As exposition organizers see it, Russia No. 1 is Russia under President Putin, with ideals all its own, democracy all its own, stability, affluence, and requited love that ties together the Church, the State and the media.

Russia No. 2 is art. It keeps pestering Russia No. 1 to take a

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way its majestic calm with scandalous escapades.

Present-day Russias most painful problems are the targets which recalcitrant artists hit-the army, hypocritical rulers who dont put up even with the mildest criticisms, and a chauvinist clergy and flock.

Of special notice among the latest artifacts is Oleg Kuliks "Madonna with the Children". It is a real glassed-in bus stop with a photograph on one of the walls, which usually has a commercial poster stuck up. The photo represents a girl wearing a suicide terrorists bomb belt. She is reclining in an armchair before a collapsed statue of a great political leader.

Avdei Ter-Oganyan, known as King of Shock, is exhibiting abstract paintings in Kazimir Malevichs spirit. Arrangements of tiny squares, arrows, circles and stripes have tongue-in-cheek verbal explanations under them, for instance, "This work of art aims to debase persons of Jewish and Russian ethnicity." Ter-Oganyan is using politicians trademark trick-never to make an explicit statement.

The Blue Noses duo is the most spectacular presence at this political fancy-dress show. Its huge poster, named "The Kids from Our Yard", represents a dozen artists, each wearing Vladimir Putins mask. The Blue Noses have surpassed themselves as they reduce political icons to folk prints.

The artistic underground now has a new theme for heated debates: what to do as political apathy has set in everywhere. Are the artists to lock themselves up in an ivory tower? Or are they to revive the ideals of the 1960s nonconformist art? If they choose the latter option, they will surely clash with the formidable Russian bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the state is the only reliable sponsor of the Moscow biennial show.

MOSCOW, January 21 (RIA Novosti)