COSMOSCOW 2024
24 – 27.10.2024
The XII season of the Cosmoscow Contemporary Art Fair, Marina Gisich Gallery will showcase the works of Vitaly Pushnitsky, Evgeny Yufit, Maria Koshenkova, and Ivan Karpov. These artists delve into the interplay between the living and unalive, the human and the naturalistic.
VITALY PUSHNITSKY
Graduated from St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (Repin Academic Institute of Art, Sculpture and Architecture), the graphic department. Also did the course of contemporary wood engraving techniques at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, San Francisco (USA) and Tamarind Institute (New Mexico). Since 1994 — member of St. Petersburg Union of Artists. Lives and works in Saint Petersburg (Russia). Participant of numerous solo and group exhibitions in Russia and internationally. Works with painting, graphics, sculpture and installation.
During the past years, the significant projects were presented at:
o The State Russian Museum, The State Hermitage,
o Moscow Museum of Modern Art,
o The New Museum of Aslan Tchekhoev,
o Multimedia Art Museum Moscow,
o Calvert 22 Gallery (London),
o Rudolfinum Museum (Prague),
o Waino Aaltonen Museum of Art (Turku).
Participant of 56th Venice Biennale for Contemporary art (Mauritius National pavilion, curated group show). Participant of 8th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary art (together with Alex Katz). In 2011 th works were enlisted in Vitamin P2 (Phaidon) catalogue: New Perspectives in Painting.
New works by Vitaly Pushnitsky from the series "Studio. The Island" showcase the artist's fascination with Buddhist practices of contemplation and introspection. In this recent graphic series, he aims to express the realms where the soul exists outside the body, whether during sleep or in death. In these new pieces, the familiar ephemeral landscape transforms into the shaky contours of the artist's studio. However, don’t be misled; we remain in the space of the artist's introspection, where he inhabits a state of philosophical solitude, and all objects and places are merely shadows dancing along the cave walls.
Artist and film-director EVGENY YUFIT, founder of the Necrorealism art movement, is one of the most heroic and enigmatic figures on the local art scene of St. Petersburg. He has been working as a painter, photographer and filmmaker since the early 1980s. In 1985 Yufit set up the first Soviet independent film studio "Mzhalalafilm" which became a center for radical experiments in art. In this studio Yufit shot seven of his first films, which were influenced by the aesthetics of the early German kino-expressionism, French surrealistic cinema and pathetic of the 1930-50's Soviet official propaganda.
As of 1989 Yufit has made five full-length 35mm films. Each of his new films became an important international event. Yufit's films were shown at all the major festivals of independent artistic cinema. His first feature film "Papa, Father Frost is Dead" (1991) was awarded the Grand Prix at the International Film Festival in Rimini. In 2005, the 34th Film Festival in Rotterdam included a special program dedicated to Yufit's works — exhibition of his photos and the world premiere of his last film "Bipedalism".
Yufit's paintings, photographs and films can be found in many leading museums of the world: the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; the Museum of the Modern Art (MoMA); New York, Netherlands Film Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
The art fair will showcase iconic photographs by Yevgeny Yufit, a St. Petersburg film director and artist, and the founder of necrorealism—arguably the most paradoxical and original artistic trend in Russian art over the last forty years. Born at the intersection of life and death, as well as black and white, Yufit's photographs illustrate the process of image deformation. This effect is achieved through repeated counter-typing, which involves translating the image from negative to positive. The photographs produced by Yufit alongside his film projects reflect his cinematic vision and are perceived as frozen cinema.
