Artifacts and gadgets of Elena Kovylina Automatic translate

The exhibition marks a milestone in the author’s biography - the 50th anniversary of the artist.

We will see various phenomena of arts and crafts in the perspective of the development of modern technologies.

“Artifacts and Gadgets of Elena Kovylina” is an artistic experiment, during which traditional and seemingly completely familiar objects are re-examined using the methods of modern art on the basis of the museum’s repository.

Since ancient times, people in Russia have painted spinning wheels and tiles, covered clothes and hats with embroidery, carved patterns on furniture, made melodic bells and intricate toys.

The magical beauty of objects reflected the desire to endow them with unusual properties and abilities. So, in Russian fairy tales, walking boots, a self-assembled tablecloth, gusli-samogudy, a flying carpet, a self-propelled stove and a magic ball appeared. These images reflect the creative spirit of the people, and many fabulous projects have been successfully implemented in our time - in the era of high technology.

On the eve of the exhibition, Alina Saprykina, the curator of the project, said: “The game hoax that works of folk culture are the forerunners of engineering achievements, and artifacts of the past are adaptations of a forgotten civilization, in fact, support modern phenomena that are well known to us: an airplane, a tape recorder, a car, a gyro scooter, or navigator.

And all this is united by the works of one of my favorite contemporary artists – Elena Kovylina.”

As part of the Artifacts and Gadgets of Elena Kovylina project, the artist presents a series of new works. Fractal antennas, made on the basis of ornaments from the museum’s collection, have become part of the artist’s paintings: they express the author’s hypothesis that the past, present and future are present in the moment "here and now", and objects of arts and crafts, perhaps, are part of some high-tech lost system of the past.

“Decorative and applied art is an art that came from the depths of centuries, mainly collective, formed in a peasant environment, as well as among urban and township craftsmen. However, despite their seeming primitiveness, many works are still mysterious and not fully understood by the modern viewer.

I consider these artifacts from the point of view of the development of technology and the four waves of industrial revolutions in Russia, comparing the development of technology and society with the development of artistic folk culture,” says the author of the idea, artist Elena Kovylina.

Project producer, publisher of Khudozhestvenny Zhurnal, philanthropist and philanthropist Sara Vinits emphasizes: “During the exhibition, the museum will host fascinating lectures, discussions and master classes designed for the widest audience: they will help you see all the charm of Russian decorative and applied art.

After the Moscow exhibition, Elena Kovylina’s Artifacts and Gadgets will be shown in many regions - from Chukotka to Kaliningrad.

The partner of the specially developed inclusive program of the project was the Regional Public Organization of the Disabled "Perspektiva".

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the Year of Folk Art and Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation and was implemented with the support of the Cultural Initiatives Fund.