Sergei Shekhovtsov
31 Mar - 26 Apr 2009
SERGEI SHEKHOVTSOV
"Fahrenheit 392" - installation
March 31 thru April 26
The new work by Shekhovtsov is a memorial to industrial catastrophe. A molten robodog sits on top of household garbage heap of loudspeakers, vacuum cleaners, tires, computers, fridges, flat-screen TVs - all sort of familiar corpuscles of consumer paradise that almost replaced the life goals and values of the “civilized” mankind. And then out of the blue the crisis stroke, making this artwork a reminder of the funeral of consumer society. However garbage has always been an important theme in Russian contemporary art, symbolizing the true inner side of life in contrast with its false facade. Shekhovtsov’s garbage pile is multi-layered in an art sense too: the rubbish foam rubber imitates all sorts of modern civilization waste.
The Fahrenheit scale in the exhibition title refers to the famous dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury, where (in the future world of post-1990) the books were burnt at 451 degrees. Shekhovtsov’s beloved foam rubber thermally degrades at even lower 392 degrees Fahrenheit. The dark future predicted by Bradbury 56 years ago has already happened. Maybe the libraries are not yet incinerated literally, and the robodogs are manufactured as toy pets, still most of the writers visions are true. There’s a lot from the gloomy totalitarian dystopia in the Shekhovtsov’s new work. As well as obvious crisis driven allusions of the end of glamour capitalism. Even the artist’s witty reference to the animation story of a lonely robot left on a wasted Earth while people are having fun in deep space, turns into a tragic figure of the last electric dog silently howling at the invisible Earth’s artificial satellite.
exhibition media partner: Art&Antiques
"Fahrenheit 392" - installation
March 31 thru April 26
The new work by Shekhovtsov is a memorial to industrial catastrophe. A molten robodog sits on top of household garbage heap of loudspeakers, vacuum cleaners, tires, computers, fridges, flat-screen TVs - all sort of familiar corpuscles of consumer paradise that almost replaced the life goals and values of the “civilized” mankind. And then out of the blue the crisis stroke, making this artwork a reminder of the funeral of consumer society. However garbage has always been an important theme in Russian contemporary art, symbolizing the true inner side of life in contrast with its false facade. Shekhovtsov’s garbage pile is multi-layered in an art sense too: the rubbish foam rubber imitates all sorts of modern civilization waste.
The Fahrenheit scale in the exhibition title refers to the famous dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury, where (in the future world of post-1990) the books were burnt at 451 degrees. Shekhovtsov’s beloved foam rubber thermally degrades at even lower 392 degrees Fahrenheit. The dark future predicted by Bradbury 56 years ago has already happened. Maybe the libraries are not yet incinerated literally, and the robodogs are manufactured as toy pets, still most of the writers visions are true. There’s a lot from the gloomy totalitarian dystopia in the Shekhovtsov’s new work. As well as obvious crisis driven allusions of the end of glamour capitalism. Even the artist’s witty reference to the animation story of a lonely robot left on a wasted Earth while people are having fun in deep space, turns into a tragic figure of the last electric dog silently howling at the invisible Earth’s artificial satellite.
exhibition media partner: Art&Antiques