1, 2, 3, 4

Polina Kanis

July 12 — July 18, 2012
Triumph gallery

The new exhibition of the artist "1, 2, 3, 4" is called a simple enumeration of the number of works in the order of their creation and presents a series of video documentations of the artist’s performances.

Polina Kanis grew up in St. Petersburg, where she received a pedagogical education. After moving to Moscow, she entered the Rodchenko School. Since 2009, the artist has been actively involved in exhibitions, including group exhibitions in Russia and abroad (Warsaw, Vienna, Oslo, London and Kiev). Last year, Polina Kanis became one of the most mentioned contemporary artists after receiving the Kandinsky Prize for her work "Eggs", based on the popular Soviet electronic game "Nu, Pogodi!".

Cleansing
2010
Video
19’ 47’’

Polina Kanis grew up in St. Petersburg, where she received a pedagogical education. After moving to Moscow, she entered the Rodchenko School. Since 2009, the artist has been actively involved in exhibitions, including group exhibitions in Russia and abroad (Warsaw, Vienna, Oslo, London and Kiev). Last year, Polina Kanis became one of the most mentioned contemporary artists after receiving the Kandinsky Prize for her work "Eggs", based on the popular Soviet electronic game "Nu, Pogodi!".

Polina Kanis' main materials are a video camera and her own body, through which hypothetical contexts are transformed into an almost scientific social experiment. "I'm interested in a production with an element of randomness inside and more freedom. One of the important points in the work is to leave more air for the participants," says the artist.

In her works, Polina Kanis dramatizes various situations: she calls the "Phone Sex" service and orders a strange fantasy — rape in a museum; she comes to the junior class of a Moscow school and, like a strict teacher, communicates with children using a whistle; conducts a gymnastics lesson for pensioners in the Neskuchny Garden. In the work "Purification", Polina Kanis recreates the ritual of foot washing, common in various cultures and traditions. The artist alternately washes the feet of young people dressed in a white uniform, thereby trying to rethink and purge it of existing meanings and stereotypes. As a result, the canonical image placed in the actual context is completely deconstructed.