Living Space. Dmitry Gretsky and Evgenia Katz

The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation continues to display exhibitions on contemporary Russian art. In autumn, the Fund opens a new exhibition season with the project “Living Space” by Dmitry Gretsky and Eugenia Katz.

The Living Space project, which combines painting, installation, sound and video, is a new reality that reflects the subjective perception of time and personal boundaries. The living spaces of real people are documented on each of the large-scale paintings, and scenes from “parallel” reality are embedded in each of these “illustrations”: take-off of a spaceship, a game of paintball, which fills a private, untouchable space with surrealistic overtones. According to the artist himself, this particular method "makes it possible to more widely show the labyrinths of proxemics." This term was introduced in the 1950s by the American anthropologist Edward Hall, denoting by him how a person builds his micro-space and organizes his home. Such a look at the Living Space exhibition allows us to call it deeply psychological. The changed environment of the heroes of the paintings, into the personal space of which the visitor intrudes, ruthlessly states the impossibility of preserving and hiding the intimate from prying eyes. The contrast of everyday routine and seemingly absurd situations in which heroes of paintings, calm and emotional scenes, free, relaxed poses of heroes and oppressive, cramped spaces are depicted - all this creates a sense of reality and at the same time the impossibility of what is happening.

Dmitry Gretsky has long been creating large-format works. Two examples from the artist’s last personal exhibitions are an example: “Habitat” (2015), dedicated to the utopian modernist architecture of St. Petersburg and Toronto, and the project “Terracotta warriors” (2013), which presented five canvases with monumental images of teenagers.

Dmitry Gretsky and Evgenia Katz were born in St. Petersburg in 1970, live and work in St. Petersburg and Toronto. The works of artists are in many museum collections and private collections: in the State Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Ekaterina Culture Fund and others. Founders of the Artville Academy of Art and Design, Toronto. Laureates of the 4th All-Russian competition of copyright programs in the field of art education; Kandinsky Prize nominees (long list); Dmitry Gretsky, Nominee of the 24th Competitive Project of the Center for Visual Art (long list), New Jersey, USA; Sobey Art Award, Canada; National Innovation Prize, Russia.

Curator: Alexandra Huseynova
Dates: September 6 - October 28, 2017
Venue: Cultural Foundation "EKATERINA"
Moscow, st. Kuznetsk bridge, building 21/5