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Gifts. Play Modules. Series °1-9
metal, paint
circa 25 cm
2014/2018
Commission for the exhibition Beauty of Disgraceful, Belyaevo Art Center, Moscow (2014)
curated by Andrey Erofeev
unique
courtesy of the artist, private collections
ph Chloé Pernet, Azad Asifovich
images (c) Katya Ev
This series takes its origin in the research around Moscow yellow-n-green urban fences, it is accompanied by a related photographic series and a postcards edition.
"Her installation Gifts. Play Modules refers to a peculiar obsession of Russian authorities with enclosure of public spaces. An integral and perhaps the most striking element of Russian urbanism, fences of all kinds (known in Russian as ‘забор/zabor’) surround buildings, lawns, flower beds and pavements. Their yellow and green colour scheme is supposed to imitate natural colours, but instead, it only emphasises the absurdity of their omnipresence in residential areas. Presenting the extensive typology of ‘zabor’ in a series of postcards and imitating the technique and appearance of these barriers in her playful modules, Katya Ev undertakes the deconstruction of this symbol of protection and
control." Ekaterina Vorontsova, Orangerie, Het Paviljoen, Ghent (Be), 2021
"The city of Moscow is characterized by a large number of metal fences, painted in frustrating yellow and green. No two are identical, and the places where they are deployed bear witness to an irrationality that is above all the expression of disguised economic interests. This Moscow vocabulary serves as a reference for a series of linear sculptures that evoke constructivist abstraction and its avant-garde utopias. Despite their aesthetic dimension, linked to their decontextualization, the graphic structures retain a coarse, clumsy character that could be read as an indication that the political ideals of twentieth-century Russian art movements are outdated. What remains is a rejection of the well-made, which charges the objects with a ferocious dimension, while their change of scale lends them a playful aspect". Fabien Danesi, Etat d'Exception, Galerie Dix9, Paris (Fr), 2018
Bibliography:
2016 cat. Là où nous sommes. Regards d’artistes sur l’anthropocène, Paris (Fr)
2014 cat. Beauty of disgraceful, Art Center Belyaevo, Moscow (Ru)
2014 Moscow 24, "Beauty of disgraceful", TV broadcasting (Ru)
Exhibitions:
2021 Orangerie, Het Paviljoen - KASK Curatorial Studies, Ghent (Be)
2019 Architectures Intérieures, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Val-de-Seine, Paris (Fr)
2018 Etat d'Exception, solo exhibition, Galerie Dix9, Paris (Fr)
2017 Correspondances / Vasistas / Le regard à travers la fenêtre / Il se passe quelque chose entre nous, Galerie Mansart, Paris (Fr)
2016 Là où nous sommes. Regards d’artistes sur l’anthropocène, espace Jussieu, Paris (Fr)
2014 Beauty of disgraceful, Art Center Belyaevo, Moscow (Ru), 2014
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