Yakut artists successfully debuted at the Blazar Contemporary Art Fair
The blazar fair, a fair of young contemporary art, was held in Moscow. It is the official satellite of the Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair, a prestigious international venue.
Yakutia was represented in the project by artists Ksenia Kudrina, Dunya Zakharova, Anya Enot, Nadezhda Komissarova, Selena Shestakova, and Yen Sur. The curator of the stand is the director of HSE ART GALLERY Yulia Yusma.
At the stand, the artists from Yakutia presented 23 works. Ksenia Kudrina presented a series of 18 paintings as part of one of them. In addition, some materials were exhibited on the website, so that in total the artists presented 46 works at the fair. In their works, they raise environmental issues, climate change, and share their inner experiences.
The total amount received from the sale was 570 000 rubles. The works of Yakut artists were bought by private collectors and Russian celebrities. It should be noted that two works of the artist Anya Enot were purchased by Roma Bilyk, the soloist of the band "Zveri".
Yakutia was represented in the project by artists Ksenia Kudrina, Dunya Zakharova, Anya Enot, Nadezhda Komissarova, Selena Shestakova, and Yen Sur. The curator of the stand is the director of HSE ART GALLERY Yulia Yusma.
At the stand, the artists from Yakutia presented 23 works. Ksenia Kudrina presented a series of 18 paintings as part of one of them. In addition, some materials were exhibited on the website, so that in total the artists presented 46 works at the fair. In their works, they raise environmental issues, climate change, and share their inner experiences.
The total amount received from the sale was 570 000 rubles. The works of Yakut artists were bought by private collectors and Russian celebrities. It should be noted that two works of the artist Anya Enot were purchased by Roma Bilyk, the soloist of the band "Zveri".
Julia Yusma, curator
The contemporary art of Yakutia is surprisingly original: working on the territory of modern visual narratives, it explores its cultural specifics and historical foundations with deep attention. It is relevant and speaks on important topics, and translates them into a single whole without losing its meaning. Using modern languages of artistic practices, Yakutian art does not get lost in the flow of international art; on the contrary, it stands out in the context, maintaining a delicate balance between the global agenda and the local task of carefully preserving itself.
Yakut mythology divides the world into three levels: the upper one (Uohee Doidu), is the habitat of deities and light spirits, the lower one (Allaraa Doidu) - is the realm of evil and dark entities, and the middle one, where people and animals live
It can be assumed that today's focus on the middle world has reached its limit. For many, the reality now seems to be an exceptionally thin fabric that begins to tear in our hands. We are on the verge of dramatic environmental shocks, climate migrations, political and geopolitical battles for resources amid a global pandemic and general political instability. At the same time, we continue to comprehend our presence in the world that we consider our property, reflect on how our imagination and emotions work, construct new meanings and norms, and pay attention to our past. It is these processes that are in the focus of attention of the artists represented at the stand.
Ksenia Kudrina shows her "pandemic diary". The genre of thoughtful observation and rapid artistic fixation of events that have already become traditional, which will only be comprehended later, is embodied in Ksenia's project in a series of circulation graphics made on the basis of geographical maps, morbidity graphs and other forms of visual statistics.
Since Ksenia traditionally turns to cartography and statistical data in her practices, for her the most natural artistic reaction to the global chaos of the pandemic was to observe how news feeds from different countries use news about the virus, focusing on figures and events that are beneficial for their agenda.
Anya Enot presents her paintings and ceramics at the stand. The artist observes how her memory works, studies how painting can mix the boundaries of the real and the imaginary.
The field of Anna's artistic research is a fine line between the facts of our real biographies and those images that came to us from outside, eventually becoming an integral part of our personal history.
It is a grey zone between the memory of real facts and nostalgic mirages constructed by consciousness under the influence of the moment or desire.
The field of Anna's artistic research is a fine line between the facts of our real biographies and those images that came to us from outside, eventually becoming an integral part of our personal history.
It is a grey zone between the memory of real facts and nostalgic mirages constructed by consciousness under the influence of the moment or desire.
Selena Shestakova also works with memory, but more literal, accurate. The brightness of her works is a hypertrophied image of rare periods of colorful summer Yakutia, such as the artist remembers it from early childhood. In the colored spots of the Yakut forests and fields, the artist weaves traditional motifs of Yakut graphics, which her ancestors described this nature long before the appearance of realistic painting.
Nadezhda Komissarova comes even closer to the folk Yakut motives. Her textile works, observing the tradition of the Yakut style of drawing and carving, depict exactly the Middle World of people, filled with animals and plants.
Ien Sur makes paper for his works out of recycled receipts. The importance of the environmental agenda manifestation, attention to the fact that an artist can and should also be responsible in relation to the materials that they use for work, are combined in her art with images of human emotions as fragile and ephemeral structures that elude a certain interpretation, as if remaining in space until rational consciousness.
The central installation of the stand - project by Dunya Zakharova. This is a reminiscence of the architectural features of Yakutsk, the largest settlement built in the permafrost zone. All the houses of Yakutsk stand on deeply driven piles, so that the heat from the buildings does not melt the permafrost, and thermal and electrical communications are brought to the surface, since they freeze underground. Due to the thawing of the frozen ground, many of the foundations are in a deplorable state, massive tangled pipes and wires that are not designed in any way envelop the public spaces of the city. For the artist, these piles and communications become the trunks of concrete trees supporting the city crown, which at the same time echoes the mythology of the Yakuts (the sacred tree Aal Luuk Mas is a symbol of the triune world, stratified into spaces of people and spirits), and with the spontaneous nature of many urban solutions on the territory of Yakutsk.
The citizens perceive such gradually decrepit parts of the landscape as familiar and natural, since they have been living among them for decades. Dunya Zakharova exaggerates this perception — in her work, concrete becomes alive, has natural forms, and gets overgrown. Like ancient trees, warped by time and climate, old piles continue to be the support of a whole cultural layer and hundreds of thousands of people who preserve it.
The citizens perceive such gradually decrepit parts of the landscape as familiar and natural, since they have been living among them for decades. Dunya Zakharova exaggerates this perception — in her work, concrete becomes alive, has natural forms, and gets overgrown. Like ancient trees, warped by time and climate, old piles continue to be the support of a whole cultural layer and hundreds of thousands of people who preserve it.
