Exhibition Vasya Lozhkina RISE OF THE NEW SUN! Automatic translate

“My art is not primitivism in the broad sense. It lives and breathes. I am not interested in the relationship of color and form, or something like that. I’m only interested in expressing basic human emotions: love, joy, tragedy, despair, and so on. And the fact that many people suddenly lose themselves, burst into laughter or laugh like crazy before my paintings means that I can communicate with these basic human emotions. ”

Vasya Lozhkin

December 20, 2019 at 17.00 in the Gallery of Modern Art of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, an exhibition of the popularly beloved artist Vasya Lozhkin "The Rise of the New Sun!" Opens.

Vasya Lozhkin is a phenomenon that combines many meanings and meanings, a recognizable name, incredibly popular, a synonym for beauty and optimism!

What is the phenomenon of Vasya Lozhkin? Why are his paintings popular and resonate with a seemingly different audience? The answer lies in a very interesting strategy of “replaying” and moving from one format to another: Vasya Lozhkin writes easel paintings, but their aesthetics are connected with the visual culture of the Internet. In an interview, Alexei Kudelin often notes that "Vasya Lozhkin does not know how to draw…". His artistic activity in no way depends on the skills and proposed working conditions, usually laid down by professional education in the field of art. Lozhkin’s painting also has nothing to do with trends, schools and traditions, illuminated by the history of art.

She is original and unique. And yet there are roots in Lozhkin’s paintings - these are the genres of caricature and political poster. But we are talking about cultivating the soil, and not about stylistic borrowing.

At the same time, works, regardless of the position and intentions of the artist, are involved by the public in the formation of the symbolic and elitist status of painting. Indeed, for the majority, easel painting remains a serious and authoritative art form that can be trusted. At the same time, for the same majority, the screen culture of the Internet and its accompanying interfaces turn out to be much more understandable and accessible than the structure of a picturesque composition that is difficult to understand. What explains the contradictory duality of perception of an inexperienced viewer? Private artistic expression in the space of the network at the moment is rarely perceived by him as something solid and interesting. Intuitively understanding the nuances of the situation, Vasya Lozhkin brings together various formats to communicate with the viewer directly, without intermediaries. It turns out witty, lively and human, but that’s not all.

Not so long ago, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, the famous inventor of the resource identification system “URL”, the “HTTP” protocols and the document markup language “HTML”, was asked: “Tell us about the phenomenon that you never thought about, as a result has become the main reason for people to use the Internet? ” The legendary programmer remarked extremely successfully and subtly: “Kittens”. At the exhibition “Sunrise of a new sun!” You are met mainly by similar, albeit allegorical, cats. They are the long-standing heroes of Vasya Lozhkin’s paintings and key figures for a whole array of digital visual materials from a wide variety of Internet platforms. On this and that side of the computer, seals are fixed at the peak of emotional expression. In addition, they act as participants in the humorous role-playing of absolutely any event, accompanied by accurate, vivid texts. They seem serious and ironic at the same time, then slide from irony to sincerity and vice versa. Speaking in the language of new-fangled definitions, seals are “postyronical” . Essentially, cats are memes, or at least their basic elements that serve as catalysts for what they call today Politics of Emotion. On the net, seals, with their “therapeutic”, calming effect, act on the user as a form of inhuman life, which, since the Enlightenment, charms, and therefore blocks the path of entry for him in the field of social and political activity. Vasya Lozhkin turns over the proposed circumstances and violates the set boundaries, including other forms of inhuman life (after all, he has not only cats, you know!).

“Maybe it’s enough to be fascinated by non-human life forms, and look through their prism at the everyday life of a person?” - as if the animated scenes of his paintings speak. Then, perhaps, it will be possible to avoid reactionary ideologies, clumsy stereotypes and empty apathy.

Viewers will be able to see 100 paintings and five installations by the author from December 20 to January 10, 2020 in the Gallery of Modern Art of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts at the following address: Kazan, st. Karl Marx, 57.