Naked Light
dal 11/3/2003 al 29/3/2003
Segnalato da
11/3/2003
Naked Light
White Space Gallery, London
Vitaly Pushnitsky & Philipp Dontsov. The two artists in this exhibition are both in their thirties and have already had their work selected for major exhibitions of contemporary art in museums in Russia and Scandinavia. Having emerged from a conventional academic training of an order which has not changed for two hundred years, both artists have shunned a political or social approach to their work, either for or against the status quo.
Vitaly Pushnitsky & Philipp Dontsov
The two artists in this exhibition are both in their thirties and have already had their work selected for major exhibitions of contemporary art in museums in Russia and Scandinavia. Having emerged from a conventional academic training of an order which has not changed for two hundred years, both artists have shunned a political or social approach to their work, either for or against the status quo. Coincidentally, both artists have thrown themselves into producing images that are crucially concerned with light. However, their stances are vastly different and they have never exhibited together before. This exhibition has been conceived as an installation using the artists' visions of metamorphosis through light.
Vitaly Pushnitsky was born in 1967 and trained at St Petersburg Arts Academy. In 2002 he had a solo exhibition of his work entitled 'Introspection' inThe State Russian Museum, St Petersburg. He likes, wherever possible, to base his work solidly on conventional painting and sculptural techniques and he aims to stimulate audience interest in the painterly depiction of light. Recent work includes a series of children caged in the protective world of childhood, of dream boxes containing the realms of our subconscious, and other themes involving multiple planes and dimensions. Central to this exhibition at St Peter's Church is a huge site specific painting installation (5m x 3m) entitled 'Plafon' ('ceiling painting'), derived from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The work, which hangs at a 45-degree angle to the ceiling, is shot through with a neon tube, half a metre long. The figures within the composition are based on photographs of mass killings in concentration camps , which stress the ephemerality of human life.
Philipp Dontsov was born in 1972 and graduated from the Mukhina Art College in St Petersburg. Recent exhibition venues include Kirsten Kear Museum, Denmark (2000); The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg ('The Art of Abstraction', 2001) and Freud Dreams Museum, St Petersburg ('Light Experiment', 2001). Dontsov paints semi-abstract images, often based on the human form, on canvas and on metal. His use of light installations have multiple effects at different times of day. During a twelve-hour period, his images change constantly from positive to negative. The viewer is drawn into active participation in the process, to the point where the ultimate moment of change forces a kind of epiphany, or flash of recognition. His titles are ironically portentous, evoking the irreverence of the Futurists of the early twentieth century. His photographic approach emphasises the evanescence of the visual image.
Despite their divergent aims and approaches, the work of Pushnitsky and Dontsov succeeds in illuminating for the viewer those dark corners of reality of which we are aware but that we normally overlook.
White Space Gallery was founded by Anya and Michael Stonelake in 1999. Previous exhibitions include:
2001 - Mitki: Losers Victorious; Vladimir Shinkarev: World Literature (also shown at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature); Dmitry A Prigov: Phantom Installations.
2002 - ART 2002 London Contemporary Art Fair; 'Approaching Holiness', Russian Orthodox Icon in the 21st Century; x{2018}Anti-Fashion': Olga Chernysheva, Vita Buivid & AmbientTV.NET; x{2018}The Russian Patient' in collaboration with Freud Museum, London: I Kabakov, O Kulik, T Liberman, D Prigov, G Ostretsov, Timur Novikov; O&A Florensky: x{2018}Moveable Bestiary' in collaboration with Architectural Association, London. x{2018}Paperwork': Prints & Drawings by Olga Chernysheva, Dmitry A Prigov, Y. Avvakumov,
A Kirtseva, O&A Florensky.
2003 - ART 2003 London Contemporary Art Fair. February 2003 - 'Collaborations in Art': Lecture by Vitaly Komar.
Exhibition dates: 13 - 29 March 2003, Mon - Sat 11 - 18.00, admission free
White Space Gallery, St Peter's,Vere St (off Oxford Street), London W1G ODQ
Tube: Bond Street
Information: 0208 740 4675