Ideal Polly 7 nov 2019 — 7 dec 2019
ANdrey Andreev.
ideal polly.
ideal polly.
Collision with Andrey Andreev's objects causes bewilderment. At first glance, a game of perception begins: are they sculptures? reliefs? crumpled graphics? In the photo they seem small and light, but in reality they look monumental. This richness draws the viewer into a free play of imagination, urging them to go further and unravel the layer of meanings that is hidden behind the artist's objects. In his works, Andreev brings together two mediums of classical art - painting and sculpture.
The flat surface of the canvas, which undergoes transformation, compression, turns into a three-dimensional sculpture. The artist poses the problem of creating the new through the destruction of the old. For Andreev, it is important that painting is not only completed, but destroyed as a medium. With this gesture, the artist transcends the boundaries of painting, establishes a literal boundary between it and sculpture, but retains this transgression, fixes it in the resulting hybrids.
Andrei calls his works "Acts". An act is both a separate action and a document. Starting with the fixation of visual images on the canvas, as on a blank sheet of paper, the artist ends his work in the gesture of crushing the resulting document. As a result, the viewer sees the documentation, the "act of the act" in front of him. The expressiveness of this gesture manifests at the same time a revolt against the bureaucratization of art and life.
Painting itself is an attempt to comprehend the connections and relationships that exist between individuals and in society. Behind the deformed relief, you can see images of figures and faces, which are referenced by memories, dreams, social media content and news. All these images and their fragments add up to a new reality, where they live their lives and wander through the canvases, wanting to be seen and read. Thus, Andreev seems to reassemble reality, acting as the creator of a new one, where its own iconography and its own structure dominate. This desire to return the reality captured by virtual networks, and with the help of classical mediums, echoes the speculative turn and the desire to return the object to the world and philosophy.
But being static, Andreev's objects spread, pulsate in perception. The eye wanders around the resulting 3D landscape, peering into the folds and wrinkles of the canvas, but never fully grasping the picture. This escape, the dispersion of images, turns into a stream that resists fixation. The emphasis shifts from statics to dynamics and duration, making it possible to compare Andreev's objects with minimalist sculpture, which, under the influence of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945), was one of the first to reflect the conditions and possibilities of spectator perception in art.
Andrei calls his works "Acts". An act is both a separate action and a document. Starting with the fixation of visual images on the canvas, as on a blank sheet of paper, the artist ends his work in the gesture of crushing the resulting document. As a result, the viewer sees the documentation, the "act of the act" in front of him. The expressiveness of this gesture manifests at the same time a revolt against the bureaucratization of art and life.
Painting itself is an attempt to comprehend the connections and relationships that exist between individuals and in society. Behind the deformed relief, you can see images of figures and faces, which are referenced by memories, dreams, social media content and news. All these images and their fragments add up to a new reality, where they live their lives and wander through the canvases, wanting to be seen and read. Thus, Andreev seems to reassemble reality, acting as the creator of a new one, where its own iconography and its own structure dominate. This desire to return the reality captured by virtual networks, and with the help of classical mediums, echoes the speculative turn and the desire to return the object to the world and philosophy.
But being static, Andreev's objects spread, pulsate in perception. The eye wanders around the resulting 3D landscape, peering into the folds and wrinkles of the canvas, but never fully grasping the picture. This escape, the dispersion of images, turns into a stream that resists fixation. The emphasis shifts from statics to dynamics and duration, making it possible to compare Andreev's objects with minimalist sculpture, which, under the influence of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945), was one of the first to reflect the conditions and possibilities of spectator perception in art.
Anastasia Haustova