Artists, galleries and abandoned spaces(2018)
In the given exhibition, few separate narratives, are colliding with each other taking a viewer into the world of absurd possibilities. Both video performances and paintings can be considered as an acts of intervention into the different realities, which are acquiring a certain similarity in the context of the given presentation. Mostly figurative paintings are playing the role of self ironical projections, staying yet faceless, with almost no recognition of the authors persona in them. In video works, the figure of artist is designated very clearly making him a protagonist of the play, staged in the world of consumerism and capital based relationships.
The inspiration for majority of paintings created during the stay in SomoS residency comes from contemporaryartdaily.com website, - the picture blog where world top galleries are posting their high level exhibitions every day. The shots are so white, ideal, symmetrical and fearfully clinical, that presence of any real life seems to be an excess. In the context of the show, photos taken from the website are painted and represented as a stage for the fiction situations underlining the lifelessness of art field professionalization, or opposite, bringing a life into it. In his book Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space Brian O Doherty claims that “A gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church. The outside world must not come in”. Contemporaryartdaily.com can be viewed as an example of spiritual and humanistic qualities of art turned into impersonal shape of the commodity, the product, the concept western civilization based on.
Opposite to idealism of commercialized art world, the abandoned space appears as an antagonistic element of the exhibition narrative. Due to its difficult past and historical contradictions city of Berlin is full of decaying buildings, obscure monuments of socialist era. There are some weird similarities between a gallery and an abandoned place. Both stay invisible in busy city scape, only the interested one comes in. Both are quite, isolated and can be viewed as a platform for self expression: walls of an empty building are usually full of graffiti. Yet galleries are integral part of capital based relationships, abandoned places are out of the market play, being honest in their impracticality, as antithesis of forced practicality of marketable art field. Same as market interventions my personality and my choices, I intervention abandoned spaces with performative activity, using them as a tool of deconstruction of the cold logics of capitalism.
The inspiration for majority of paintings created during the stay in SomoS residency comes from contemporaryartdaily.com website, - the picture blog where world top galleries are posting their high level exhibitions every day. The shots are so white, ideal, symmetrical and fearfully clinical, that presence of any real life seems to be an excess. In the context of the show, photos taken from the website are painted and represented as a stage for the fiction situations underlining the lifelessness of art field professionalization, or opposite, bringing a life into it. In his book Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space Brian O Doherty claims that “A gallery is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church. The outside world must not come in”. Contemporaryartdaily.com can be viewed as an example of spiritual and humanistic qualities of art turned into impersonal shape of the commodity, the product, the concept western civilization based on.
Opposite to idealism of commercialized art world, the abandoned space appears as an antagonistic element of the exhibition narrative. Due to its difficult past and historical contradictions city of Berlin is full of decaying buildings, obscure monuments of socialist era. There are some weird similarities between a gallery and an abandoned place. Both stay invisible in busy city scape, only the interested one comes in. Both are quite, isolated and can be viewed as a platform for self expression: walls of an empty building are usually full of graffiti. Yet galleries are integral part of capital based relationships, abandoned places are out of the market play, being honest in their impracticality, as antithesis of forced practicality of marketable art field. Same as market interventions my personality and my choices, I intervention abandoned spaces with performative activity, using them as a tool of deconstruction of the cold logics of capitalism.
Potential of the artist's struggle(2018)
“…through the functionality, the domestic finality of the exterior world, man is supposed to fulfill himself qua man. The truth is something else entirely. In an environment of commodities and exchange value, man is no more himself than he is exchange value and commodity.”
Jean Baudrillard. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. 1972
The place of an artist in the world of things became especially interesting when a material aspect of living got dominant in the western civilization. We all are surrounded and manipulated by things and our personality is often constructed through things we buy, have, or produce. In the society where everything is understood through exchange or use value the sacred act of creation is something more than idealistic and naive. The personality of creator has become another value. If previously artists where exchanging their skill for money then now artists are exchanging their thoughts for money. Contemporary art museums have become banks of artists` thoughts literally, creating nominal guarantee of the function of art market.
Things and thoughts. Words and money. One is smoothly flowing into another.
How an artist should identify himself in the consumerist society? Even if art becomes a weapon of truth, deconstructing the contemporary myth, it will obviously be institutionalized, evaluated and conserved as a potential of human struggle while actual struggle is never happening. Therefore, I should ask myself, do I really produce art? Or maybe I am already a product of established art market? In the end the thought is always transferred into a sellable object because everybody has needs and needs are covered by material income. The name of the gallery I decided to make this exhibition literally means “store” which is more than honesty considering that galleries are actually stores for art and artists usually openly or closely sell or dream of selling their art. The given show is a peculiar acceptance of the art market; of self identifying as a commodity evaluated through the act of creation. In the context of the exhibition the act of selling art is much more sacred then the act of creation, same as product is more sacred than human in the context of consumeristic society. Doing art, therefore means creating another value in the chain of market base relationships.
Jean Baudrillard. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. 1972
The place of an artist in the world of things became especially interesting when a material aspect of living got dominant in the western civilization. We all are surrounded and manipulated by things and our personality is often constructed through things we buy, have, or produce. In the society where everything is understood through exchange or use value the sacred act of creation is something more than idealistic and naive. The personality of creator has become another value. If previously artists where exchanging their skill for money then now artists are exchanging their thoughts for money. Contemporary art museums have become banks of artists` thoughts literally, creating nominal guarantee of the function of art market.
Things and thoughts. Words and money. One is smoothly flowing into another.
How an artist should identify himself in the consumerist society? Even if art becomes a weapon of truth, deconstructing the contemporary myth, it will obviously be institutionalized, evaluated and conserved as a potential of human struggle while actual struggle is never happening. Therefore, I should ask myself, do I really produce art? Or maybe I am already a product of established art market? In the end the thought is always transferred into a sellable object because everybody has needs and needs are covered by material income. The name of the gallery I decided to make this exhibition literally means “store” which is more than honesty considering that galleries are actually stores for art and artists usually openly or closely sell or dream of selling their art. The given show is a peculiar acceptance of the art market; of self identifying as a commodity evaluated through the act of creation. In the context of the exhibition the act of selling art is much more sacred then the act of creation, same as product is more sacred than human in the context of consumeristic society. Doing art, therefore means creating another value in the chain of market base relationships.
I remined silent(2018)
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”. With these words Ludwig Wittgenstein finishes his famous Tractatus Logico Philosophicus written in 1921.
How can we speak about art then and do we really need to speak about it?
Through the history art was made more for looking at it and enjoying it. From the beginning of the 20thcentury, art has shaped into a form of a dialogue that asks certain questions and directs viewers´ way of thinking. The word “art” itself is a very contradictory linguistic form. Through different historical contexts and social practices it has had so many meanings that nowadays we can not relate to it anymore. “Only practice endows content to a word” claims Wittgenstein. And contemporary art itself is a flowing practice, not the concrete logical form. According to this flowing practice how is the personality of contemporary artist constructed? Is artist more like visual phenomenon constructed through images made by him? Or maybe theoretical, ideological one, defined and understood by the linguistic forms?
These are rhetorical questions, that may have no particular answers and I would not dare to give concrete answers to viewers who have so many opposite points of view. With these questions, I am taking a look towards myself, trying to figure out my own position in the world and particularly in the art world so overcrowded with written conceptions and quotes. In the given exhibition I reject speech bubbles on my paintings as they are heavily associated with vocal sounding. In some paintings I also reject characters. I In current works, am using aesthetics of subtitles and mute films, trying to distance from the own artist voice and let the silence and understatement play the game. Especially in the contemporary world, so full of information, - understatement is something frightening, making everybody feel uncomfortable. Art that makes you feel uncomfortable therefore resonates. Silence becomes reverberant.
How can we speak about art then and do we really need to speak about it?
Through the history art was made more for looking at it and enjoying it. From the beginning of the 20thcentury, art has shaped into a form of a dialogue that asks certain questions and directs viewers´ way of thinking. The word “art” itself is a very contradictory linguistic form. Through different historical contexts and social practices it has had so many meanings that nowadays we can not relate to it anymore. “Only practice endows content to a word” claims Wittgenstein. And contemporary art itself is a flowing practice, not the concrete logical form. According to this flowing practice how is the personality of contemporary artist constructed? Is artist more like visual phenomenon constructed through images made by him? Or maybe theoretical, ideological one, defined and understood by the linguistic forms?
These are rhetorical questions, that may have no particular answers and I would not dare to give concrete answers to viewers who have so many opposite points of view. With these questions, I am taking a look towards myself, trying to figure out my own position in the world and particularly in the art world so overcrowded with written conceptions and quotes. In the given exhibition I reject speech bubbles on my paintings as they are heavily associated with vocal sounding. In some paintings I also reject characters. I In current works, am using aesthetics of subtitles and mute films, trying to distance from the own artist voice and let the silence and understatement play the game. Especially in the contemporary world, so full of information, - understatement is something frightening, making everybody feel uncomfortable. Art that makes you feel uncomfortable therefore resonates. Silence becomes reverberant.
Weird Feeling (2018)
In his essay „Culture as error“ Stanisław Lem says that human society generates its culture only because of errors, failed attempts, misleadings, misinterpretations and misunderstandings. People aim to make a certain thing, but they end up doing something totally different. As they try to understand mechanisms of things, they get misguided. This essay was written in 1971 and was marked as „ironic“ by the author, but such kind of understanding about culture and arts as errors in their historical context can be compared to the characters of my works. For them the aesthetics of galleries, studios, museums and exhibition openings is firmly fixed, while ethics and human relations always remain under dispute.
This is how a weird feeling appears – things that we consider right and indisputable might be something else. Especially in the field of contemporary art that is becoming more and more professional, and where artist's personality and peculiarity quickly dissolve. Contemporary art and art market follow certain rules that – as other rules of society – are not natural and unconstrained, but rather subjugative and constructed, to make certain mechanisms work. Market and its mechanisms are purely logical and mathematical. Mostly it is not possible to describe creative thinking by using logic and numbers. Art business is affected by the same laws as all other businesses. But what kind of laws affect the work of these artists who participate in art business?
Rethinking the quotation of Stanisław Lem I would say that I tried to make contemporary art, but actually I did something totally different. Current exhibition as such is an error, as art gets in confrontation with the artist. Trying to view art as something harmful and dangerous I create a platform that enables to see artist's untable position within the contemporary global system with all its contradictions. The exhibition will be opened in the border town Valga/Valka and the symbolics of this place correspond to the borderline state of my characters – by denying the laws and logic of contemporary art they become its ephemeral objects, subjects and reflection. (To see videos "Art and Capitalism" and "One man parade" scroll down to VIDEOS.)
This is how a weird feeling appears – things that we consider right and indisputable might be something else. Especially in the field of contemporary art that is becoming more and more professional, and where artist's personality and peculiarity quickly dissolve. Contemporary art and art market follow certain rules that – as other rules of society – are not natural and unconstrained, but rather subjugative and constructed, to make certain mechanisms work. Market and its mechanisms are purely logical and mathematical. Mostly it is not possible to describe creative thinking by using logic and numbers. Art business is affected by the same laws as all other businesses. But what kind of laws affect the work of these artists who participate in art business?
Rethinking the quotation of Stanisław Lem I would say that I tried to make contemporary art, but actually I did something totally different. Current exhibition as such is an error, as art gets in confrontation with the artist. Trying to view art as something harmful and dangerous I create a platform that enables to see artist's untable position within the contemporary global system with all its contradictions. The exhibition will be opened in the border town Valga/Valka and the symbolics of this place correspond to the borderline state of my characters – by denying the laws and logic of contemporary art they become its ephemeral objects, subjects and reflection. (To see videos "Art and Capitalism" and "One man parade" scroll down to VIDEOS.)
Art is not just fun anymore(2017)
Gordin’s exhibition encapsulates a conflict where two existentialist behavioral models collide: negation of the everyday reality and the powerless submission to a personal reality. His fresh works use the artist’s personal story to direct the viewer through deceptive probabilities to the nightmarish reality. It is his recognition that absurd is the only means of survival: a tactic whereby opposition only confirms submission and opposition itself receives its strength from submission.
The exhibition at the Tartu Art House received its title from a series of videos depicting tattoo sessions where sentences from paintings that the artist has managed to sell are recorded on his body. Gordin describes this as merging with his own works. It is a parody of the art market where a timeless ideal becomes momentary profit. A tattoo will remain on the artist’s body forever unlike his works that come and go according to the flowing rules of the market.
The term “liquid modernity”, coined in opposition to postmodernism by the Polish-British sociologist sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, states that in the contemporary world “change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty”. The artists’ position in the contemporary society also seems to correspond to this. They are marginalised and have to balance between genuine urges and social survival. They have to co-operate with the market although it is despised by many as a corrupting influence on art’s pursuit of authenticity. The slogan “Art Is Not Just Fun Anymore” represents Gordin’s attempt to use a personal and physical experience to stop the flow in order to have a moment to look around. This is an attempt to contemplate the temporary things that form a person’s reality and are the basis of our world view with its perceptions and expectations.(To see videos from the series "Art is not just fun anymore" scroll down to VIDEOS)
The exhibition at the Tartu Art House received its title from a series of videos depicting tattoo sessions where sentences from paintings that the artist has managed to sell are recorded on his body. Gordin describes this as merging with his own works. It is a parody of the art market where a timeless ideal becomes momentary profit. A tattoo will remain on the artist’s body forever unlike his works that come and go according to the flowing rules of the market.
The term “liquid modernity”, coined in opposition to postmodernism by the Polish-British sociologist sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, states that in the contemporary world “change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty”. The artists’ position in the contemporary society also seems to correspond to this. They are marginalised and have to balance between genuine urges and social survival. They have to co-operate with the market although it is despised by many as a corrupting influence on art’s pursuit of authenticity. The slogan “Art Is Not Just Fun Anymore” represents Gordin’s attempt to use a personal and physical experience to stop the flow in order to have a moment to look around. This is an attempt to contemplate the temporary things that form a person’s reality and are the basis of our world view with its perceptions and expectations.(To see videos from the series "Art is not just fun anymore" scroll down to VIDEOS)
Dead end(2017)
How to describe artistic process, divided between personal and social, inner and outer? Painting in the studio is a carefree activity, justified just by the urge itself, without asking wider questions. Not for all maybe, but as many artists do, I emanate from the personal point of view, expanding it towards the global scale. And the global scale is the scary, not very confidence inspiring machine of changing priorities and false promises. Where is an artist there? Is he visible enough or rather lost himself between rotating gears of everyday reality, with its well established production of interests? By paintings, videos and drawings, united into the continuous narratives, I open up a half fiction world, based on my personal observations about artist´s reality. I feel it´s important to speak about things, that are not perfect, that are haunting and scaring me and you. Even if we can not change them immediately, we can expand stories around them, allowing us to rethink the problem and see it from another angle. I pick up different things from reality, and transform them into fiction, making them compose the body of my work, which is doubts, irony and self-denial.
If It disappears from here, it will immediately appear somewhere else(2016)
During last years I was travelling a lot around Estonia and neighbor post soviet republics, in search of remains of past era, such as ghost cities, abandoned military bases, factories and other industrial objects. Born in soviet Russia, moved to Estonia later and raised in the time of fast social changes, I am deeply fascinated by global developments caused by the struggle of political priorities. Finding and documenting abandoned architectural objects, means preservation of vanishing social niches, facts, memories, that nobody interested in anymore, but which have played a huge role in terms of local population history. For the project «If it disappears from here, it immediately will appear somewhere else», I was not only documenting abandoned places as a sided watcher, but also invaded them, making them part of my own activity.
In some point, this work is also a performative action, shot on camera, and transformed into a cinematic piece. In the video, collected old materials are reconstructed into something else, looking more like temporary sculptures, meant to be destroyed. Beside of sculptures, there is also a presence of someone else in the video, depersonalized character, symbolic figure, playing different roles. Sculptures and objects are theatrically destroyed afterwards, by the character or the fire, as a metaphor to instability of political conceptions changing with time and affecting social and private life of people. Phrase like «Future is bright» presented in the video as a wooden structure placed in a ruined military complex, near Loksa, where one of the main Soviet border protective base was located, is the ironic comment on the situation, where not only massive constructions were left abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also ideas, plans and expectations. It goes together also with the typical slogans of promising the better future for the working class, known from numerous propaganda posters, murals on the walls of industrial and military buildings etc. Constructing the phrase and placing it on the ruins of previous power, and brutal ceremonial burning it afterwards, makes a feeling of false promises, characteristic to all kinds of influential political powers. In terms of global history, there are a lot of cases where one political power promised to correct the mistakes of the previous one, leading actually just to another collapse.
Images and architectural objects, collected in the video, lead a viewer to a journey through the forgotten and ruined, pointing to the uncomfortable past we all share, and questioning its influence on our future. Places documented in the video, are reminding about something we would forget as a mistake, but in another way, they could be inviting and intrigue like prohibited monuments, stuck between time, cultures and memories. (Scroll down to "Videos" to see the video)
In some point, this work is also a performative action, shot on camera, and transformed into a cinematic piece. In the video, collected old materials are reconstructed into something else, looking more like temporary sculptures, meant to be destroyed. Beside of sculptures, there is also a presence of someone else in the video, depersonalized character, symbolic figure, playing different roles. Sculptures and objects are theatrically destroyed afterwards, by the character or the fire, as a metaphor to instability of political conceptions changing with time and affecting social and private life of people. Phrase like «Future is bright» presented in the video as a wooden structure placed in a ruined military complex, near Loksa, where one of the main Soviet border protective base was located, is the ironic comment on the situation, where not only massive constructions were left abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also ideas, plans and expectations. It goes together also with the typical slogans of promising the better future for the working class, known from numerous propaganda posters, murals on the walls of industrial and military buildings etc. Constructing the phrase and placing it on the ruins of previous power, and brutal ceremonial burning it afterwards, makes a feeling of false promises, characteristic to all kinds of influential political powers. In terms of global history, there are a lot of cases where one political power promised to correct the mistakes of the previous one, leading actually just to another collapse.
Images and architectural objects, collected in the video, lead a viewer to a journey through the forgotten and ruined, pointing to the uncomfortable past we all share, and questioning its influence on our future. Places documented in the video, are reminding about something we would forget as a mistake, but in another way, they could be inviting and intrigue like prohibited monuments, stuck between time, cultures and memories. (Scroll down to "Videos" to see the video)
Do not disturb me from doing my art project (2016)
Main topic of those paintings, drawings and videos varies between being an artist and being a human in the fast developing capitalistic society, where the market and excessive individualistic and consumer culture leads us to the question of the position of art in relation to everyday life of the middle class people. How much do we need contemporary art in our life and is it really possible to change something through it in the context where a person of an artist is still something fully understood by clichés and myths? In my artworks, I am creating disturbing and repulsive situations, mirroring the fear of an artist, being let alone with his work, surrounded by the ignorance reality, where art has more negative meaning, than the positive and «healing» one. In that sense, fiction characters of my artwork become antiheroes, and their environment is cruel and hostile. The main thing about this installation, is a negation of traditional conception of being an artist spread among the contemporary art society, and try to look into it through the eyes of a raw, not educated person. In other words, in present work I am balancing between being an artist myself, doing art and discussing it from one side and completely deny all possible norms and advantages of art from another side, developing some kind of alter-ego, who does not care about things such as career, success and recognition. Artist´s inherent criticality, turns against him, making him a victim of collective misunderstanding, because of the society setting, where there is no time to stop and think, but run all the time for the inflicted values, offering people “beautiful” life they will never have. I consider my working process as an endless questioning of reasonableness of making art while constantly making it, because there are some problems with no solution, beside of letting things just go, and trying to create, as an answer to imperfection of the world, built by humans. That’s way, I am never serious, or demotivating, but more like “friendly mocking” on contemporary art, using a lot of black, but harmless humor, as a try to make a viewer see my uncertain position in relation to the global situation of the artist´s position in the society.
(Scroll down to "Videos" to see 6 video performances)
(Scroll down to "Videos" to see 6 video performances)
Forever not ready(2015)
To be honest, I would not like to write anything about the show, because I am not ready to say something specific yet. During the last year, I have been doing quite a lot of works for this exhibition, but I like only 2 of them for now, and hate others. It happens like this, when you work a lot, and if somebody asks you why? – than you are confused to answer. I just wanted to do art, and I did.
I have been visiting a lot of art shows, and I have also been discussing art with artists. Sometimes, it causes so many mixed feelings, that I started to draw and paint fiction artists and exhibitions. Then I added also art audience and other people working in the field of art.
Even when the life is going alright, I can be critical towards things. Because of that my characters behave badly and do weird things. But if someone is able to look deeper, than he can see a lot of reasons for that particular type of behaviour, and as a part of art society, I am not ready to name them yet. I just wanted to be critical and I was. All my characters are part of me, and because of that, I can say I am critical also towards myself.
As you can see from the exhibition name, there are possibly endless processes in focus. And they do not deal only with phenomena of creating and finding the sence of creation afterwards. Processes, that are forming contemporary art in general, and my personal artworks into their present shape, are made to think about. All these endlessly alternating processes, are rising the question, - how can an artist survive among his own artworks, and make a viewer to ponder things, that no one do not want to reflect?
I have been visiting a lot of art shows, and I have also been discussing art with artists. Sometimes, it causes so many mixed feelings, that I started to draw and paint fiction artists and exhibitions. Then I added also art audience and other people working in the field of art.
Even when the life is going alright, I can be critical towards things. Because of that my characters behave badly and do weird things. But if someone is able to look deeper, than he can see a lot of reasons for that particular type of behaviour, and as a part of art society, I am not ready to name them yet. I just wanted to be critical and I was. All my characters are part of me, and because of that, I can say I am critical also towards myself.
As you can see from the exhibition name, there are possibly endless processes in focus. And they do not deal only with phenomena of creating and finding the sence of creation afterwards. Processes, that are forming contemporary art in general, and my personal artworks into their present shape, are made to think about. All these endlessly alternating processes, are rising the question, - how can an artist survive among his own artworks, and make a viewer to ponder things, that no one do not want to reflect?
Art and capitalism (2015)
Art and Capitalism is a holistic installation from paintings, objects and video, exploring difficult relationships between artist and market.(To see the video, scroll down to Videos)
As a contemporary artist I rise a lot of questions, but never provide any answers(2014-2015)
Installation consists of a painted wooden object, stop motion animated loop and sound. During autumn and winter 2014, I was collecting random pieces of plywood from public space. Later in my studio, I was repainting natural plywood surface with extremely bright, psychodelic colours, so that original wooden pattern became something playful and visible, which was some kind of parody to contemporary abstract painting. As I was figurative painter most of my life, this project became a paranoidal activity for me, interesting state of mind, where you don´t think too much about painting itself, but just endlessly recreating already existing pattern. I was interested in a phenomenon of a useless activity, because doing art in general means a constant searching for something you don´t really know and even understand, so "work" for the artist does not have to be resulted, but more processed, without any useful result sometimes. Me personally, is a figurative painter, who always has a ready picture in his mind, before starting to create a painting. This project, was a rejecting from "usual" me, trying to put myself into a different, strange condition. During a few month, I created numerous "plywood paintings", and decided to finalize my useless activity with a three dimentional object, process animation and a sound piece. While creating sound, I was analising my own abstraction, trying to achieve different platforms and create holistic installation, where each of different elements would give more information about other. (For animation and sound, scroll down to Videos)
Artist collecting bottles (2014)
Current project is focused on the issue of artistic work and poverty. In the contemporary world, where everything is being sold and bought, art has become a product. Contemporary art is a specific market with its own laws that are similar to the markets of automobiles and food. Art as a product must be nice and attractive in mental and material level. As everything else, it has to in the market, in order to find its consumer. Art is a social element and contemporary art cannot exist without society.
As there are laws and systems of society, there is always something opposed to them. The wretched and the homeless, drunks and junkies have become the victims of society. Laws and norms have no effect on them, as they hardly contribute to society. But what about artists – what is their contribution? What makes them more important? Art as a product is the only way for making one's living, while there is question, if the society really needs art?! Contemporary art often appears as too elitistic and dependent on certain institutions. My new exhibition brings together the artistic work with the world of the wretched, both in the context of a contemporary developing city.
During five months i was picking through the trash, collecting empty cans and bottles, in order to finance my artistic work. This is not considered as real work, but rather a kind of parasitism. Especially when one doesn't have a job, but is picking up what others are throwing away, while constantly drinking and becoming even more disabled. As an artist i aimed to analyze this social phenomena and to experiment with the world of the wretched. What to do, when someone is picking bottles, instead of developing her/himself, doing something better? So i started to pick throgh the trash myself, in order to invest the money to cultural development and artistic work. I distanced myself temporarily from the regular artistic work, where an artist is dependant on galleries, curators and funds. In three months i made 250 EUR, which is the budget of the current exhibition. (To see the short film "13 euro" scroll down to "Videos")
As there are laws and systems of society, there is always something opposed to them. The wretched and the homeless, drunks and junkies have become the victims of society. Laws and norms have no effect on them, as they hardly contribute to society. But what about artists – what is their contribution? What makes them more important? Art as a product is the only way for making one's living, while there is question, if the society really needs art?! Contemporary art often appears as too elitistic and dependent on certain institutions. My new exhibition brings together the artistic work with the world of the wretched, both in the context of a contemporary developing city.
During five months i was picking through the trash, collecting empty cans and bottles, in order to finance my artistic work. This is not considered as real work, but rather a kind of parasitism. Especially when one doesn't have a job, but is picking up what others are throwing away, while constantly drinking and becoming even more disabled. As an artist i aimed to analyze this social phenomena and to experiment with the world of the wretched. What to do, when someone is picking bottles, instead of developing her/himself, doing something better? So i started to pick throgh the trash myself, in order to invest the money to cultural development and artistic work. I distanced myself temporarily from the regular artistic work, where an artist is dependant on galleries, curators and funds. In three months i made 250 EUR, which is the budget of the current exhibition. (To see the short film "13 euro" scroll down to "Videos")
MARCH 1989 - august 2014 (2014)
Where does our time end? Where does it begin? Time is the meaning we can`t understand properly, but it dictates us how to live. Run without a distination all life long. Time is nothing, emptiness, but money at the same time. Childhood, youth, fast maturing. Car, home, children. In the certain time intervals, it is everything, but later, this everything turns into nothing. Past is a void. Time flies like a wind when you are young. I am sure I was born yesterday. My mum told me I was born in 1989.
Russia, Tomsk. Beginning of 90th. Unbearable, but so naive songs on TV. Hide and seek behind the tin garages. Dead junkie in the entryway. What did he dream about before his death? Now it doesn`t matter. Time had vanished all away, quickly and flawlessly. 16 or 17 years ago... or maybe 18 or 19. Time means nothing.
Tallinn, Estonia, 2013. The pale sun reflects on a high-rise buildings glass surface. Trum number 4 stops with a creak behind my back. Psychodelic trance in the headphones. Looking through the eyes of my generation, it seems like a big blast had destoyed everything. Like the time had started from zero. We were born in a time when the new spring began. Cold and gray like an early March. As we were growing older, our ancestors bright hopes vanished away. But we were OK. Just the time had dictated its rules. New age came too fast. Millions of people even didn`t realise what had happened. Things, ideas and states have changed their names. We have lost ourselves in a huge amount of things. Time is overcrowded with stuff. Stuff is nothing. Spring ended long ago, summer started. I don`t know, when the autumn will come. Just don`t give a fuck. But it seems like it is August. My generation needs to run farther.
What did junkie dream about before his death? About women... about god?
I think about time whan I am painting, shooting or filming. It seems like I am caught in a trap between two ages.
(To see a short film, scroll down to Videos)
Russia, Tomsk. Beginning of 90th. Unbearable, but so naive songs on TV. Hide and seek behind the tin garages. Dead junkie in the entryway. What did he dream about before his death? Now it doesn`t matter. Time had vanished all away, quickly and flawlessly. 16 or 17 years ago... or maybe 18 or 19. Time means nothing.
Tallinn, Estonia, 2013. The pale sun reflects on a high-rise buildings glass surface. Trum number 4 stops with a creak behind my back. Psychodelic trance in the headphones. Looking through the eyes of my generation, it seems like a big blast had destoyed everything. Like the time had started from zero. We were born in a time when the new spring began. Cold and gray like an early March. As we were growing older, our ancestors bright hopes vanished away. But we were OK. Just the time had dictated its rules. New age came too fast. Millions of people even didn`t realise what had happened. Things, ideas and states have changed their names. We have lost ourselves in a huge amount of things. Time is overcrowded with stuff. Stuff is nothing. Spring ended long ago, summer started. I don`t know, when the autumn will come. Just don`t give a fuck. But it seems like it is August. My generation needs to run farther.
What did junkie dream about before his death? About women... about god?
I think about time whan I am painting, shooting or filming. It seems like I am caught in a trap between two ages.
(To see a short film, scroll down to Videos)
between the past and the cosmos (2013)
Project consists of paintings, drawings, photos, ready-made objects and a video, all working together in a holistic installation. I was interested in the idea of time stop in both cultural and social aspects. Exposition is partly inspired by the trips to Ida-Virumaa,-the poorest part of Estonia mostly populated by the Russians, who migrated here for work in the soviet times. It seems like time has stopped there, buildings have not been renovated for 40-50 years, huge factories are empty and abandoned. People have no work and no possibilities for development. In addition, a high rate of alcoholism and drug addiction is common for this region, which is also reflected in the demographic situation. I was using metaphoric solution in creating artworks for this show, imagining alternative reality at the same time. Fiction characters on paintings and drawings are ironically tuned about hopelessness of their condition. Conseption of the past in this context is a reflection of cultural trauma and the meaning of cosmos is an eternal people`s aspiration for ideal, harmonic life.(To see the video "Excavating 1993" scroll down to "Videos")
no money to rent a gallery (2013)
When an artist can`t show his creation to a viewer at the right place and time because of the financial problems, it is a reason for the question: Is the art gallery an opportunity for development or rather a call for fight? «No money to rent a gallery» project main idea is a creation of a paradox where the artist and the gallery don’t complement each other, but constitute one part. Artist is building his own gallery to exhibit his art. Building the gallery in a place, which is not connected with art somehow, transfers artworks to an another level. Logical sequence is broken, and the gallery becomes a unique personal space, artist`s essential part; the gallery room itself turns into the artwork.(To see video "Artists meat" presented in the exhibition, scroll down to Videos)
various drawings 2008 - 2014
There are all facilities and comfort made for us in the surrounding world, but most of us still don’t feel safely. On the other hand, we all believe in the bright future. At the same time we are afraid that everything will change suddenly, especially in the post-soviet countries, where only 25 years ago totally different conditions, values and targets prevailed. Today life is like a crazy race, where there is no time to think globally. All that is going on nowadays is often an absurdity, but we believe all things must be like they are, unable to change anything. In my drawings I speculate on today`s society fears and transmit my personal experiences in a form of grotesque. My characters are living in the conditions where human values have vanished away. Depressive plot and brutal black humor often direct viewers attention to the fact that a contemporary human feels like a tiny dot in a huge system, where power and truth have become enemies.