Actual artists and art practices of 1980-1990 on Ural. Digest
VICTOR DAVYDOV.
LIFE AS PERFORMANCE WITH BREAK FOR SLEEP
Painting, video art, photo and video documentation of performances and actions
(Ekaterinburg - Zarechny)
March 3-19, 2010

Press release

Contemporary art gallery "OkNo"
supported by Ford Foundation (it has been recognized as an undesirable organization in Russia since 2015)
and association "Unity of Journalism and Culture"

presents the exhibition

Victor Davydov. Life as performance with break for sleep
Painting, video art, photo and video documentation of performances and actions.

The hero of a new exhibition of the project "Actual artists and art practice of 1980-1990 on Ural. Digest " is artist Victor Davidov stood at origins of Ural video art, performance and action.

Development of new forms of art was going on in unity of persons holding the same views. V.Davidov entered into the creative circle of artists of association "Nuclear Province" of Anatoly Vyatkin and Sergey Pavlushin and was one of leaders of media laboratory "Studio U-7". Activity of these two communities agitated minds and imagination Ural inhabitants in 1990th.

The ninetieth on Ural and, mainly in Ekaterinburg and Zarechny, became the time of manifestation of active creative and civil positions of the artists. Their works brightly reflected processes of public life. Analyzing the events, artists frequently took a position of the ironic storyteller. A visual or verbal pun lays in the basis of many Victor Davydov's artworks of those years. The artist is sensitive to ambiguous and funny phenomena in daily life and relations between people. First of all the social and cultural context is important for his works.

Davydov and his associates aspire to present their works in the same form and in the same territory the parodied samples are. Their art goes to streets (actions and performances), speaks from TV screen, beginning to appear to public in news and special telecast (cycle of TV programs "Gallery of art clips" created by Studio U-7 for the Sverdlovsk state broadcasting company).

Victor Davydov's painting, video work, photo and video documentation of legendary actions and performances created by him in collaboration with other artists will be presented on the exhibition in the gallery.

The curator: Marina Sokolovskaya (Ekaterinburg)

March 16, at 18:30
During the exhibition there will be screening of the author's program "The tops and the roots of Ural video art" by artist Vladimir Seleznev (he works for the Ekaterinburg branch of National Center for Contemporary Art), which will be constructed on combination of ideas and strategies of 1990th and 2000th.

The exibition will be opened for public for March 3-19, 2010.

Working time:
Monday - Friday 15:00-19:00,
Saturday 13:00-17:00

Admission free.

The gallery address: 79A, Sonya Krivaya St.,
(entrance via theatre studio "Maneken"),
municipal transport stop: South Ural State University.

Art Director -- Svetlana Shlyapnikova
Gallery Director -- Dmitry Latukhin