Alexey Politov and Marina Belova. Spectacle Machinery

Curator: Sergey Khachaturov.

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art, together with the Krokin Gallery, presents a monographic exhibition of the duet of artists Alexei Politov and Marina Belova.

Politov and Belova powerfully declared themselves in the 2000s in Moscow. They overturned the canon and violated the conventions of the "correct" image. They did this for the sake of fun experiments with an art object, which from now on acts as a hypocrite, turns on the audience, jokes, grimaces and behaves boldly and defiantly. In their works, Politov and Belova often rethink classical and contemporary art through the concept of carnival culture and traditional Russian lubok, reveal links between primitive human nature and street art, art brut and conceptualism. The universality of artists is manifested both in the ability to embed one medium into another, and in the ability to process images of the mass media into multi-layered messages and philosophical maxims.

The name “Machinery of Spectacles” coined by the curator Sergey Khachaturov most accurately describes the exhibition project - in addition to graphics and sculpture, each of the exhibition halls will contain theatrical elements, thanks to which the viewer will be able to participate in farce and carnival fun. The culmination will be the section "Magic Lantern" - a large-scale light and shade installation, a metaphor for the escape from Plato’s cave. The guide-trickster created by the artists will act as a guide for the exhibition. Casting shadows, he will turn out to be an elusive storyteller of stories related to the works of one or another section of the exhibition.

Alexey Politov (1966) and Marina Belova (1958) completed their first joint project in 1998. During the existence of the creative duo, the artists held 20 solo exhibitions and took part in more than 60 group exhibitions. They are nominees for the Kandinsky Prize (2007, 2009). The works of Politov and Belova are in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the AZ Museum, the Novosibirsk Art Gallery, the Multimedia Art Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve and other museum and private collections in Russia and abroad.