Yuri Albert, Victor Skersis. Inappropriate profundity

ILONA-K artspace presents the exhibition of Yuri Albert and Viktor Skersis, which will unfold on two floors of the Mercury Tower, Moscow City. Bound by many years of friendship, the artists work in the field of analytical conceptualism. Their work is not characterized by some common recognizable style, on the contrary, it consists of various projects describing and exploring often completely unrelated phenomena and processes of art. The exhibition will feature over 30 new works created specifically for ILONA-K.

In Yuri Albert’s project "I’m still alive (2018)", the viewer will see a kind of artist’s calendar. At twelve, according to the number of months, the mirrors show the traces of the artist’s misted breath - one for each day of the calendar, as if someone were checking whether the author was still alive, was he breathing? Albert’s project, invented even before the outbreak of the epidemic, turned out to be visionary, asks the viewer about the relationship between the artist and the work: is the work of art an autonomous object, an encrypted message, or is it just a product of the author’s exhaustion?

Talking about the project, the artist reveals the model of art used in it: “Art is not for looking at it, but for thinking about it. As long as we think about it, it exists. As long as it is alive, we have something to breathe. So we breathed a little art for you, so that you have something to think about. And in general, it is interesting: is the painting an image, a mirror of the surrounding life, a message about the truth revealed to the artist, or just a confirmation that the artist is still alive? "

This question, both serious and (self) ironic, echoes Albert’s other works on display, in which he uses cartoons from Soviet and Western authors. Cartoons are specific statements of specific artists, reflecting the views of a part of society in the past. Placing their works in the context of 21st century art, Yuri Albert subjects them to a semantic transformation that turns satire into self-criticism.

According to Viktor Skersis: “Art is a phenomenon of the universe, given to us in an infinite variety of semantic spaces of our thinking. We cannot give a single and only correct definition of art, but we can build models and give definitions to what is called art.

The model presented at the exhibition suggests that art is the manifestation of thinking, it is a dream that everyone can see. In this dream, abstract reflections are presented as concrete images, and concrete objects are abstractions. The play of the obvious and the implied is art! "

The exposition presents two projects by Viktor Skersis: "Do not believe your eyes!" and Patterns. In the project “Don’t Believe Your Eyes,” the artist develops the concept of “Allegorical Abstraction” by the “King of the Hill” group (Y. Albert, P. Davtyan, V. Skersis, A. Filippov), in which the created abstract

the work was endowed with a rather long, as if allegorical, title, for example "Apelles sniffing at Alexander the Great." The title of the work places the abstract picture in the semantic space of the allegory, that is, the abstraction loses the property of non-representativity, which is fundamental for abstract painting, and becomes an image.

In the project "Do not believe your eyes!" Skersis takes the next step - replaces unrepresentative abstraction with pseudo-representational, while preserving allegorical names. So one of the abstract compositions, executed in red and blue tones, is called "The Triumph of Essentialism." The title refers the viewer to the disputes about the art of the middle of the last century and further to Plato’s ideas about the essence of things. It would seem that the transfiguration of abstraction into an image will occur here as well, but the artist’s magic enchants the viewer, makes him read the combination of colors on the canvas not as an image of abstract wisdom, but as an image of a carrot. Calling the project “Don’t Believe Your Eyes!”, The artist demands from the viewer to free themselves from the spell of pseudo-presentation and return to the simple truth: “You just see paints on the canvas”. The problem, of course, is that we usually see thingswhat we think.

In the project "Patterns" Victor Skersis returns to the study of the role of interference of ideas in the creation of new phenomena of art. In this case, oriental ornament and western abstract expressionism were taken as a basis. The oriental ornament is built on repetition. As soon as the pattern is determined, the templates are made, according to which the artist creates the ornament by repeated tracing. This is the philosophical meaning: everything is repeated in this world, everything is predetermined and in this - eternity. The artist’s function is only to accurately fill in what has been prepared. In the west

Expressionism is dominated by immediacy, impulse, unintentionality. These approaches are fundamentally different, but each is valuable. Can they be combined? Skersis approached this problem in the mid-eighties with Project Grid. Patterns is a different approach. Huge canvases are painted in a harsh, brutal manner of monochrome primitivistic abstraction, leaving only the initial impulse to existence from the elements of the pattern, the wild vitality of the pre-existence of eternity.

YURI ALBERT (born in 1959 in Moscow, from 1974 to 1977 he studied with Ekaterina Arnold, from 1977 to 1980 he studied at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after V.I.Lenin) - artist, art theorist, one of the most prominent representatives of the Moscow conceptual circle, since 2008 a member of the creative association "Cupid", since 2011 - the group "Edelweiss", since 2014 - the artel "Tsar of the Hill".

Winner of the Kandinsky Prize in the category "Artist of the Year" in 2007 ("Exhibition"). Laureate of the Kandinsky Prize in the category "Project of the Year" in 2011 ("Moscow Poll").

Since 1978 he has participated in group exhibitions in Russia and abroad: Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, City Gallery in Melbourne, Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York, at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Ca ’Rezzonico in Venice, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the NCCA in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, the Pompidou Center in Paris, Tretyakov Gallery, MSI "Garage" in Moscow.

Personal exhibitions were held at the Center for Contemporary Art (1996), the Era Foundation (2007), the Stella Art Foundation (2008), the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum (2008, 2010), at the Factory Center for Contemporary Art (together with Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2009), Paperworks Gallery (2009, 2011), at Stella Art Foundation (together with Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2011), Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art (together with Andrey Filippov and Konstantin Zvezdochetov, 2011), at MMOMA (2013), Museum contemporary art "Weserburg" (2014), at the Stella Art Foundation (together with Paruyr Davtyan, Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2015), gallery "Peresvetov Pereulok" (2016), at MAMM (together with Paruyr Davtyan, Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2017), at the NCCA "Arsenal" (together with Paruyr Davtyan, Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2018),at the CTI "Fabrika" (together with Paruyr Davtyan, Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2019), at the Museum of Contemporary Art "PERMM" (together with Paruyr Davtyan, Viktor Skersis and Andrey Filippov, 2019), at the Liechtenstein Museum of Art.

The artist’s works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the NCCA, the Bakhchisarai Museum, the Pompidou Center, the Ludwig Museum (Aachen), the Zimmerli Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the State Graphic Collection in Munich, the Duke University Art Museum and in private collections.

VICTOR SKERSIS (born in 1956 in Moscow, from 1970 to 1973 he studied at the studio of artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, in 1977 graduated from the Moscow State Polygraphic Institute) - representative of the analytical branch of Moscow conceptualism, art theorist, curator, member of the group "Nest "(1975-1979), since 1980 is a member of the association" SZ ", since 2008 a member of the creative association" Cupid ", since 2011 - the group" Edelweiss ", since 2014 - the artel" Tsar of the Hill ", etc. Is engaged in painting, actions, objects… Skersis defines the area of his own interests as "Meta-Art", the main principle of which is the study and modeling of the phenomena and processes of art, as well as the role of the context in which works are created.

Since 1975 he has participated in group exhibitions in Russia and abroad: Palais de Congress in Paris, Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Contemporary Russian Art Center of America in New York, State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, State Literary Museum, Gallery Marina Goncharenko, the Central House of Artists, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation in Moscow.

Personal exhibitions of Skersis were held at the Galerie Sophia Ungers in Cologne (together with Vadim Zakharov, 1989), in E.K., Art Bureau (together with Vadim Zakharov, 2004), at the CTI "Factory" (as part of the group "Gnezdo", 2008), at the CTI "Fabrika" (together with Yuri Albert and Andrey Filippov, 2009), at the Stella Art Foundation (together with Yuri Albert, Paruyr Davtyan and Andrey Filippov, 2015), at MAMM (together with Yuri Albert, Paruyr Davtyan and Andrey Filippov, 2017), at Gallery 21 (together with Tatyana Sherstyuk, 2018), at the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art (together with Yuri Albert, Paruyr Davtyan and Andrey Filippov, 2019).

The artist’s works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pompidou Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Zimmerli Art Museum in other public and private collections.