He-she

Marina Alexeeva’s works are full of an incredible amount of references, piled one on top pf other. Everything is mixed here: eras. Countries. Styles of architecture and lifestyles, fictional characters an real people in the media. This whole stream of consciousness is one long narrative about one specific person: the narrator, whose associations from the basis of each particular work. This narrator is a person born in the USSR, who received a standard education and lived through all the upheavals of the political and social turmoil of this country, who has seen the world and arrived at today’s realities with a deep philosophically sarcastic understanding of life and well-being.  
 

Each work at the exhibition savours the happy yet sad smile intrinsic to a member of the Russian intelligentsia. These works are like modern lubok prints, reducing the deliberate simplicity of the narration down to the manipulation of clichés and trite symbols. Greco-Roman heroes come out from a bas-relief onto the stage playing characters from Pushkin’s Little Tragedies, while the feuding Montague and Capulet clans dress as office worker and local louts. What is important here is the moment of transformation, like changing clothes on the frontline. They can tell, which army you are a member of, by the clothes you are wearing.  

Text: Katya Bochavar