THE ACTUAL FIGURE

The main goal of the exhibition is to showcase the specific ways in which drawing functions within contemporary Russian art. The primary focus is on works from the 1990s to 2000s, although earlier material, mostly associated with conceptualism, is also included. The exhibition presents various approaches to rethinking drawing and drawing techniques.

Today, drawing is no longer rigidly tied to pencil and paper, and actively defies convention: it claims new territories, experiments with nontraditional materials, delves into foreign domains, and changes its environment. It breaks out of the narrow confines of its genre and, like new media such as photography or video, becomes one of the universal languages of art.

The exhibition features the following types of contemporary drawing:

• Traditional drawing applied to new forms, media, and contexts: scaling up to the size of a painting; inclusion in installations; manipulating academic sketch techniques, and more.

• Conceptual drawing, including works from the period when the movement was active (Inspection “Medical Hermeneutics,” Dmitry Prigov, Nikita Alexeev).

• Post-conceptual drawing as a reaction to reflected and mediated screen reality (Ilya Razumov, Yulia Zastava, Masha Sha). The expansion of drawing into photography and active interaction with it (Misha Ksuta, Yevgeny Gor, Grigory Maiofis, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe).

• “Alternative” drawing, where pencil and pen are replaced by welding tools, lasers, needles, etching, and lines are made from metal rods, wire, threads, and ropes; the paper is replaced by walls or real space (Dmitry Gutov, Taus Makhacheva [T. Akhmetgalieva], Maria Arendt).

• Drawing inspired by comic book traditions (Yury Alexandrov, Georgy Litichevsky).

• New “social” drawing – reportage from rallies and court proceedings, graffiti (Victoria Lomasko, Vasily Salnikov, Pasha 183).

• Drawing on “foreign” surfaces (the human body) (“Thanatos Banionis,” ESCAPE Program, Vladimir Aizenberg).

• Drawing, video, computer: forms of interaction (Dmitry Ter-Oganyan, Vitaly Pushnitsky).