24/03-21/04’26

CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia

curated by An Kubanova

photo: Evgeniya Senina

Navigation Season

The work on the series began with an unmediated interaction, with the encounter of a living human gaze with the dynamic water space from the deck of a vessel; only selected fragments of this unmediated impression were captured on camera and later became the source material for the painted works. Within the series, and sometimes within a single plane, specific images, as elements of compositional montage, form, at first glance, a mimetic panorama of the Volga. In keeping with the artist’s practice, the individual canvases are distinguished by the utmost clarity of language, the concreteness and tangibility of the images. Taken individually, the works reproduce the effect of verisimilitude typical of the realistic painting style, and its emotional restraint, ensured by the photographic basis, plays with the viewer’s trust in documentary recording. Nevertheless, the overall visual structure of the series is more complex than the first impression it makes: it rejects a specific perspective and is characterized by the incompleteness and fluidity of the depicted reality. This is not a static illustration of river tourism, but a tourism of viewpoints. This way of constructing the image raises the question of the objectivity of perception: is a universal and neutral vision of reality possible, or is the perception of it always formed like a montage, from truncated fragments, erased memories, and shifted perspectives?

The logic of these reflections is reflected in the choice of artistic means. The artist uses the potential of painting and photography, which traditionally claim to provide an accurate record, to combine different ways of engaging with reality: prolonged observation and instantaneous recording, the recreation of an image and the documentation of a trace. The fluctuating space beyond the ship’s side is shaped by the medium of painting, the bearer of a subjective artistic perspective, while the ship itself, embodied in the print, serves as a reliable support and outlines a clear contour of reality. However, their combination only underscores the fact that an image is always formed through a choice, and the picture of the world cannot be captured in a single moment and is built anew with each gaze. The series offers an experience of independent navigation and internal orientation, requiring the viewer to actively participate through constant comparison, reconstruction, and reinterpretation of what is seen, as opposed to passive contemplation of a final interpretation. The main protagonist is not a natural phenomenon, nor a cultural symbol of the Volga, but rather a gaze and the one who carries it. The relativity of perception and the subjective reconstruction of reality is not experienced in this case as a problem requiring resolution, but is revealed as the only available way of knowing. The final vantage point is revealed through a stereoscope — an instrument that, against the backdrop of the main body of work, uniquely enriches the nature of interaction with visual space. Through its optics, the image is literally layered into intersecting perspectives and requires the viewer’s effort to transform them into a coherent, comprehensible image.

“Navigation Season” addresses the experience of everyday life, which is as changeable as the flow of a river, where the nature of memory, perception, and imagination forms a space where fiction and fixation meet. In this space, time loses its usual linearity and is experienced as a condensed coexistence of moments, in which the boundaries between the past, present, and future blur, and the gaze is drawn to an expanse of frozen uncertainty, yet it learns to follow the flow and capture its slow turns and barely noticeable changes.

The works were created at the “Vaults” Center for Artistic Production GES‑2. The exhibition’s partner is the “Obdn” gallery.

(Text: An Kubanova)