The Deep Blue Colour Of His Skin Shows Just How Self-Absorbed He Is
Paintings
March 10 - April 9, 2005
Thursday-Friday, 12.00-18.00; Saturday 12.00-16.00
Opening: Wednesday March 9, 18.00-20.30
Matthew Bown Gallery is honoured to present the first London exhibition by one of Moscow's most influential contemporary artists. Since the early 1990s, Dmitri Gutov has played a pivotal role in the reshaping and reinvigoration of post-Communist Russian art. He has represented Russia at the Venice Biennale and in a range of other international surveys including, last year, Moscow-Berlin.
Gutov’s art ranges from exotic large-scale installations (25 tons of earth dumped in the Ridzhina Gallery, Moscow; 3000 shuttlecocks launched above a pioneer camp) to minimalistic painting and conceptual events. Recently he formed the Lifshitz Institute, which took the form of a seminar to discuss the ideas of Mikhail Lifshitz, a hardline Marxist critic of the Soviet era.
The curator and critic Viktor Miziano has emphasised Gutov’s ambition to integrate an awareness of history into present-day practice: “Gutov's historicism has nothing to do with post-modern deconstruction. On the contrary, it is vital and natural experience of the past as something actual, the work of thought born by reading the aesthetics and philosophy of Hegel.” (Victor Miziano, “D. Gutov", in Fresh Cream, Phaidon Press, 2000, p.322).
Lifshitz’s rejection of the "petty intrigues of self-reflexion” has become Gutov's slogan not only in his argument with the hermetic intellectualism of the Moscow conceptualists, but also in his polemics against the idea of art’s autonomy. Gutov is obsessed with reality, he insists on his role as a social artist with an active critical point of view.
Matthew Bown Gallery, in its inaugural exhibition, is showing a selection of Gutov’s recent paintings.
Matthew Bown Gallery
First floor
11 Savile Row
London
W1S 3PG
t. +44 20 7734 4790
f. +44 20 7734 4791
e. mail@matthewbown.com
Biography
Born in 1960 in Moscow
Studied at Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg
Solo Shows
1991 – "The Little Nothings of Our Life", Gallery in Trehprudniy alley, Moscow
1992 – "As I've become an Artist", with Yu. Albert, Laboratory of Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
1993 – "Portraits", Action, Regina Gallery, Moscow
1993 – "Sixties, once more about Love", with Ye.Andreeva, Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
1994 – "Above black mud", Regina Gallery, Moscow
1995 – "Mihail Lifshitz – 90 years", Contemporary Art Centre,Moscow
1996 – "Dilettantism in art", Guelman gallery, Moscow
1998 – "The town Urupinsk 1997", Photobiennale'98, Moscow
1999 – "Exercises", Guelman gallery, Moscow
2001 – "Mam, Dad and TV", Guelman gallery, Moscow
- "Blind", The Museum of nonconformist art, St-Petersburg
2002 – "Mam, Dad & Champions League", Guelman gallery, Moscow
2003 – "I am alien at this fest of life" Moscow Fine Art, Moscow
Selected Group Exhibitions
1988
- 18th Youth Exhibition, Central Exhibition Hall (Manege), Moscow
- "EIDOS", Palace of the Youth, Moscow
1989
- "Inexpensive Art", First Gallery, Moscow
- "Out of the Genre", Palace of the Youth, Moscow
1990
- "ZEN", Exhibition Centre in the Kashirskaya Highway (Sadovniki), Moscow
- 19th Youth Exhibition, House of Artists in the Kusnetskiy Most, Moscow
- "Tuda-Sjuda" (To and Fro), Exhibition Centre of the Proletarskiy district, Moscow
- "For Cultural Relaxation", Exhibition Centre in the Kashirskaya Highway (Sadovniki), Moscow
- "The Traditions of the Russian Painting", Museum of the Moscow History, Moscow
1991
- "Solitary Pursuits", Gallery 1.0, Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
- "Exercices Esthetiques", Kuskovo Museum, Moscow
- "Wet-Nurse – Cosmos", Gallery "Propeller", Profsojusnaya, 100, Moscow
1992
- "Questions of Art", L-Gallery, Moscow
- "The Apology of Remaining behind the Wall, or First-Hand Art", Regina Gallery, Moscow
- "Diaspora", Central House of Artists, Moscow
- "Moscow Romanticism", Central House of Artists, Moscow
- "About Transparency", Village Zimenki, Gagarin Pioneer Camp, Moscow
- "3rd International Istanbul Biennial", Istanbul
1993
- "Trio acoustico: D.Gutov, Yu. Leiderman, A.Osmolovski", Centre pour la Creation Contemporaine, Tours
- "Art as Power and Power as Art", Central House of Artists, Moscow
- "Conversion", Central House of Artists, Guelman gallery, Moscow
1994
- "Hamburg Project", Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
- "Displacement and Change" (Six artist from Europe), Cywaith Cymru, Artworks Wales, Bangor
- "2nd Cetinjski Biennial", Cetinje, Montenegro
- "Identity", Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
1995
- XLVI Biennale di Venezia, Padiglione Russo, Venezia
- "Conjugation. Moscow Art Scene Today" ("Kraftmessen"). Kunstlerwerkstatten, Munich
- "Monument", Riga
- "Kunst im verborgen. Nonkonformisten Russland 1957-1995",
Summlung des Staatlichen Zarizino-Museums, Moskau. Wilhelm-
Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein; Documenta-Halle, Kassel;
Staatliches Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg
- "Ergebnis", Galerie am Marstall, Berlin
- "On Beauty", Regina Gallery, Moscow
1996
- "Interpol", Centre for Contemporary Art, Stockholm
- "Manifesta 1". Pan-European Art Manifestation, Rotterdam
- "Anti-fascism & Anti-antifascism", Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
- "Compromat", Guelman gallery, Moscow
1997
- "Moscow – Urupinsk", Urupinsk
1998
- "Fauna", New Manege, State Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow
1998 – 2000
- " Praeprintium. Moskauer Buecher aus dem Samizdat."
Staatsbibliothek, Berlin; Universitaet, Bremen; Minoritenkloster, Graz;
Oesterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Wien
1999
- "ACT 99. Art-Communication Tour", Linz, Moscow
- "Fauna", Zahenta, Warsaw
- "The idea of the museum of the USSR", Saharov's museum, Moscow
- "Crashlanding @ Moscow", Improvisational project – Meg Stuart, Moscow
- "Lightness of the inspiration", Centre for Art, Neglinnaja 14, Moscow
- "Zeitwenden", Kunstmuseum Bonn
- "Crazy double", Central House of Artists, Moscow
2000
– "Museum block", Art museum, Zelenogorsk (Krasnojarsk-45).
- "Delicate, sweet taste", University library, Warsaw
- "World Wars – World Valuables", Museum of Art, Petrozavodsk
- "L'autre moitie de L'Europe, (Projet, Utopie, Construction)", Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris
- "Bons Baisers de Russie, (Festival Garonne 2000), Toulouse
- "The Art of Eastern Europe in Dialogue with the West", Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana
- "Art Forum Perm", SL Gallery, Perm
2001
- "Iskusstwo 2000" (Neue Kunst aus Moskau, St. Petersburg und Kiew), Kunstverein, Rosenheim
- "Russian Madness", The 1-st Valencia Biennial, Las Atarazanas, Valencia
- "Russian Madness II – Summer Benefit", Water Mill, New York
- "The ecology of art in the industrial landscape", The Museum of Fine Arts, Nijniy Tagil
- "The Art of Eastern Europe", Orangerie Congress – Insbruck
- " The memory of the boody". Petropavlovskaya krepost, St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod, Central House of Artists, Moscow
2002
- "Davaj! ", Postfuhramt, Berlin
- 25 Bienal de Sao Paulo, Iconografias Metropolitanas. Pavilhao Ciccillo Matarazzo. Parque Ibirapuera.
- "Moscow: Paradise 2002", Krinzinger projekte, Wien.
- "Portrait", Moscow Fine Art, Moscow.
2003
- "New beginning", Contemporary art from Moscow. Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf
- "Berlin – Moscow", Martin-Gropius-Bau. Berlin...
- "ArtKlyazma 2003."
- "Still life", Moscow Fine Art. Moscow.
- "Artconstitution", the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art.
- "New countdown". Digital Russia together with SONY. The Central House of Artist, Moscow.
- "The Institute of Lifshitz. The first axiom", S-ART Gallery, Moscow.
2004
- "Phanomenologie der Konservenbuchse" – Stella Art Gallery, Moscow, 04.02.2004
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New World (diptych) 2005 Oil on canvas, 60 x 100 cm overall |
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From the series "Read These Books" The Idea Of Prose 2004 Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm |
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Lamborghini Gallardo (The Dream of a Poor Jew) 2004 Oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm |
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From the series "Read These Books" Man Without Content 2004 Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm |
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10 Days 2003 Oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm |
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Blue Girl 2003 Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm |
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Football 2002 Oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm |
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Mayakovskaya II: Trampoline 2003 Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm |
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Still-Life With Plaid 2003 Oil on canvas 70 x 90 cm |
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Still-Life with Black Branch and Pink Cloth 2003 Oil on canvas, 100 x 60 cm |
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To the Stars 2005 Oil on canvas, 100 x 50 cm |
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White Monkey 2003 Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm |