Dashing 90s in Russian art

Either after honouring the new issue of DI dedicated to the fate of art criticism, or I have already accumulated. Or there was a little time to reflect on what you saw.

I just left the exhibition halls of the Ekaterina Foundation. I was looking at the dashing 90s, but with some caution. In my past, these "dashing" were a little hungry, painful and generally "it's better not to remember." I was at the Yeltsin Center a month ago. And as alive: some have hopes for freedom, others have insane business opportunities, others have hunger... And after the farewell speech, BN only to be filled with combustible tears...

But in "Ekaterina" - enthusiasm and search for new tools. Experiment on the experiment. Despite the fact that there are actually 2 exhibitions in the halls, they are perceived as a whole. First - about the artistic party (St. Petersburg mainly), then, on the 3rd floor, - about new media in Russian art of the 1990s.

It should be understood that the expositions are built around 3-5 key surnames - Vlad Mamyshev-Monroe, Timur Novikov, Olga Tobreltus, Oleg Maslov, and Andrey Haas. There are a lot of their works, there are many of their faces in different states and different combinations.

Probably, if I were some part of the events that are shown, I had some nostalgia. Probably, I cried about the departed and burned about the freedom that suddenly collapsed and which is now customary to remember as lost.

I look at these artists (artists) as alien creatures. That is, "it" existed somewhere in a parallel universe, and I hardly know about it. In my 1990s, there were Chinese plaid bags with smelly clothes, pasta instead of salary and a drug addict neighbour on our stairs in the evenings, who had to be somehow bypassed to get home after school.

Yes, I know about Russian artistic trends in paintings and retelling stories from curators and artists. Here, thanks to a mixture of media, immersion in the era are built. Although "era" is not the term. "Art rave" is better suited. Some seemingly eternal drilling both in some taverns and on the artistic plane. I just fell in love with the works of Olga Tobreluts (photos for Russian Vogue and portraits of heroes of Greek myths). Absolutely perfect sense of proportion in colour and texture...

But there is a clear disadvantage in the exposure. I can't look at collages from "everything at hand" in a perfect white cube. This is the very gesture when, by placing something in the space of a gallery or museum, it certainly becomes art. But no. I want more realistic, not sterile. Of course, to place bulls, packs of white or Rhodope, and empty bottles at the corners of the fund hall and fill the airspace with thick smelly smoke, you need to have great courage. But the "real" is very lacking.

In general, the exhibitions are beautiful. And it's not sad or painful. But it moves towards creativity for sure.