1994 – Andrei Bartenev's Performances at Manhattan Express

Andrei Bartenev:
«At the end of 1993, the first commercially minded club, Manhattan Express, opens. We quickly found common ground with its management, and by February 1994 I was already doing my first performance there, «The Seal Hunt».
Somehow it all came together nicely. Clubs were news, performances were a novelty. And these two wild things somehow coincided. And they began to draw the most varied crowd – actors, artists, and pop singers. People wanted to entertain themselves with an unexpected spectacle, and they were unspeakably delighted. It was completely mutual: we were glad because we were showing all this to people, and they were glad because they saw it and found in this act some reflection of themselves and their own impulses.
In 1994 we did several performances for Manhattan Express. The client was always the club: they covered all the costs and paid the fees. And so, completely unexpectedly, we found a source of funding for our artistic experiments».