Karin van der Molen and Patrick van Bukel (the Netherlands)
art cooperative"Art Saray" (Kazan)
group "Four positions of Bruno" (Ekaterinburg)

REMEMBER GRANDAD 2 -- A GLANCE AT THE PAST
paintings, objects, photos, video, music
June 2 - 21, 2005

Press Release

Contemporary art gallery "OkNo"
Art cooperative"Art Saray"
with support of the Netherlands Kingdom Embassy in Moscow

present the project of

art cooperative"Art Saray": Alexander Artamonov, Guzel Fayzrakhmanova, Victor Timofeev (Kazan),
Netherlands artists Karin van der Molen and Patrick van Bukel, and
group "Four positions of Bruno" (Ekaterinburg)

REMEMBER GRANDAD 2 -- A GLANCE AT THE PAST
paintings, objects, photos, video, music

June 2 - 21, 2005

Curator: Guzel Fayzrakhmanova (Kazan)
Coordinators: Svetlana Shlyapnikova, Dmitry Latukhin (Chelyabinsk) Marina Sokolovskaya (Ekaterinburg)

Long time Russian art adheres to Soviet life. Now as before, to a certain extent artists research "the Soviet world" as some integral phenomenon or as the source of some ideological signs. Again and again they form up set of relations of attention, mockery, tearing away, and analysis of the past. Exhibition"Remember grandad 2 -- A glance at he past" combines objects, photos, video by Alexander Artamonov, Guzel Fayzrakhmanova, painting and video by Netherlands artists Karin van der Molen and Patrick van Bukel.

Guzel Fayzrakhmanova said, "The object of investigation in the project "Remember grandad 2 -- A glance at he past" is all "Soviet" as a generically inherited, inborn quality." The exhibition witnesses about peculiar properties of constructing of historical things in memories of generations when knowledge of history is substituted by remembrances about other's experience adopted from books, movies, photographs, pictures. Perception of the past of the country paradoxically has been saturated by feelings of other's experience as one's own. It allows to say about strength of collective memory.

At first, in February 2002, in Literary Memorial Museum of M. Corky (Kazan) artists from the city showed series of objects collected from goods of Soviet life of 1930-1950. Continuation of the project was creation of photo and video series with new personage (its role was played by Kazan artist Victor Timofeev) as well as participation of Netherlands artists Karin van der Molen and Patrick van Bukel. Cairn's grandfather and grandmother worked as foreign specialists in Kemerovo (Siberia) in the thirties. Her mother was born in Soviet Russia. All of these have become a reason of interest of the artists and her colleague and husband Patrick in Russian history and culture. The following works will be presented on the exhibition: film "Prediction of the Past" by Patrick and Karin, which was inspired by poem by Osip Mandelshtam, series of works "Girl-member of the Komsomol", "Woman-worker", "Pioneers" and others. Group "Four positions of Bruno" (Ekaterinburg) has created the special music composition for the exhibition.

The project has been showed in:

• cultural centre "Corosia" (Almera, the Netherlands), October 2004 - February 2005;
• gallery "A 3" (Moscow);
• showroom of the V. Belinsky Sverdlovsk Regional Universal Scientific Library (Ekaterinburg).

Marina Sokolovskaya

Opening day -- June 2 at 18.00