"Minute to Awakening" by Yegor Plotnikov

The Pushkin Museum of Contemporary Art Gallery of the Republic of Tatarstan presents the first solo exhibition in Kazan by Yegor Plotnikov “Minute to Awakening” (Moscow). Egor Plotnikov was born in the city of Kirov. In 2000 graduated from the Vyatka Art College. A.A. Rylov, in 2006 - Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov (workshop of P.F. Nikonov). In 2006–2010 Trained in the Creative workshops of the Russian Academy of Arts (under the guidance of S.P. and A.P. Tkachev). He was awarded medals of the Russian Academy of Arts and the Moscow Union of Artists. Since 2006 - Member of the Moscow Union of Artists. Participant of exhibitions since 1994, including in Russia, Italy, Belgium, England, Germany. The works are in private collections in Russia and other countries, as well as in the collections of the Russian Academy of Arts, the Russian Culture Foundation, the M. Gorbachev Foundation, the Moscow Union of Artists and Russian regional museums.

Egor Plotnikov works in the field of figurative painting and sculpture. Painting and sculptural objects are often presented as combined works and installations. The artist explores the theme of the real landscape as a social landscape and a picturesque landscape, as a “museum” genre that exists on the periphery of the current cultural field. Depicting wastelands, roadsides, and buffer zones located on the border of human habitation and wildlife on the canvas, the artist moves the character of the painting — the sculpture of the viewer — beyond the boundaries of the picturesque plane. A work of art begins to look at itself. Large-format painting often “shrinks” to small “insignificant” landscape fragments, and sculpture characters begin to “hide” from the viewer. The empty wall / canvas / sheet and the hall space become a strong communication field and an important part of the work.

This principle is laid in the construction of the “Minute to Awakening” exhibition, where paintings will be presented, including those based on the artist’s journey to Sviyazhsk, as well as papier-mâché sculpture, accompanying the painting and consisting in narrative connection with it.

Speaking about this project by Yegor Plotnikov, it is worth starting with the introduction of no-place terminology — these are “alienated” zones that exist without any distinct existential content. In a typical situation, non-places involve very limited possibilities for interacting with them. According to the project’s curator Natalya Pankina (Moscow), in the “Minute to Awakening” project, the artist shifts the observation point: instead of the world around him, the viewer is invited to see himself in some other world, identify himself with a conditional hero who will live for him in an alternative reality. The viewer becomes both an observer and observable, as it happens, for example, in a computer game: the sculpture in relation to the landscape is located in such a way that the viewer is forced to identify with it; sculpture becomes a character for which the viewer involuntarily begins to “play”, moving around the exhibition and plunging into the spaces depicted by the artist.

During the preparation of the exhibition, the artist will create from papier-mâché a large figure of a sleeping spectator, which will become the central figure of the project. The sculpture is designed to refer the viewer not so much to the actual state of sleep in the museum (although, they say, many people dream of staying in the museum for the night), but to a breakdown of cognitive functions, which, inter alia, characterizes the interaction of a person with a non-place and, often, unprepared viewer - with the museum. The viewer will wake up only when the “exit” sign lights up in front of his character.

The artist poses the question before us: is direct direct contact of the viewer with art and a person with real space possible today?

The exhibition runs until May 12, 2019.