A new iteration of the artist's project "Sarah K.", a theatrical overture about a teenage girl lost in the world of chthonic fairy-tale scenery.
I happened to see those canvases firsthand, they were distinguished by deliberate emo-core aesthetics (mixing pink and black), references to subcultures of the late noughties, attributes of puberty — alternative music, diaries, antidepressants. It was there that the unnamed teenage girl appeared, not the artist's alter ego, as in the case of Eduard Kipyatkov and Boris Neuman, but, as Pirumov would say, a "screen" through which the artist can speak. The appropriation of this girl's speech, despite possible accusations of objectification, boldly reveals adolescent psychologism and impresses with the degree of empathy. Here I can't help but recall the words of the main character of the 1993 film The Cement Garden, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, which this 17-year—old girl says to her brother: "Girls can wear jeans and short hair, wear shirts and shoes, because it's okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is humiliating, because you think that being a girl is humiliating. But secretly, you'd like to know what it feels like, wouldn't you? To find out what it's like to be a girl."
In the new project, Pirumov continues to try on the mask of this girl, mixing identities in an attempt to deconstruct non-gender experiences, literally unfolding the scene of adolescence. However, in the "Casket" subcultural pop aestheticization gives way to a heavy, chthonic tragedy, which in principle is characteristic of the artist's work with his apocalyptic moods and fear of the future. The entire exhibition turns into a theatrical production of a modern "novel of education". The decorations are large dark paintings, in which the artist tries to overcome modernist painting by adding fabric, found objects to the canvas plane — toys, masks, clothes, photographs. Behind the plane of the three canvases, there is literally a door to an additional, secret dimension, because they are arranged like the same caskets, boxes, cabinets, inside of which there are echoes of the unconscious of both man and art. Painting speaks through sound, and fantasies are hidden behind consciousness — inside-out fairy tales about Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf and Alice in Wonderland. Pirumov's fairy tales are no longer for children, they are filled with unhappy love, heartbreaking emotions, veiled abuse and perverse sexuality. Especially interesting in Pirumov's case is the collision of various mediums and how their inner logic is revealed in this collision. Painting becomes an "expansion painting", graphics, as an illustration, echo the narrative of the exhibition, and the scenic nature of the entire exhibition turns it into a total installation in which the viewer gets lost, as in a dark forest.
The "security screen" is a great metaphor for Pirumov's entire work. In fact, it is an iron fire curtain that descends onto the stage during a fire, protecting the audience and the scenery and sacrificing the inner workings of the theater. The reality hidden behind the props and the illusion of staging, with all the insides, is burning to the ground. Pirumov thinks of himself as an inhabitant of these ruins. What about us? We also find ourselves on the borderline, either the audience or the actors. The reference to Krylov's famous fable is a slap on the nose to all the "sages of mechanics" from art, who are trying to find a sacred or strict meaning in this action. This performance mixes mediums, stories, identities, and the law of its existence — a process to which you give yourself completely, "wholeheartedly," while the artist, being a talented set designer, controls your emotions and perception like a magician. And now we are trying on the masks of little girls ourselves, and this mystery of art does not let go until the curtain falls and a new production begins.
As for our main character, the phrase "what does it feel like for a girl" became the title of Madonna's song "What it feels like for a girl", for which the aforementioned quote from Gainsbourg served as an epigraph. But in the video for the song, our conditional girl turned into a cheeky femme fatale, according to Madonna herself, a "nihilistic pissed-off chick" ("nihilistic angry chick"), driving around in a yellow Chevrolet Camaro and destroying everything in her path. Perhaps this is just an allusion for a new production, and who will fall under the hot hand of our grown—up girl — the audience, or maybe the artist himself - is a completely different, but expected story.
Text by Anastasia Khaustova
