curated by_joseph backstein: In Search of an Alternative

12.05.2011 - 18.06.2011

curated by_vienna 2011, Wien / Österreich
Galerie Grita Insam, Wien / Österreich

Looking for alternative artistic solutions, the participating artists of the project address the problem of continuity in contemporary Russian art. The works of Nadezhda Busheneva, Alina Gutkina, Kirill Gluschenko and Arseny Zhilyaev vividly reflect the trends of the most recent years – the period of the stabilisation of political processes in post-Soviet Russia.

Speaking of the distinctive nature of the participants’ aesthetic language, it must be noted that Busheneva deals with historical memory through metaphors of Soviet industrial buildings, which contain the visual potential of a totalitarian state.... Zhilyaev turns to Soviet history as well, maintaining that the subject of a classless society remains relevant today, even though it was discredited by the controversial Stalinist interpretation of it. Gutkina studies the generational psychology and behaviour, examining the case of the generation that was born in the 1990s and currently tries to make sense of the changes taking place in the post-Soviet era. Gluschenko employs a similar approach in his attempt to recall and archive the social reality that his generation had gotten a taste of, and which ceased to exist, yet remained aesthetically relevant.

[Quelle: http://www.curatedby.at/]