Exhibition "Blue Soup" XXI " Automatic translate

A retrospective exhibition of Blue Soup covers the entire twenty years of the existence of a group working in the field of video art and computer animation, and includes all the works created to date, including those that have become key for the Vykhod group (2005), which was exhibited at the 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Echelon (2006), first shown at the Contemporary City Foundation, Lake (2007), Defense (2007), Mut (2014) and Cascade (2016), for the first time presented in the XL Gallery. The work “Lake” received the prize of the All-Russian competition in the field of contemporary art “INNOVATION-2007” in the nomination “Work of visual art”, “Cascade” entered the shortlist of the X Kandinsky Prize.

The Blue Soup group was created in 1996 by graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute Daniil Lebedev, Alexei Dobrov and Valery Patkonen, in 2002 Alexander Lobanov joined them, since 2010 the artists have been working together again, already without Patkonen. Understanding and describing the method and features of the phenomenon of “Blue Soup” is one of the most interesting tasks for criticism. Therefore, the exhibition not only includes the works of the group - the most important element of the exposition is the interpretation, which allocated a special space. In other words, the exhibition is built at the intersection of two sealed components in its own way: visual material and options for its critical understanding, which, in turn, means that interpreters can be considered participants in the exhibition - Valentina Dyakonova, Elena Ishchenko, Karina Karaeva, Irina Kulik and Eugene Kikodze.

There is a stereotype: the work of “Blue Soup” is difficult to interpret. One cannot disagree with this. Any carefully designed work of the group is at the same time a simple and multidimensional visual object that draws inward, but does not allow the viewer to make tactile contact with this pseudo-computer game, which almost all interpreters say. The group works with a simulated reality that has nothing to do with real photo or video shooting, and any work created on a computer can only be contemplated, without any possibility of moving inside, to a “new level”, which contradicts the very essence of a computer game, but allows you to talk about tools, the method of creating a work.

The language of computer animation has been used by Blue Soup from the very beginning. Already early short videos have nothing to do with reality outside the window, but they are sketches for isolating hidden meanings and connotations from this reality. Actually, the presentation of these hidden meanings can be considered one of the basic "super-tasks" of the group.

The phenomenon of “Blue Soup” and the works created by the group always elude precise formulations, but the impossibility of unambiguous definitions gives the right to multiply them, which I would like to offer the viewer: simple, but multidimensional videos; short but interesting texts, hopefully, will unite at an imaginary point and will make it possible - if you do not understand the Blue Soup group, then try to do it.