ARTIKA

.We’re glad to inform you that a part of the Artika’s corporate collection was exhibited at the Art Moscow from the 18th until the 22d of September 2013
The name of the new corporate collection of contemporary art, initiated by Elvira Tarnogradskaya, Alexander Kurnaev and Dmitry Markov, evokes geographical associations, prompting to think about some unexplored continent.

It is true, as one of the main activities of «Artika» company is a construction of some kind of parallel art-geography, the consistent promotion of the development of independent art colonies in the old buildings and industrial zones of Moscow. Collective workshops in Lebiazhy Lane (2010-2011), KOP studio at the «Plastic» factory (starting from 2011) — these are simultaneously art workshops and centers of contemporary culture, self-organizing as a parallel space, alternative to the official art system.

In this process there appeared a collection of works by contemporary Moscow artists that fully complies with the general meta-geographical vector. Where is meta-geography, there is meta-politics. That truly applies to the works of Georgy Ostretsov, who created 15 years ago parallel reality of New Government, saturated with comic-book imagery. His painting «Oligarch and alligator» refers to the realities of today, but the humor and the expressiveness brings it closer to NG series. The sculpture «Mickey and Mini» of Alexander Kosolapov, the founder of sots-art, a hybrid of ENEA USSR and Disneyland, also appeals to a certain parallel artistic reflection, where the differences between the world of soviet propaganda and western mass culture fade away. A portrait of Putin by Mamyshev-Monroe — either a product of professional image-maker or a handicraft of a self-taught artisan — takes the viewer into a carnival meta-political space. The same character, presented in a cartoon-style work of Liudmila Konstantinova «Just you wait!», moves into politics, mutating into a political animation. Generalized images of policemen and ordinary people on the canvases of Georgy Litichevsky are transferred into the impossible reality of yogic practices and self-eating. In the works of Sergey Anufriev, Sergey Pakhomov, Daria Krotova the unusual combination of familiar images brings the viewer off the ordinary reality.

For «Art Moscow» exhibition, from the collection of «Artika» company were chosen only works vividly reflecting the absurdity of contemporary life. The whole palette of diverse artistic practices makes a clear picture of the current Russia, a cast of the social reality in situ.

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