The artist responds to questions Krokin Gallery curator Alexandra Petrovicheva the name and nature of exposure

Krokin Gallery, 15 December 2011 - January 15, 2012
st. Big Glade, 15

Krokin Gallery in an exhibition Shutov «Flower & Power». About the name and nature of the exhibition with the artist talks to curator Krokin Galleries Alexander Petrovich.

A. Petrovichev: At a first glance at your naming of a new exhibition there is a direct association with socio and cultural level of our modern market life. It would seem that the usual marketing approach that can, again, at first glance, it is easy to lie down in the hole prepared mind. However, your art, in his message is always ambiguous, multifaceted and multi-way. «Flower & Power», in this case into conformity a slogan, sign, read that to some extent perhaps, immersed in a specific historical context. What is the context and concludes that the name of your show?

S. Shutov: «Flower-Power» - is a revolutionary slogan associated with the movement of pacifists, 60 - ies, who offered to give up power in their hands, that is in the hands of "flower children", hippies, pacifists and others not at all political currents. It was a mass phenomenon in the West. And of course, it was a utopia. Some believed in it seriously, others just played as children. In this exhibition, I wanted to present a synthesis of the image of the state - with its hierarchy, the mechanisms of violence - and the image of the flower as a weed of the brain. As we know, the flowers grow on the ground, "not knowing shame." This biologism them, in fact, is the basis of their ideas and morals. The same principles underlie the above-mentioned motivations and movements, forward to the primary foundations of society, the social reduction.

I believe that the state as such has outlived itself. Like flowers, it once appeared that once flourished and once away. At least some will die of its form, and in their place shall grow something else, other runners. That's what I had in mind when I pictured the flags on the ground, on earth as a metaphor for the demonstration, gathering, accumulation of large numbers of people, led by one goal. Earth - very powerful stuff, and character, a man always addressed to anything specific. On the other hand, the land here - a place where we are rooted, growing medium. And the culture medium, the organic matter also has a very specific and expressive and symbolic value. There is nothing accidental, at least as far as possible in art.

I do not simplify the task itself, although much of the land to take their work from his balcony from the same flower pots. It washed lifeless land, all their juices gave flowers. But at the same time I have to add a reef of sand brought from abroad with Indian beaches, for example. And for me it's important. For me, specifically. This makes sense, my personal sense is not always verbalized.

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AP: you play on Hegelian-Marxist mystery of unity and struggle of chaos and order, or, in modern terms, "controlled chaos "companion of all revolutions, with the removal of the theme of" state "from the agenda. This, you see, is extremely dangerous mystery, not once implemented in practice. And then not to color, except red carnations in their buttonholes known to us or near us so far, fortunately, only geographically "Rose Revolution". This particular vitality, the vitality of both the elements of destruction. And speaking of "colors" on their semantics, it is chance, not by Borges?

S. Sh: No, not by Borges it is not "flowers of evil" (sic - AI .). Do not take my word about the state literally. I actually first art project. This is my artistic intuition, not more, and, as often happens in art, was the primary form, and then the content. The fact is that over the past five years, every spring in some three days I should have time to visit the garden Pharmacy, famous botanical garden at the University. These three days are fundamental, they still have to guess, they are floating and are dependent on the biological, climatological, astronomical and other factors. So, during those three days, tulips bloom all the botanical garden at once. All of this is wildly bloom, blooms incredibly beautiful, abundantly. That is, to say the truth, and became the impetus for this exhibition, it is this living, organic form has provoked quite a surprising and unexpected association of the idea - the antithesis of everything going on around us in society.

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AP: Here, in this whole story is captured rather than whiff of blooming flora as a rudiment of the characteristic cosmism you with something unusual in its semantic content. This is a new Shutov?

S. Sh: This is old Shutov, which does not change. After all, my interests in space theme directly linked with the society. This is a true story. In colors, in their nature is life, even biological, there is a force, which are deprived of "rights" and "left" is far more ephemeral.

AP : So you are projecting at each other like two plans: artificial and natural. Social - this is something conditional, temporary, superficial, natural - the flowers as a symbol of organic life, with its cyclical regularity?

S. Sh: Yes. All the way. But not as sketchy as they say, not right in the forehead. In the art of many REM, sometimes referred to as a paradoxical "absurd." To some extent this absurdity was the same Russian Space Art, he was not out of society, but it always has been free of its conventions and ideologies, he was always looking to the cosmos, where searching for the very freedom that are looking for "left" and "right "but for some reason in earthly conflicts. I've written several "portraits" of androids, humanoid robots. The robot does not necessarily chelovekoobrazen. This is - characters that exist only in my imagination and the "brain" of my computer. They are the opponents of the flowers, they are unnatural, are illusory, they are as lifeless image. This is, in fact, stillborn simulacra, correlated with the like by its unreality groups in society.

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AP: And is there any principle in your choice of flags? Or it is a purely aesthetic terms?

S. Sh: This is related and not related to a specific historical moment, and perhaps otherwise I would not doing this. If you do not tie to the historical context, the relevance of this obsession, it is interesting to me was to take the flags which some exotic states. For example, Ghana's Black Star, a beautiful Brazilian flag with cactus, flags with coconut, with anything you can find the flag with the Kalashnikov. But I was interested in our national flags: the contemporary Russian tricolor, the last Soviet, imperial, it is possible that future, who knows where all this will go, and, of course, the black flag anarchists. Our flags and me closer and clearer, and I think that they can best interact with the audience.

AP: Should I take Your project, your vision of the situation as the antithesis of what is happening in society, or vice versa, this is an unknown spectator internal merger? The semantics of a flower or a flag. Flowers, too, you are special. It flowers, signs, flowers, manifestos. On the one hand, you admire their natural beauty and vitality of the organic, the other - in front of us looms otrefleksirovanny image, thoughtful, and the prepared. After you have them too, not from nature writing. It is, indeed, power flowers, flowers, banners, flowers, flags, whatever. This kind of analogy, random?

S. Sh: This is probably an internal merger. But we must again understand that I am as an artist, motivated by their own internal aesthetic sensations, visual expression. If I were a writer, he wrote a novel about the flags and colors. But for me, even on a subjective level, everything is clear enough in its entirety as saying. The exhibition of paintings will be in addition to multiple monitors with a dynamic image of flowers, flags. They will not just sway from wind, they will change their color in order to not become too orthodox state. After flying the flag of any country blurs the heraldic significance and becomes something abstract, which passes into the category of augmented aesthetics. Flag fluttering in the wind is of interest as the movement of fire, he hypnotizes like fire, like a flower, which also lies its power and its own internal energy and heraldry.

Source : krokingallery.com