In the Field of the Other
Fragment Gallery (New York, USA and Moscow, Russia) is pleased to present a group exhibition of contemporary video work taking place concurrently at both their New York and Moscow gallery locations. In the Field of the Other, taking its title from a quote by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, includes the work of Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Polina Kanis, Jura Shust, Igor Simi膰, Morehshin Allahyari, Tabita Rezaire, Rachel Rossin, and Jacoby Satterwhite. Acknowledging the gallery鈥檚 unique position across two culturally, historically, and politically opposed centers of power, the dual exhibitions will present four media works from Eastern European artists in New York which would otherwise not be seen in the United States, whilst simultaneously presenting in Russia four artists from North and South America whose work remains woefully elusive to spectators in the former Soviet republic. Each artist鈥檚 work will be screened individually for one week at a time.
The four Eastern European artists presented in this exhibition in New York鈥擨lya Fedotov-Fedorov, Polina Kanis, Jura Shust, and Igor Simi膰鈥攃ontemplate the alienation of contemporary (post) human experience in an age of accelerating technology. With a background in bioengineering, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov uses the natural world as a foil for the foreign or 鈥極ther鈥�, in a pioneering exploration of sexuality, gender, and transformation at the intersection of artistic and scientific knowledge. In The Moth and The Bat Flying to the Light, the artist presents a surrealist landscape in muted tones with three masked figures, at turns seductive and absurd, exploring an ascetic, institutional space wherein the natural is now only the product of an archive鈥攁ll the while narrated by a voiceover minutely explicating the metamorphoses and mating habits of a butterfly. In contrast, Amsterdam-based Russian artist Polina Kanis presents Don鈥檛 Turn Around, a video work filmed in a single shot through an imaginary architecture, examining the iconography and ideological force of institutional space. Known for her breviloquent artistic restraint and performative interventions, the artist first presented this work as part of an installation in a retired bank, continuing her consideration of the possibility of humanity鈥檚 sterile and subtly coerced destiny in an age where power is held in the lifeless grasp of algorithms and automatization.
Hands grasping smartphones, either bewildered or blissed out, the white clad subjects of Berlin-based Belarusian artist Jura Shust鈥檚 Neophyte, also for presentation in New York, wander a seemingly desolate woodland; the forested and foggy mise-en-scene presents the viewer with the pathetic fallacy, as those who have never been lost are now irretrievable. The work makes reference at once to the Eastern European summer solstice ritual search for a mythical fern-flower (as famously represented in Nikolai Gogol鈥檚 鈥楾he Eve of Ivan Kupala鈥�), and to the rise of drug trafficking in the former Soviet bloc, facilitated by the dark web. Finally, Belgrade-born artist and filmmaker Igor Simi膰 contributes to In the Field of the Other his haunting Trilogy II, a commentary on the use of human desire for the expropriation of human experience in the age of digital ascendance鈥攆rom biology in an infomercial for a bionic spine, to desire with the promise of a bespoke paramour, to the subjective capitulation of identity to 鈥榯he endless alien intestine鈥� of the internet search engine. The sublime is now not only post-human, but also for profit.
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Fragment Gallery (New York, USA and Moscow, Russia) is pleased to present a group exhibition of contemporary video work taking place concurrently at both their New York and Moscow gallery locations. In the Field of the Other, taking its title from a quote by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, includes the work of Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Polina Kanis, Jura Shust, Igor Simi膰, Morehshin Allahyari, Tabita Rezaire, Rachel Rossin, and Jacoby Satterwhite. Acknowledging the gallery鈥檚 unique position across two culturally, historically, and politically opposed centers of power, the dual exhibitions will present four media works from Eastern European artists in New York which would otherwise not be seen in the United States, whilst simultaneously presenting in Russia four artists from North and South America whose work remains woefully elusive to spectators in the former Soviet republic. Each artist鈥檚 work will be screened individually for one week at a time.
The four Eastern European artists presented in this exhibition in New York鈥擨lya Fedotov-Fedorov, Polina Kanis, Jura Shust, and Igor Simi膰鈥攃ontemplate the alienation of contemporary (post) human experience in an age of accelerating technology. With a background in bioengineering, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov uses the natural world as a foil for the foreign or 鈥極ther鈥�, in a pioneering exploration of sexuality, gender, and transformation at the intersection of artistic and scientific knowledge. In The Moth and The Bat Flying to the Light, the artist presents a surrealist landscape in muted tones with three masked figures, at turns seductive and absurd, exploring an ascetic, institutional space wherein the natural is now only the product of an archive鈥攁ll the while narrated by a voiceover minutely explicating the metamorphoses and mating habits of a butterfly. In contrast, Amsterdam-based Russian artist Polina Kanis presents Don鈥檛 Turn Around, a video work filmed in a single shot through an imaginary architecture, examining the iconography and ideological force of institutional space. Known for her breviloquent artistic restraint and performative interventions, the artist first presented this work as part of an installation in a retired bank, continuing her consideration of the possibility of humanity鈥檚 sterile and subtly coerced destiny in an age where power is held in the lifeless grasp of algorithms and automatization.
Hands grasping smartphones, either bewildered or blissed out, the white clad subjects of Berlin-based Belarusian artist Jura Shust鈥檚 Neophyte, also for presentation in New York, wander a seemingly desolate woodland; the forested and foggy mise-en-scene presents the viewer with the pathetic fallacy, as those who have never been lost are now irretrievable. The work makes reference at once to the Eastern European summer solstice ritual search for a mythical fern-flower (as famously represented in Nikolai Gogol鈥檚 鈥楾he Eve of Ivan Kupala鈥�), and to the rise of drug trafficking in the former Soviet bloc, facilitated by the dark web. Finally, Belgrade-born artist and filmmaker Igor Simi膰 contributes to In the Field of the Other his haunting Trilogy II, a commentary on the use of human desire for the expropriation of human experience in the age of digital ascendance鈥攆rom biology in an infomercial for a bionic spine, to desire with the promise of a bespoke paramour, to the subjective capitulation of identity to 鈥榯he endless alien intestine鈥� of the internet search engine. The sublime is now not only post-human, but also for profit.
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