The Russians had to acquire a new language. The people and the government hold dear the remnants of communal ideals. She does not want Petersburg rebuilt, i.e., tarted up. All artistic production is valid, and not subject to hierarchical evaluation. The Russians have suffered a complete loss of identity, from Yeltsin on down, or up.
Nobody knows who they are or what they want.
The people are adrift in a void. His works are festooned with mirrors, so that people can examine themselves. And he has shot many videotapes of people in front of a camera, simply talking and looking at themselves. Novikov is the founder and articulate spokesperson of Neo-Academism, the Petersburg art movement that views Modernism as a noxious virus. Novikov advocates a return to an art based on beauty, on tradition, on classical forms, and the orthodoxy of the Russian Church.