How Deep is Your Art?: Anna Khodorkovskaya
HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART? is an exhibition on the discursive perception which combines various media of artistic expression, aesthetic elements that seem different at first sight, fields and studies that seem dichotomous.
Mobius is delighted to present HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART?, a solo exhibition of works by Anna Khodorkovskaya, curated by Eugen Rădescu
Chapter I
11.03.2016 - 6.04.2016 (opening: 11.03.2016, 7pm)
Chapter II
15.04.2016 - 29.04.2016 (opening: 15.04.2016, 7pm)
Chapter 1 A DECONSTRUCTED ALLEGORY
HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART? is an exhibition on the discursive perception which combines various media of artistic expression, aesthetic elements that seem different at first sight, fields and studies that seem dichotomous. HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART? is dedicated both to transdisciplinarity and the constituent elements of an artwork, to details but also to off-line options. Anna Khodorkovskaya proposes detail as the main theme of her artistic endeavor, thus her artworks can be read as an analysis of the manner in which different aesthetic elements combine and relate to each other, from diverse backgrounds, of different shapes and structures, abstract compositions which connect a particular artistic practice to everyday life.
Anna Khodorkovskayaʼs exhibition translates the artistʼs intense interest in the aesthetic language in correlation with a variety of media and external challenges. Anna Khodorkovskaya uses multiple elements that are part of an authentic artistic practice, of an academic and scrupulous behavior, which she turns into a new approach, connecting it to a language of common sense, mirroring the modern loisir and the simple aspects of life. Using multiple tools of expression, different types of choice, various formal structures and media, the artist proposes a less conventional dialogue: we select the elements of our interest out of what we call common life, we deconstruct them, analyze them and rebuild everything in a personal manner, identified as a work of art.
Art today is defined by an identity between creation and selection. The act of selection is the same with creating a work of art (Boris Groys). It is no longer sufficient for a person to produce an art object in order to be considered an artist, he or she also needs to select that specific object and declare it as being a work of art. The traditional auctorial sovereignty of the artist has disappeared; when traveling over an art exhibition, we are dealing with a multiple auctorial identity and artistic act is made up by manifold actors.
Postmodernism is the testimony of a cultural history that has its starting point in modernity, sometimes even before that. It brings up awareness over the need for a new language. The expression of this need is embodied by the avant-garde theories. Postmodernism took over these theories and exposures of a crisis of representation and turned them into the very definition of this current. Thus, postmodernism can be translated as a conscious yet contradictory and self-disruptive statement. In a way, it resembles the act of using of quotation marks for a statement which you created, in the very moment of its creation.
Chapter 2 ART & EVERYTHING
If a person has hair, this hair can move through many stages (Delleuze/Guattari)/ The world of advertising as part of a global neoliberal mechanism facing off the artistic practice? Anna Khodorkovskayaʼs works included in "Art & Everything" series emphasize the neoliberal development and the connection that occurs within the artistic practice, beyond any material and capitalist interests. Globalization (as an extrinsic term for Fordism and post-Fordism) refers to an acute process of integration and worldwide spreading of a set of ideas which are more or less linked to the economic activity and commodities production. The promoting forces in this case are the liberalization of international trade and capital fluxes, the acceleration of the information flow. Highly controversial concept, globalization is perceived from two points of view: a positive one that focuses on the benefits of unification and globalization of all human societies, and a negative one that accuses globalization for the loss of people and communities individuality. From the very beginning of globalization, the cultural dimension has often been confused with the media culture of audio-visual technologies and communications that function as transmitters of cultural representations. Media culture is the equivalent of alienation generated by consumerism, which is experienced at all levels, by anyone. Culture can also be a global product. Global culture is artificial, shapeless. In fact, global culture is a constructed culture without history and yet, cultural globalization is a highly dialectical process, where globalization and localization, homogenization and fragmentation, centralization and decentralization do not exclude each other. They are inseparable faces of the same coin. The cultural change is not just the story of loss or destruction, but it is also a story of development and creativity. Even if the connections among the old forms of diversity are lost, there are new forms of cultural diversity showing up all the time. The messages coded in Anna Khodorkovskayaʼs artworks involve a suggestive intervention regarding a new approach of the mercantile side of art, the way art can interact with other media, especially advertising, and how the tools of capitalism can be used in order to convey an eloquent message. (Text by Eugen Rădescu)
Anna Khodorkovskaya (1985) was exhibited in Moscow Biennale of Young Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art - Moscow, Kunstlerhaus-Vienna, Austria or RLB Kunstbrucke-Innsbruck, Galerie Rudiger Urlass-Frankfurt am Main, CCA Sokol, Moscow, Museum of Moscow, Troutman St. Ridgewood-New York among others. She was awarded in 2014 with Strabag Artaward International. Lives and works in Vienna.
Eugen Rădescu is a curator, theoretician and co-founder of Bucharest Biennale. He lectured at the Art Academy - Timisoara, La Casa Encedida - Madrid, Calouste Gulbenkian - Lisbon, Apex Art - New York amond others. He completed a residency at Apex - New York and published the book "How Innocent is That?" at Revolver Publishing, Berlin. He curated, among others, Bucharest Biennale 1 with the theme "Identity Factories" and "How Innocent Is That?" at Pavilion Bucharest. He is a professor at University of Bucharest. Lives and work in Bucharest.
