time shall be no more

Dmitry venkov

March 22 — April 13, 2014
Triumph gallery

Three works, three genres, three versions of the future — this is the structure of the exhibition Time Shall Be No More by Dmitry Venkov and Antonina Baever.

First shown at the Bergen Assembly as part of Yekaterina Dyogot and David Riff’s Monday Starts on Saturday project, the film Like the Sun employs cinematic narration: several plotlines developing in parallel intertwine in the conclusion, bringing a denouement. The Nevremya show simulates an American "late night show", replacing media, film and political figures with artists. Antonina Baever’s solo video installation Stay with Me is built on the structural elements of classical video art: the artist addresses the viewer in the first person, ignoring the screen’s fourth wall.

No More Time
2014
Photograph
Size varies

First shown at the Bergen Assembly as part of Yekaterina Dyogot and David Riff’s Monday Starts on Saturday project, the film Like the Sun employs cinematic narration: several plotlines developing in parallel intertwine in the conclusion, bringing a denouement. The Nevremya show simulates an American "late night show", replacing media, film and political figures with artists. Antonina Baever’s solo video installation Stay with Me is built on the structural elements of classical video art: the artist addresses the viewer in the first person, ignoring the screen’s fourth wall.

All of the words have a specific temporal length, and the exhibition’s title appears to contradict its technical content. Time here, however, is a synonym for modernity, for being immersed in the present moment. Abolishing time, Venkov and Baever transport spectators to situations that cannot be deduced from the premises that have built up in our experience.

On the one hand, this is a discussion of the historic moment through sci-fi allegory, on the other hand, their works are an alternative to a certain means of existence in the present, uniting into a common journalistic field hundreds and thousands of urban neurotics across the entire country, if not the entire planet. Constructing scenarios running parallel to so-called life (which is to say the personal perceptions of certain social groups and their reflection in the media), Venkov and Baever lay out new vectors to the future, which, for many of us, is psychologically inauthentic even as a concept, not to mention as a hope.