XL.TXT
25 Dec 2008 - 22 Jan 2009
XL.TXT
15 years of XL Gallery
December 25, 2008 thru January 22, 2009
Presentation of the 15-years of XL Gallery catalogue - plus texts from the gallery publications and selected videos of the XL exhibitions
XL Text or What I like...
Why the time’r running so fast? A while ago we’ve been young and attractive, and the gallery was “young” and perspective... And now we’re grown-ups, we’ve bored you and 15 years passed as one day. We started in a “wrong” time of crisis and now we celebrate the anniversary in time of trouble...
When you grow older, you feel like looking back. The texts and archive video are like old letters, when you start reading you remember those unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable times, when the trees were tall, artists were incredibly talented, critics were startling smart... If we had no money for the exhibition or catalogue we happened to borrow some from our friends and then give back quickly, inexplicable how. Inexplicable because few did like the art like us, artists, critics and somehow Dmitry Kovalenko and a tricky oldman Soros...
The exhibitions were so small, but they were so huge, so stunning, so smart and there was so much drive there. Now it’s funny and strange that we have a big space, and go to world art fairs, and collectors hunt for the early Zvezdochetov, and police could still nail for the early Kulik’s works, and museum is fighting to buy the Christ in Moscow by Dubossarsky&Vinogradov... But theat drive is gone... I wish I’d be back in that strange time, my time, our time! I wish I could argue there with Kovalyov, fear and esteem Katya Dyogot, pal and laugh with Milena Orlova and Sasha Obukhova... Admire Igor Makarevich, Andrey Monastyrsky, Nikita Alexeev, Ivan Chuikov... Scream with laughter with Kulik, Osmolovsky, Dubossarsky&Vinogradov... Look for Zvezdochetov in the night streets, and let Vlad Monroe sing for the frozen public on a gallery porch, because we’re quickly mounting his exhibition which he - as usual - finished at the very last minute... And Epikhin’s home is again flooded by damn water pipe, but he managed to write his unforgettable text “I saw a sheer standing Lenin”...
Should you think we look funny with all our feelings and openings, but I wish you could dip into that unbelievable and magnificent time...
Elena Selina
15 years of XL Gallery
December 25, 2008 thru January 22, 2009
Presentation of the 15-years of XL Gallery catalogue - plus texts from the gallery publications and selected videos of the XL exhibitions
XL Text or What I like...
Why the time’r running so fast? A while ago we’ve been young and attractive, and the gallery was “young” and perspective... And now we’re grown-ups, we’ve bored you and 15 years passed as one day. We started in a “wrong” time of crisis and now we celebrate the anniversary in time of trouble...
When you grow older, you feel like looking back. The texts and archive video are like old letters, when you start reading you remember those unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable times, when the trees were tall, artists were incredibly talented, critics were startling smart... If we had no money for the exhibition or catalogue we happened to borrow some from our friends and then give back quickly, inexplicable how. Inexplicable because few did like the art like us, artists, critics and somehow Dmitry Kovalenko and a tricky oldman Soros...
The exhibitions were so small, but they were so huge, so stunning, so smart and there was so much drive there. Now it’s funny and strange that we have a big space, and go to world art fairs, and collectors hunt for the early Zvezdochetov, and police could still nail for the early Kulik’s works, and museum is fighting to buy the Christ in Moscow by Dubossarsky&Vinogradov... But theat drive is gone... I wish I’d be back in that strange time, my time, our time! I wish I could argue there with Kovalyov, fear and esteem Katya Dyogot, pal and laugh with Milena Orlova and Sasha Obukhova... Admire Igor Makarevich, Andrey Monastyrsky, Nikita Alexeev, Ivan Chuikov... Scream with laughter with Kulik, Osmolovsky, Dubossarsky&Vinogradov... Look for Zvezdochetov in the night streets, and let Vlad Monroe sing for the frozen public on a gallery porch, because we’re quickly mounting his exhibition which he - as usual - finished at the very last minute... And Epikhin’s home is again flooded by damn water pipe, but he managed to write his unforgettable text “I saw a sheer standing Lenin”...
Should you think we look funny with all our feelings and openings, but I wish you could dip into that unbelievable and magnificent time...
Elena Selina