PRESQUE VU

collective exhibition

curated by Hanna Zubkova

Fabrika, 26.09. - 05.10.24

‘𝐀𝐋𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍. 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐐𝐔𝐄 𝐕𝐔’ - the result of a year’s work with young artists, graduates from the Baza Institute.

Presque vu - from French, means 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙣𝙩. The rough equivalent - « on the tip of the tongue » - implies a deeper connection between visceral and cognitive experiences.

By applying research tools, from working with sources and archives to field research, the participants develop their own search processes, which, within the framework of the exhibition event, manifest as forms of elusive materiality. Whether it is an object or an installation, each manifestation discreet itself as a revealing of a fragment from a certain interval that might presumably have as well a different future.

Ilya, [July 22, 2024, 15:24:06]:

"It also seems to me that a point of convergence in our projects lies in the tension between subjective experience and objective knowledge, revealing verifiable information that exists speculatively on its own. For example, in the works of some artists, their place of birth serves as a focal axis, their interest is shaped by urban identity, but the research field itself is gathered from data external to this identity (not related to personal experience).

There is a similarity with the paradox of the prehistoric, as described in ‘After Finitude’ (After Finitude: An Easy on the Necessity of Contingency) by Meillassoux, but in our case, the issue is not thinking and being, but the relationship of the subject, the formation of identity through objects that are not observed. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙚."

Ornament of the Mass

Ilya Kachaev

Spine

Polina Rusakova

Broken Archives

Kirill Ermilin-Lugovsky

…and Institutions

post-post V

Fracture

Nadezhda Khasanova

On Anti-Spectacular Art

Ivan Khrashchikov

a-m m

Snezhana Mikheeva, Ilya Mikheev

Lera Kruglova

The Game of Action

Katya Salnikova

Curator's note

When I once again find myself visited by the question of how to engage in art when everything around feels chaotic, and considering that an artist's life, with few exceptions, is rarely marked by stability or confidence in the future, I turn to Patti Smith's Just Kids, reading from any random spot. Recently, it was the part where Patti's boyfriend, Robert, steals an original William Blake engraving from the store where he works—steals it, you see, out of his overwhelming passion for Blake. But, as Patti describes, being a terrible thief, he loses his composure and, in a panic over being caught, tears the print into tiny pieces and flushes them down the store's toilet.

At the exhibition Almost Seen, many artists explored questions about the viewer's experience—where it begins and ends, what one can or cannot see, feel, or comprehend at an exhibition. Especially considering that many of the works don't present themselves as a spectacle, despite the dramatic lighting and the very nature of the Factory’s Assembly Hall, which we also tried to work with in this regard. A direct gaze face-to-face with a work that is sometimes larger than you—if not physically, then conceptually—or the (god's?) view from the second-floor gallery down into the stage’s well, distantly observing the subtle movements in the landscape, where relationships become more visible than the elements themselves. Then there is the gaze that comes from the spine, bent over a detail, directed straight from the slight ache in the lower back, or the distant gaze, when the art blends with the doorway, with its own frame, and seems hardly able to break out of it.

Or the gaze through the interface of social media, where the art, held in the palm between a marketplace and a personal archive of preferences, inscribes itself—how? Maybe out of inertia? Memory, perhaps, is also a form of inertia.