The everyday

Today sees the opening of Practice For Everyday Life – Young Artists from Russia at London’s Calvert 22 Gallery. The exhibition offers an insight into the work of a group of young Russian artists in media including film, sculpture, photography, painting and performance.

Arseniy Zhilyaev. Words 2010_2011. Installation. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of Regina Gallery, Moscow and London.

Source: Courtesy of Regina Gallery, Moscow and London

The exhibition title loosely refers to theorist Michel de Certeau’s text The Practice of Everyday Life, in which he examined how people appropriate everyday mass culture to make it their own.

The artists featured in the exhibition are untied in their presentation of ‘the everyday’; as well as the double meaning of ‘practice’ to be both a conviction of intention as well as a sense of ongoing experimentation and development.

Tanya Aakhmetgalieva creates colossal textiles, which explore the ideas of female identity; while Anya Titova’s installations provide ‘descriptions of cultural and social spaces’ through metal, plastic and found objects.

The beautiful spherical forms in Alexander Ditmarov’s video Play with Me contains references to contemporary artists and the dead classics, where Olga Bozhko uses the more traditional medium of wool to create enormous stockings in black and white, providing a commentary on the collision of consumerism with nature.

Olga Bozhko. Tree TreeWood 2010. Wood acrylic Courtesy of the artist

Source: Olga Bozhko

The participating artists have been co-selected by Joseph Backstein (director of ICA, Moscow and Commissioner of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art) and David Thorp (Calvert 22 associate artistic director) and drawn from the ICA, Moscow and Winzavod’s Centre for Contemporary Art Start programme, which provide support for young Russian artists.

Practice For Everyday Life – Young Artists from Russia is showing at Calvert 22, 22 Calvert Avenue, London E2, 23 March – 29 May

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