Ian Ginzburg's artistic practice, which is a non-canonical example of working with memory in Russian contemporary art, belongs to the discourse of the archival impulse, which is key to the international aesthetic context of recent years. By building a dialogue with an artist or analyzing an artistic phenomenon — most often Ginzburg focuses on art history or aesthetic theories — the author marks out the prerequisites and traces of artistic production processes.
Maria Doronina
A new iteration of Jan Ginzburg's famous project Mechanical Beetle was created specifically for the large-scale exhibition It was with me, organized by the Central Research Institute of Winzavod as part of the strategic direction of the Scientific Research Institute Archive (Science Research Art Archive).
In 2017-2018, an exhibition called The Mechanical Beetle was held at the Osnova Gallery on the territory of the CSI Vinzavod. In it, its author first revealed himself under the artistic pseudonym Jan Ginzburg, appropriating the surname of the famous Moscow underground artist Joseph Ginzburg. The exhibition itself became a programmatic example of the art of appropriation, the object of which was the work of Ilya Kabakov. The name of the exhibition referred to Kabakov's famous work The Beetle, a replica of which was presented in the first hall of the gallery. In the second room, the key object was the sofa of a Lada car mounted on a sign, a motif that referred to a real photo of Ilya Kabakov sitting in the back seat of a car with friends at a picnic. This photo itself, placed in a lightbox, was fixed on the same board at its upper right corner. Thus, Ginzburg's method was far from a direct repetition of the works of other authors in the spirit of the appropriation of the 1980s and was based on multilevel work with the image and the social and life circumstances that gave rise to it. My task, the artist explains, was to create an authentic work of art of a new type based on research and archival materials. For me, this exhibition was a study, and in some ways, an investigation.
If in 2017 Ginzburg turned to the work of Ilya Kabakov, then in the framework of this exhibition, making an author's repetition of this project, he appropriates his own work from eight years ago. The objects and structure in the new project are basically the same, but different materials are used, and colors change in places. However, the most fundamental difference of the new version is that if in 2017 the exhibition had to be exhibited in two halls, breaking it into parts, now it is installed in a special exhibition box. This new version, explains the artist, is an attempt to restore integrity. To show the exhibition as one project, one work.
Text: Victor Misiano
