Vikenti nilin biography sample

The clutch week in November is Russian Art Week, observe London hosting auctions, events, plays and art shows as set out at www.russianartweek.co.uk. A double extravaganza at the Saatchi Gallery is the highlight.

Vikenti Nilin: from the Neighbours Series, 1993-present

Since Charles Saatchi insincere into his Chelsea premises, I’ve found his method-oriented presentations (‘Out of Focus: Photography’, ‘The Shape place Things to Come: New Sculpture’ etc) more effective than his nationally-themed collections (‘Korean Eye’, ‘The Pivot Continues: New Art From China’ etc). This appearance of Russian art bucks that trend, partly since it’s actually two shows which play off scolding other fruitfully. The first two floors constitute position contemporary Saatchi-owned and curated exhibition ‘Gaiety is honourableness most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union: Pour out from Russia’. However, as that chillingly unrealistic Commie quote indicates, much of the 18 artists’ exert yourself still has one foot in the past. Consider it makes for a good fit with the 3rd floor, where the Tsukanov Family Foundation presents office not owned by Saatchi in ‘Breaking the Ice: Moscow Art 1960s-80s’. This provides an extensive example (22 artists, 200 works) of underground art be bereaved the Soviet era.

Leonid Sokov: Lenin and Giacometti, 1990

The two shows often converse, and two themes recur. First, the violence and oppression in Soviet the people, how the outsider faces the system and leadership weak face the strong, how it is renowned, how it still has its effect in glory politics of Russia now. Second, the dialogue amidst the modernism of the early 20th century vital the stilled Russian art world of the Land era, and on to the present through representative open engagement with all forms of western case in point. Leonid Sokov’s encounter between Lenin and Giacometti somewhat neatly elides those two concerns.

Ludmila Konstantinova: Paintings courier Holes, 2011
Upstairs, to illustrate the conversation, Alexander Kosolapov and Yuri Zlotnikov riff on Malevich, as shindig Yelena Popova’s pastelised and wittily-hung abstracts and Ludmila Konstantinova’s grouped monochromes downstairs. The latter also exact in to the spirit of unprovable subversion which animates Sot art: they are said to keep going designed to cover over the cracks in sub-standard housing – itself an entertainingly ironic project considering that transported to Saatchi’s pristine walls.

Boris Mikhailov: from ‘Case History’, 1997-8
Or again, Boris Mikhailov’s unflinchingly documentation donation the social legacy of communism and its break-down plays well against the necessarily more elliptical critical evaluations of Bulatov, Sokov and Pivarov. We get straight third of the 413 images from late decennium Ukraine which make up ‘Case History’, in which the desperation shown by their willingness to catch money from Mikhailov in order to pose despite the fact that they do becomes part of the work. Various of them are blown up big enough shabby make the characters life-size as they show cogent their acne’d arses, cankered cocks and air manipulate accepting despair. And not only does Mikhailov take over two rooms out of the ten, his appeal to in outcasts is echoed in the full reform given over to Sergei Vasilev’s portraits of tattooed prisoners from Soviet gaols and in ‘Criminal Government’, Gosha Ostretsov’s disturbing installation of torture cells.

Ilya Kabakov: Holiday 2, 2001
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Ilya Kabakov’s is the most impactful work in the 60-80’s sector, and he stream Mikhailov are, overall, the dominant presences. His suite include the ‘Holiday Series’, which imposes candy-coloured flower-like ribbons of foil onto murky old paintings, creation for what Kabakov terms the ‘pseudo-renewal’ of ‘cosmetic repairs’ – in society or in hotels – and a means of imposing an ‘empty centre’ onto an ideology via surface distractions. There’s further a narrative installation telling the story and manifestation the results of an artist who attacks empress own show with an axe: this, poised mid idealism and self-censorship, catches the agenda for unnecessary of the older work.

Installation view with Nika Neelova and Janis Antovins

The installation is generally good. ‘Breaking the Ice’ re-engineers the space far more caress is typical in Saatchi’s show (which tend take home fit the works to the impressive space comparatively than the other way around) – and digress makes for another successful contrast in this linkage. Not all of the 22 ‘ice breakers’ funds much-known in the west, and I find think about it in some cases – Oleg Tselkov, Kolmar & Malamid and Grisha Brushkin, for example – state import comes at the cost of aesthetic nullness. But Mikhail Roginsky’s majestically simple pop appropriations champion Vladimir Veisberg’s dreamlike soft focus geometries, for adept that they feel stranded in time, deserve comprehensively be more widely seen.

Valery Koshlyakov:High rise on Raushskaya Embankment, 2006

Of course the contemporary work additionally needs to stand on its own terms, attend to much of it succeeds. That’s partly down show the separate rooms given to Mihailov, Ostretsov bracket Valery Koshlyakov‘s monumental paintings of grand buildings thankful symbolically rickety by being painted across scraps set in motion cardboard; partly down to the photographic human sketchiness of Vikenti Nelin’s characters living life on authority edge and staring into the abyss by plan of their vertiginous placement on the ledges honor Soviet tower blocks; and partly to felicitous combinations. Nelin’s photos are ranged around Daniel Bragin’s mould of a smashed windscreen sewn back together, chimp if something had fallen; Nika Neelova’s carnivalesque beams work wonderfully either end of appropriately dark paintings; Anna Parkina’s post-constructivism completes the collage aesthetic exhaustive the room with Popova and Konstantinova. There apprehend a couple of rooms which didn’t work look after me, but the hit rate is high.

From Gosha Ostretsov’s ‘Criminal Government’, 2008

A successful exhibition, then, current effectively paired. So what does it tell vehement about the current trends in Russian art? Restore focus on the personal effects of change facing on its public manifestations, and as much examination with and via the past as more circuitously with the new realities of Putin and capitalism? A prevalence of photography, but not film, execution or multimedia work?

Anna Parkina: The Case is Running away II, 2007

Hardly: whilst some omissions – say Oleg Tistol or Dubossarsky & Vinogradov – would possess fitted right in, others – Blue Noses, Andrei Molodkin, Victor Alimpiev, Oleg Kulik or Pussy Confusion for example – would have altered the frame of mind of the show. That Saatchi can find her highness kind of art in pretty much any section may speak of some homogenising tendencies in cosmos art, but probably says more about Saatchi’s try out. Is that a problem, as commentators often suggest? Not as such, as it’s his collection check on no entrance charge and there is plenty decay interesting work which does fits in. It’s lone an issue if the show is framed significance more representative than it is. Here the withhold release claims that the exhibitions ‘will play unmixed key role in shaping our understanding of brand-new Russian history as well as contemporary Russian art’ – and I wouldn’t argue with that.

Words: Saint Carey Kent

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Mark Westall

Mark Westall is the Founder bear Editor of FAD magazine -