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17/9/2008

Criti-Pop

Moscow Museum of Modern Art - Petrovka, Moscow

Curated by Elena Selina

Moscow Contemporary project is a long-term cooperation between the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the XL Gallery. The aim of this project is to fill the vacuum in exhibitions of contemporary art of the 1970s and introduce the audience to actively working Russian stars of modern art. Within the framework of this project, the MMOMA at Ermolaevsky lane hosted several exhibitions: in 2006 — by Aidan Salakhova and Viktor Pivovarov, in 2007 — a retrospective by Boris Orlov. Also in 2007, a huge retrospective by Oleg Kulik at the Central House of Artists was presented. In 2009, it is planned to realize large-scale solo exhibitions of Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro and Konstantin Zvezdochetov.

Multimedia art now ranks very high in the international art context. It is impossible to imagine any worthy biennale, museum exhibition or an international art-fair without the works by the classics of the genre — Nam June Paik, Harry Hill, Bruce Nauman, Jenny Holzer, or brilliant experiments by Julian Opie and Tony Oursler. Art community, as well as the market, have willingly included the works of multimedia art in their rich tapestry. Nowadays, facing the time of global penetration of new information and communication technologies in all the spheres of everyday life and culture, new aesthetics form another stage in the development of actual art. It seems incredible, but interactive and communicative art in Russia is practiced only by Chernyshev, Shulgin and Efimov, working together or individually. Being more exact, their works are the only result that Russia can demonstrate to the global art community in the area of critical electric art.

Recently, an interest towards media art has eminently increased in Moscow. Not only professionals, but also collectors and public, have overcome inner barriers that prevented the perception of the new media language. It took quite a long time for them to realize that modern art is not limited by graphics and painting. The most interesting things, such as installation, photography, interactivity and communication, lie far beyond these frontiers. The multimedia object that interacts with the environment becomes a new way to include the viewer is the process of creation, to turn an ordinary interior into a piece of art. Small revelations — that computer becomes a singer, TV-set acts like a magic mirror giving some critical statements — not only involve viewers in the fantastic game invented by the artists, but also make them think about the problems of the modern world with its technological rat-race. The exhibition of works by Chernyshev-Shulgin-Efimov is not just a simple retrospective summary of the past ten years. It? s a wonderful way to actualize eternal and current problems, to talk over the borders of personal perception, over art itself and over the viewer — as an object and a subject of the art statement.

Elena Selina

CRITI-POP exhibition is three artists, two creative groups, forty works and plenty of themes (critics of mass media, information overflow, reconstruction of identity, digital pop-culture, interactive interface, creative capitalism, corporate psychedelic, commercial protest, information weapons, oscillation of discourse, poetry of stock-exchange deals and news broadcasts, aesthetics of data transmission, science art, no-brain art, cyberpunk rock, techno- narcissism in real time mode, system failure, post-capitalistic fun, critical exhibitionism, spatial-temporal distortion, made in China, data trash, deconstruction of TV, web-entropy, psychedelic electronics, total virtuality, genetic pop-engineering, virtualization of body, info-sculpture, meta-television), connected with total penetration of information technologies in culture and everyday life. CRITI-POP is an uncommon exhibition with the entertainment and aura of play so typical of interactive works, mixed with critical character and diversity of touched problems.

Interactive installations by Vladislav Efimov and Aristarkh Chernyshev, who worked together from 1996 to 2005, bring us into an absurd world, where cultural clichés, human organs, scientific conceptions, heroes of mass culture and new technologies are fantastically combined. Artists visualize popular belief in the capacities of modern science that breaks habitual principles of ethics. Genetic engineering, statistical modeling of processes, computer games, robotics, and visualization of body are all in the sphere of their interest. The viewer becomes a hero of the work — a colleague of an insane scientist modeling DNA, a creator of 3-D avatars, a conqueror of the revolted robots or a terminator hunting for artists. In their media installations, Efimov and Chernyshev wittily deride trivial perceptions of industrial horrors in development of the humanistic society.

«Electroboutique» art-group (Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin, since 2003) produce critical art in modern technological forms. «Electroboutique» presents its device-art objects as exclusive products with few copies and is a unique company that unites artists, developers of electronics, programmers and designers. Using some techniques of social psychology and perception theory, the artists transmit their critical message directly into the unconscious of the viewers and entertain them with bright colors and garish forms of their works. The critics of capitalism in the works of «Electroboutique» are paradoxically encapsulated in commercial products that have particular a place in market economics.

In his solo projects, Aristarkh Chernyshev applies to poetics and visuals of information streams like TV-channels, Internet-news or stock-exchange tapes. His objects and installations are critically keen and completed in fantastic plastic forms, which indicate current tendencies in the international design.

Alexei Shulgin, besides his work as part of «Electroboutique», is represented at the exhibition with his solo projects, rethinking our addiction to technologies and giving variants of creative rescue. One of the historic exhibits is a legendary rock band 386 DX, made of an outdated computer playing ever-young hits of British-American and Russian rock.

Opening: September 18, 20:00

Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Ermolaevsky lane, 17 (floors 2-5)

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