getting there together

Dmitry Venkov

February 22 — March 3, 2013
Triumph gallery

Dmitry Venkov, winner of the 2012 Kandinsky Prize, and a student at the St. Petersburg School of Photography. Rodchenko Antonina Baever will present a joint exhibition project. Eight video works, including three video installations, united by the title "Getting together", are expositionally constructed in the form of a dialogue, complement and continue each other.

Dmitry Venkov deconstructs scientific discourse by means of art in his works. In the pseudo-documentary film "Mad Imitators" (2012), the artist conducts an anthropological study of a fictional community living in the vicinity of the Moscow Ring Road. This theme continues in other works by Venkov, such as "America" (2012), where the conspiratorial imagination is explored as a source of shaping the perception of the past. Venkov turns science against itself, creating a scientific anti-world where various "quasi" and "pseudo" entities come to life.

2013
Appearance
A frame from the video

Dmitry Venkov deconstructs scientific discourse by means of art in his works. In the pseudo-documentary film "Mad Imitators" (2012), the artist conducts an anthropological study of a fictional community living in the vicinity of the Moscow Ring Road. This theme continues in other works by Venkov, such as "America" (2012), where the conspiratorial imagination is explored as a source of shaping the perception of the past. Venkov turns science against itself, creating a scientific anti-world where various "quasi" and "pseudo" entities come to life.

Antonina Baever problematizes the role of the artist in society and the artist-art relationship. In the video installation "The Studio" (2013), vertical monitors placed above barber chairs show the process of Antonina cutting hair for various artists and art consumers. In "I often think about the pioneers of video art" (2012), the artist reflects on how technological advancements and changes in video media have influenced the language of video art. A couple of videos, "Uncle is coming" (2012) by Venkov in collaboration with Daniil Zinchenko and "Artist Daniil turns red into blue" (2012) by Baever, combine to create a generalized image of the artist and talk about the hermetic nature of artistic practice.

Alexander Evangeli, curator: "The formula of Getting There Together implies a common goal, a joint overcoming of space, the inevitability of documentation in connection with joint movement — and tightens all the meanings of the works and the video itself as a medium into a tight knot. Young artists' approach to the production of epistemology is like a shared journey in search of a secret grail."