As for “Heavenly Italy,” it is more appropriate to talk about it in connection with the works of the duo Migas and Gankevich, whose painting simulates Roman mosaic (the plane of these paintings also resembles earth cracked under too hot a sun). This is where the traditions of transavant-garde collide with Ukrainian baroque: one quote is taken and luxuriously unraveled into a whole cycle of huge works. Migas and Gankevich take a classic Dutch still life, redraw it in cyclopean enlargement (and in the mentioned “mosaic” technique), and then enlarge individual fragments significantly, some brought to the foreground, others pushed back… In general, this resembles computer montage, the screen for which, however, should be the walls of some grand hall: like the Vrubel hall in the Tretyakov Gallery. This returns to the question of the relevance or irrelevance of the South Russian wave – the representational-institutional possibilities simply cannot keep up with this concept of Gankevich and Migas.
It is curious that in the early nineties the artists held a performance in Moscow that at first glance was opposite to this project. At the peak of the presentation genre, when people started coming to exhibitions decisively to eat rather than to look at art, they invited guests to one of the capital’s halls purely for food, to white walls and full tables. Not baroque luxury and expansiveness, but absurdly minimalistic. The genre of food performances (from Kulik’s long-standing “One Hundred Pigs” to the recent experiments of Maria Chuykova, who feeds the art community in various clubs and galleries with either borscht, dumplings, or Tibetan cuisine) is a separate topic, but what is important now is this: in this action, products seem to leave still lifes and enter yet another dimension.
Such overwhelming multimedia, created without a single nail (meaning – without a single file)…
Mikhail Rashkovetsky writes that at the turn of the 80s and 90s, Gankevich and Minkas’s group was unofficially called “Corpses.” A good name, it’s a pity it didn’t catch on (like “Peppers”), but its origin is more interesting. Corpses – because they work with “dead nature,” and not with nature itself, but with others’ painted still lifes? Maybe. But “dead nature” behaves on their canvases in such a… m-m… potential way that the authors should be recognized as very, very alive corpses.Comment type: Published comment
Author: Vyacheslav Kuritsin
Bibliography:
Kuritsin V. South Russian Wave / V. Kuritsin // Art Alphabet. – Electronic resource. – Access mode: http://azbuka.gif.ru/critics/yuzhnorus-volna/
Sources: Kuritsin V. South Russian Wave / V. Kuritsin // Art Alphabet. – Electronic resource. – Access mode: http://azbuka.gif.ru/critics/yuzhnorus-volna/
