IVAN GORSHKOV. EVERYTHING FOUNTAIN. MMOMA. 2019.

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IVAN GORSHKOV. EVERYTHING FOUNTAIN. MMOMA. 2019.

22 june 2019-25 august 2019

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a solo exhibition by Ivan Gorshkov. Gorshkov is a prominent representative of the so-called «Voronezh Wave» in contemporary Russian art. The artists of this movement are known for their traditional art forms such as painting and sculpture rendered in a bold, «hooligan» manner. The exhibition includes Gorshkov’s works for the past few years such as the «Swan Lake» painting series, the «My Sweet Homeland» sculpture series, the installation «Utopia of Dragons», and selected works from the projects «Crystal Boots», «Hyper Jump and Anteater» and «Crème Brûlée». These works make up only a fraction of the show with most of the pieces being created specially for the occasion.

Freely combining materials, textures and visual languages, Gorshkov creates intrinsically dynamic, mutative images. The unpredictability and seeming randomness of their transformations constitute the recurrent theme of the show built around the concepts of metamorphosis and fairy tale. One thing turns into another and the other way around. Metal sculptures usual for Gorshkov transform into inflatables; LED boards are disguised as painted pictures; internet-memes crop up on abstract paintings; landscapes covered with artificial hair and inhabited by plastic animals pretend to be sculptures; garlands, movable furniture and a tank with gurgling water form a total installation; and even the museum’s courtyard has become home for a landscape sculpture and found objects.

Walking around the exhibition, you can come across the «Everything Fountain» — magic power which will transport you to allusive worlds that emerge in a whirl of ugly, infernal, eerie, monstrous, beastly, amiable, funny, curious, queer and absurd beings. Gorshkov brings together different cultural codes in a space devoid of hierarchy. Speaking of the artist’s intuition, this approach alludes to the way modern computer-generated environment influences artistic tools and audience perception. The artist explores new aesthetics that develops as the boundaries between art forms become blurred and different concepts and ways of thinking merge in one cognitive space.

The «Everything Fountain» project is a continuation of MMOMA’s program aimed at supporting young artists. As part of the program, MMOMA invites reputed artists to realize their ideas in the museum’s space. Over the years, numerous young artists, many of whom have become influential figures in the contemporary art scene, have taken part in this program.