On the eve of March 8, an exhibition of women artists was opened at the Center for Contemporary Art "Zarya" (Vladivostok)

March 6 at the Center for Contemporary Art "Zarya" opened an exhibition of women artists "Her." The exposition represents the image of a modern woman in the focus of her personal experiences of the world. The exhibition, which runs until August 30, will host master classes and lectures by artists.

The exhibition dedicated to International Women’s Day on March 8 in this case is not so much a cause for congratulations as an attempt to carefully analyze the formal manifestations of “female” themes in contemporary art.

Taking into account the ambiguity in the interpretation of the holiday of March 8 in modern Russian society, curator Oksana Sargsyan addressed the artists (or women artists) representing the younger generation on the Moscow art scene. Despite their youth, they have already become prominent figures and have gained recognition not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg art institutes and galleries, but also in the international context. And although the artists who took part in the exhibition work with various media (painting, photography, video, installation, the art of participation, performance, etc.), they are united by emotional perception and expressiveness of expression.

Most of the invited artists have never taken part in women’s or feminist projects, although they all exploit gender themes in their work, manipulate gender signs and stereotypes. And if in the objects of Irina Korina they appear as part of the phantasmagoric structures of the collective unconscious, then in the projects of other artists there is a reflection of the subject of creativity. This is especially pronounced in the puberty demand for freedom of expression by Alexandra Galkina, in the rebellious spirit of Alisa Joffe, in the provocative sexuality of the gesture in Vika Begalskaya and the image in Svetlana Shuvaeva, in the ironic aestheticization of artifacts of violence by Anastasia Potemkina and in the absurd actions of Varvara Gevorg.

Alice Joffe’s work

The work of Anastasia Potemkina

The Society of Anonymous Enumerators (or Enumerators) explores the manifestations of gender roles in their daily experience. Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya) creates situations on the fragile border of interaction between the human inner world and social systems. Her project is dedicated to the workers of the Zarya garment factory, in the former building of which are located the exhibition halls of the Zarya Center for Contemporary Art. The videos of Polina Kanis hypertrophied represent the reality of biopolitical systems, and the video installation of Antonina Baever, on the contrary, creates a sacred space outside the social with its insurmountable conflicts and contradictions - the idealistic reality of the myth.

The work of Antonina Baever

International Women’s Day, which arose at the end of the 19th century as a celebration of the solidarity and civic identity of women in the struggle for their rights, is transcoded in the middle of the 20th century, and on March 8 becomes the Festival of spring, beauty and femininity, motherhood and love, and other manifestations of archaic cults of fertility. A fundamental change in the content of the holiday leads to ambiguity in the modern interpretation, which the exhibition seeks to analyze through the prism of the art practices of the invited participants, through its opinion and its attitude to the holiday and to the topic of women.

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The Zarya Center for Contemporary Art is a non-profit institution created to promote the best achievements of modern culture in Russia and the world in Vladivostok, and to support local young artists. The center is intended to become an independent platform for the development of local creative ideas in the process of effective dialogue with leading world professionals in the field of contemporary art, design, architecture, cinema, literature, theater, music and new media. Among the main exhibitions of 2014 at the Zarya Center for Contemporary Art, one can especially highlight the personal exhibitions of Pavel Pukhov (Pasha 183), Our Work is a Feat! And Georgy Ostretsov Autotrans NP.

Address: Primorsky Territory, Vladivostok, Prospect 100 years of Vladivostok, 155

Website: www.zaryavladivostok.ru