Leonid Voitsekhov is a contemporary artist, art theorist, curator and writer. He was born and lived almost all his life in Odesa. He is a father of Odesa Conceptualism – a trend of art that claims that the main thing is not the form of the work, but its intellectual component. Most of Voitsekhov’s works are built on associations, wordplay and absurd situations that force the viewer to pay attention to non-obvious details. He was one of the first organizers of actions and performances in Odesa.

Leonid Voitsekhov’s action “They will pay us back for this” was held in 1984. This is one of the first art actions performed in public space of Odesa. The trigger for the action was a storm that passed through Odesa. Photos show fallen trees that blocking roads and partially destroyed the buildings. Oleg Petrenko and Lyudmila Skrypkina, under the guidance of Leonid Voitsekhov, took a big saw and went to help with the arrangement. There are still photos of them sawing the trunk of a large tree that blocked the street and collecting branches. But this event became an artistic action due to the poster with the inscription “They will pay us back for this”, which the participants carried through the central streets of the city.

This provocative statement challenged the situation. The law enforcement officers asked the organizer of the action: who is “They”? Who will be responsible? Whom do they mean to be responsible? Leonid Voitsekhov explained that “it will be forces of nature” to answer. Unfortunately, no photos of the poster have survived. But it is obvious that it was a convincing test of the abilities of the new artistic group. Such an ironic and provocative explanation corresponded to the method of absurdity typical for the Odesa conceptualists, who deliberately avoided direct commentary on social problems. Apart from communicating many years ago with Valentin Khrushch and Stanislav Sychov, the authors of the unauthorized Fence exhibition, the Odesa policemen were not ready for a discussion with the artists. And at that moment the guys were released. However, the action became one of the reasons for the destruction of Voitsekhov’s apartment exhibition and his later conviction.

The action calls into question the boundaries between art, politics and social context, emphasizing how artistic expressions which are seemingly far from real life can have a powerful impact on society.