Gretsky Dmitry / Katz Eugenia

This is a series of family portraits painted by the palm of the hand using just four colors, without any brushes or other artistic tools. This is a little family theater with unfabricated scenery. Realistic roadside family pictures change their meaning when they are transferred to a large canvas. The large figures and faces illuminated by harsh contrasting light hold the viewer’s attention. The dense composition doesn’t leave room for even the slightest hint that someone else could be squeezed into this 3.5-meter long family portrait. There is no room for strangers here, and all attention is focused on the children, as before. It is as if the artist is returning us to elevated values, to the family circle. 

The artist develops a first-person narrative, gathering familiar images, basically talking about himself and his loved ones, letting the viewer into the private space of each family pictured along with its hierarchy, traditions, and relationships. Through the artist’s lens, we can see both the childish stubborn temperament and the tired calmness of the adult. All these natural faces, everyday situations and simple poses are kind of nonchalantly photographed on the road, in cars passing by or stopped on the border. It doesn’t matter which border and where it is exactly. The portraits’ sharp insight can be examined both from the viewpoint of observing the inner world of their characters, and when thinking over the peculiarities of the situation, also by interpreting the storyline. Balancing between an inner unfreedom and the absence of external restrictions, the 40-something generation wanders in search of its path and its refuge. The space of the car is one of the few places in the life of the modern family where there is a chance for everyone to get together. Heartfelt talks occur ever more rarely at family dinners, the daily patterns of different generations no longer coincide, and there is increasingly less time left for loved ones. Add to this that the car is an enclosed space where the sense of discomfort can reveal vulnerabilities. A family road trip sometimes becomes the only bridge between people. Different generations are brought together, moving through time, crossing boundaries, while obeying common rules and finding compromises. At this moment, any trip turns into a journey “between neurosis and psychosis”, on the border between psychology and psychiatry. This is a border area defined by twisting, fuzzy, and blurry edges. This is a state on the intersection of the lines between happiness and unhappiness inside of us, between memories of the past and dreams of the future. The sense of having loved ones close by is what keeps us on the line of happiness. 

 Dmitry Gretsky

The practice of artists Dmitry Gretsky and Evgenia Katz over the years has been associated with the disclosure of the properties and possibilities of pencil drawing. The exhibition CARGO tale can be seen as several episodes of the serial story of Gretsky and Katz, interlocking several plots. The first develops from small outlined sheets that grow into multi-meter Curtains, the pattern is complemented by layers of metal mesh, the strokes or traces of their erasure grow into space with plastic clamps, black or white. The next reversal is a return from abstraction to figurative drawing, but already modified by the experience of creating images that cannot be considered. The barrier hall precedes or protects the entrance to the secret fishing area. Here, with the help of figurative graphics, the artists represent two characters engaged in selfless waste of time. Sitting on the deck of a motorboat, they try to sunbathe naked, cast a fishing rod, swing oars or invent other forms of leisure, but all their actions take place in an enclosed garage and look staged. A novel about confidential intimacy, sealed by rituals of deliberately ridiculous posing for each other, can also be read as an allegorical story about escape from reality, or as a reference book collecting information about various forms of displaced activity of people in a stressful situation. The obvious intimacy of the series is enhanced by the similarity of the characters to the authors, or rather, the artists use themselves as models.

Anastasia Kotyleva 

The age limit is 18+.

 Narcissus is an ongoing project that emerged from the idea of “self design” through self censorship. When talking about our identity, it is possible to assume that it can be easily rewritten, therefore we become more skeptical about an objective assessment of 

“ourselves” and in what form we may exist. Do we truly exist or it is just “an idea of ourselves” that exists?

 With this work Gretzky and Katz want to predict the future of the social media effect on oneself and create new myths around their identity through modern self-design tools such as social media. In the contemporary world our identity can be easily altered and manipulated. Through the use of a representational language of images, artists are trying to rewrite his personality for the public and, therefore, reinvent the sensation of the myth about Narcissus.

 Myth is a broad term. Myth – a word, a story, - is derived from ancient Greek. Initially, it was understood by the absolute totality of (sacred) values and philosophical truths confronting daily-empirical (profane) truths expressed by ordinary 'word'. Classical myth and modern myth can be two very contrasting things, but they have a similar principal, they are. However, myth provides us with something very human, and we continually seek answers from it. The classic version of the myth about Narcissus by Ovid is one of the examples of it.