 'rape culture', though perhaps I would not include Roman as a participant. Viewer/voyeur at most. Confused, maybe. Bewitched, definitely.

We only have seen Roman's small selection of the over 36,000 frames from the 15 films Minori Aoi made. Her presence has been scrubbed from the English speaking internet with the deletion of her Wikipedia entry, and Roman's paintings will likely be all that remains in the public consciousness of some lost years from a woman's life. Years she may regret or cherish.

A lot of people have asked Roman if he would ever want to meet Minori. He is firmly against this, knowing it would change his relationship to her and and the work. I'm reminded of Jung's desire to not see Rome, because he knew seeing it would kind of ruin his imagination with what it actually is. Kierkegaard, similarly, was worried about ruining his vision of Regine by actually consummating his love.

Not all art is for everyone. But, this work gets me reeling. My sexual hangups are laid bare in the plane of his images, the joy of my devious perverted mind has to share space with my high minded feminist and cultural theory. I am reminded I am a beast, untrustworthy with my eyes, lusty and devious.

Lord, grant me chastity, but not yet.

Nicholas Cueva

2023