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24 May - 22 June
The French Chocolate Factory, 51 Southwark St, SE1
for further information contact info@whitespacegallery.co.uk
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ANTI-FASHION
shows work by Vita Buivid, Olga Chernysheva and ambientTV.NET
and
is curated by Anja Stonelake (White
Space Gallery)
press
release by Anja Stonelake
The
Russian artists Vita Buivid and Olga Chernysheva, engage in evaluating
post-Soviet culture, with a methodical and impartial consistency. Nothing
is rejected from the telescopic panorama and there is no hierarchy, nothing
escapes the mocking irony of their gaze.
Fashion designer, Petlyura, described as 'the king of junk', has a collection
of outmoded fashion items, acquired on a grandiose and comprehensive scale
over the last 20 years. Recently this collection was assembled for a "junk-fashion"
shoot, the cast including Petlyura's muse, the 70-year-old winner of 1998
Alternative Miss World Contest. The shoot was photographed by artist and
photographer Victoria Buivid. Just as the fashion collection for Petlyura
was a giant salvage operation, so is the exhibition, recycling her photographs
as art exhibits. This archival concern is symptomatic of current Russian
conceptual practice: it seeks to reclaim surviving scraps of art and,
indeed, life, which were suppressed or annihilated during the Soviet regime,
and to protect elements of Russian national identity that are fast disappearing
under capitalism. Olga Chernyshevašs work is also concerned with re-evaluation,
but this time more explicitly in the context of the wider capitalist world.
Chernyshova was selected to represent Russia in the 49th Venice
Biennale in 2001. She selects neutral environments, such as train platforms
in Europe's metro stations, creating portrait photographs of passengers.
However each person's face remains hidden, so removing the individual
identity of each portrait. Manipulating focus and camera speed, Chernyshova
produces abstract images of continual fluidity, at the same time revealing
alienation and raising awareness of life's potential for the unexpected.
Victoria Buivid was born in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine) in 1962, and
lives and works in Moscow. She combines her art activities with fashion
shoots and has exhibited in Russia and abroad, including; 1994, Photoreclamation,
The Photographers Gallery, London; 1997, Gallery Werdermann Art, Hamburg.
Her works are in Museum collections in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Helsinki.
Olga Chernysheva was born in Moscow in 1962, graduating in 1986
from the State Film Institute and in 1995 from the Amsterdam State Academy.
She lives and works in Moscow and Amsterdam. She has had numerous exhibitions
including: 1998, Galerie Christine Konig and Franziska Lettner, Vienna;
1997, Single Works, Galerie Singel 74, Amsterdam; 1993 Galerie Krings-Ernst,
Cologne. Her work is in museum collections in Moscow, St Petersburg, MOMA,
New York and in Vienna.
ambientTV.NET (www.ambienttv.net) The ambientTV.NET collective
have created a site-specific audio/visual piece to complement and respond
to the work of the Russian artists. The ambientTV.net collective functions
as a generative network, creating systems and spaces for the investigation
and evaluation of site-specific forms. It specialises in hybrid media
projects and installations. Based in London, they have made projects in
Austria, Hamburg and Estonia, as well as their on-line work.
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