In the time of broadband and social networks we can witness reality of a single and indivisible world falling apart and creating a spectrum, where social, political, virtual, subjective and objective realities blur the borders between the valid from the invalid, the false from the true. Art can hardly help bring the scattered fragments together; it can however reconcile us with multiplicity. Konstantinova’s Hello Reality brings together stylistically disparate works so the viewer can see different facets of the same problem.
In her art, Konstantinova refers to different artistic movements, from Suprematism to Conceptualism, and to various periods in art history, including the legacy of the Soviet totalitarian epoch and new wave of the 1980s. The artist uses her homages as means of ironical conclusions, encrypted in associations. Konstantinova refers to the phenomenological reduction in the series, where deliberately innocent images accompany slang words, written in block letters. It is an attempt to correlate the signifier with the signified, to comprehend the abyss, which separates our mind from the things of the everyday.
Degenerotip series is the core of Konstantinova’s project. The works are not painted on canvas, but on floral print and barred cotton fabrics. It’s a tribute to artists like Timur Novikov and Georgy Litichevsky, as well as a symbol of a crisis, a situation where art is marginalized and the artist has to work on a bed sheet and use paint for shoes. All works are portraits of a girl wiping away her tears, made in a comic book style. The drawing is transferred onto the canvas inaccurately. Facial features are displaced, proportions are distorted. Sometimes it is unnoticeable, sometimes it is obvious. In any case, the canon is broken and the borders, separating beauty from ugliness are questioned.
In Painting for Holes, the artist returns to the aesthetics of the Russian avant-garde. An installation of colorful geometric shapes on a white wall will remind the viewer of Suprematist artists of the early 20th century, but the title of the series completely shifts our perspective. Inviting the viewer to place colored squares and circles in such a wall that they would cover up holes and bumps on the wall, the artist comments on the place of art in contemporary life, deliberately reducing the pathos, recalling its purely utilitarian function.
Hello Reality doesn’t aim at putting together the shaky reality, but demonstrates its many manifestations, bringing it together with art. These experiments allow us to interact with the reality. Liudmila Konstantinova boldly moves towards it with a loud Hello!
Natalya Lyakh at Russian Museum
Pierre-Christian Brochetо about one of his favorite contemporary artists, Valery Chtak
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Reto Emch “Installtaion Jurassic Town”
“The center of everything”. A family of bright representetives of the contemporary art Gosha Ostretsov and Liudmila Konstantionova recently acquired a new art studio and turned it into a Power Place. Kommersant says.
(Russian) “Художник должен быть модным”
Martin Kasper.Architecture and Transgression
“I’ve been abducted hundreds of times” Gosha Ostretsov on the 57th Venice Biennale
Gosha Ostretsov, Irins Korina and Natalya Lyakh on the 57th Venice Biennale:
The Art Newspaper Russia about “Hypothetical dance” exhibition by George Litichevsky
Un cri, un coup de poing, droit dans les yeux, Vglaz !
The mental abduction of the artist
Liudmila Konstantinova’s personal exhibition NO AMBITIONS will be held in ERARTA Museum of contemporary art
Liudmila Konstantinova Hello Reality in MMOMA
The artist George Ostretsov: “I’ve been abducted for 100 times!”
“Intertext” group exhibition in museum of contemporary art Erarta
Kandinsky prize of 2015 is awarded to Olga Kroytor in the nomination Young Artist
(Russian) Вечерний Петербург “Голова моя машет ушами”
Interview in our KOP Studio. Paint me Tender
Last week swiss Artist Reto E.M.C.H. visited Artika.
PINK BOX
“Educational film”: Bright colors of “rust belt” of Moscow by “Moscow 24” channel
«Maximum approximation»: Gosha Ostretsov for “Moscow 24” TV channel
Irina Korina is nominated to Innovation-2014
Dmitry Bulnygin’s exhibition “Nothing isperfect” in MAMM. Retrospective of video and photo works.
About the place and importance of emergency Art George Osrtetsov tells on the tv channel “Culture”
“Artika” goes japanese
PG group continues to stir the audience in London, in the Saatchi Gallery this time
PG group took a part in Passion For Freedom competition
New concept-car model on russian automobile market by George Ostretsov
Harper’s Bazaar Art 2013. Article about COP Studio
Artika Collection. Art Moscow 2013
KOP Studio. Winter shows
The Telegraph about Saatchi show
Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Art Newspaper Russia
Snob Magazine
Vglaz for Fraufluger
KOP Studio. Autumn exhibition schedule