Anna Parkina
15 Feb - 28 Mar 2013
ANNA PARKINA
Only a Sleeping Person Doesn’t Blink
15 February – 28 March 2013
Moscow garages meet the garages of San Francisco; the parasols of a shaded Los Angeles café are erected in a Parisian stairwell, off which doors lead up into the Moscow University; passengers wait for a train in Brest, France, amongst over-sized ceramic cups, up-turned from a Parisian café.
Through the medium of collage AnnaParkina has developed her own international language, one which speaks of cohesion and harmony, blending disparate images, in amongst the fragments of incompatible cultures and varying geographical contexts.
Whilst Parkina’s work is often associated with Russian Constructivism, it also has many parallels with the art of another equally remarkable Russian group of the 1920s, the Union of Real Art (OBERIU). At a time when both press and popular culture submitted to the oppressive control of the Soviet authorities, the writers, philosophers and poets that composed OBERIU represented what has been called the last of the Russian avant-gardes, fascinated with the absurd and the anarchic.
At the core of OBERIU’s poetical method lies a collision between incompatible words. Unlike the poetical games of their contemporaries, the Surrealists, the collision intended by OBERIU did not aim to destroy the usual way of thinking, but to force each word to display unexpected nuances. By breaking down the constructs of meaning, OBERIU sought to reveal the very substance of truth.
Although OBERIU produced a wide range of poetry, prose and theatre, they had little experience of the visual arts.
Parkina’s work thus absorbs the artistic techniques of the OBERIU movement, filtering and transforming these techniques through the inclusion of contemporary art forms, whilst her work remains saturated with the historical and cultural changes that have taken place since the era of OBERIU.
Anna Parkina lives and works in Moscow.Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Sacred Ambush is full of Parrots Screaming’ (Two person show with Andrew Gilbert),SVIT Praha, Prague (2011), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2011), ‘Egg in the Fist’, Wilkinson Gallery, London (2010), ‘The ticket is for today’, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2010), and ‘Nests’, Gladstone Gallery, New York. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Perspectives on Collage’, The Photographer’s Gallery, London (until 7 April 2013), ‘Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union’, Saatchi Gallery, London (until 5 May 2013), and ‘Things, Words, Consequences’, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2012)
Only a Sleeping Person Doesn’t Blink
15 February – 28 March 2013
Moscow garages meet the garages of San Francisco; the parasols of a shaded Los Angeles café are erected in a Parisian stairwell, off which doors lead up into the Moscow University; passengers wait for a train in Brest, France, amongst over-sized ceramic cups, up-turned from a Parisian café.
Through the medium of collage AnnaParkina has developed her own international language, one which speaks of cohesion and harmony, blending disparate images, in amongst the fragments of incompatible cultures and varying geographical contexts.
Whilst Parkina’s work is often associated with Russian Constructivism, it also has many parallels with the art of another equally remarkable Russian group of the 1920s, the Union of Real Art (OBERIU). At a time when both press and popular culture submitted to the oppressive control of the Soviet authorities, the writers, philosophers and poets that composed OBERIU represented what has been called the last of the Russian avant-gardes, fascinated with the absurd and the anarchic.
At the core of OBERIU’s poetical method lies a collision between incompatible words. Unlike the poetical games of their contemporaries, the Surrealists, the collision intended by OBERIU did not aim to destroy the usual way of thinking, but to force each word to display unexpected nuances. By breaking down the constructs of meaning, OBERIU sought to reveal the very substance of truth.
Although OBERIU produced a wide range of poetry, prose and theatre, they had little experience of the visual arts.
Parkina’s work thus absorbs the artistic techniques of the OBERIU movement, filtering and transforming these techniques through the inclusion of contemporary art forms, whilst her work remains saturated with the historical and cultural changes that have taken place since the era of OBERIU.
Anna Parkina lives and works in Moscow.Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Sacred Ambush is full of Parrots Screaming’ (Two person show with Andrew Gilbert),SVIT Praha, Prague (2011), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2011), ‘Egg in the Fist’, Wilkinson Gallery, London (2010), ‘The ticket is for today’, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2010), and ‘Nests’, Gladstone Gallery, New York. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Perspectives on Collage’, The Photographer’s Gallery, London (until 7 April 2013), ‘Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union’, Saatchi Gallery, London (until 5 May 2013), and ‘Things, Words, Consequences’, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2012)