At Taganka, viewers experienced borderline states: two artists on the same art platform

How to learn to live in the moment? This topical and eternal question – how to cope first of all with the flow of negativity and stress – brought two artists together on one art platform. Marina Zvyagintseva and Masha Yves, who both work with the “current” invoice, answered it differently. The MK art observer experienced all the contrasts of the emotional flow that filled the “Current Moment” exhibition at the “Here” Gallery on Taganka.

The first thing you see when entering the gallery are the white dividing lines on the floor. The same ones can be found on any road strip. The metaphorical highway symbolizes the road of life along which we move, experiencing different emotions – from joy, happiness and inspiration to apathy, melancholy and despondency. What to do with all this endless stream? How not to leave the path of life under the pressure of regular irritants, which, at times, can “cut you off” on the lane, put you in a parking lot, or lead you to a dead end?

Masha Eve’s recipe is on the right wall of the exhibition hall. The artist answers the question posed by the project with meditative landscapes that remind: “Enjoy every moment.” This phrase, for some reason in English, can be found on one of her paintings, placed on a wall made of pink fur. Masha, a student of Andrei Bartenev, who came from performance art to painting, loves snowboarding and often goes to the mountains. Most of her landscapes feature views that she painted under the impression of forays into Krasnaya Polyana and other “skating” places. The sea and mountains really are calming, but pink fur is not so much. Masha Eve’s paintings are composed of different textures, there are painterly smudges, sandpaper inserts, and manifesto texts about love, peace and tranquility. The young artist states that life is woven from contradictions and weaves her works out of them, but her answer to the eternal question “what to do?” – single-layer. Meditate in nature.

Marina Zvyagintseva, an experienced artist and one of the leaders of public art in Russia, has a more complicated answer and, importantly, it contains a recipe – how to live through emotions and accept even the most difficult ones. Each painting represents a different mixture of sensations, and together they create a system of emotional navigation. All works are displayed on gray walls with white veined lines that indicate a map of the city. A metropolis is also an organism, with its own range of emotions, and a street artist, such as Zvyagintseva, adds a “spark” of positivity to the city canvas. Against this background we find, for example, “Searching for a Way Out,” a painting made using the author’s biotype technique (painting on moving water) in blue tones, in which a female figure is capped in a bottle. Above the canvas is the inscription: melatonin – 75, adrenaline – 75. These are hormones, one of which (melatonin) is produced during sleep, and the second (adrenaline) is pure, freshly squeezed stress. The connection causes confusion and anxiety that prevents you from falling asleep. And this is how each of the 16 paintings is designed.

Together they form “Emotional Navigation,” which was clearly demonstrated at the opening by the performer, actor Ivan Goryachev. With a gray face, a suitcase and a transparent backpack, he appeared on the median, looking at his phone, as if looking for an exit at an airport. And suddenly he ran into a girl dressed in a red coat with inserts of a picturesque biotype. That is, on the path of our hero, an irritant suddenly appeared that turned his route upside down. The performer, indeed, turned 180 degrees and began to approach each painting one by one. He either screamed in rage, or leaned his head against the wall in despair, or tried to sleep, suffering from insomnia, or meditated in the lotus position. Near each canvas, Ivan found a stone painted with biotype and took it with him into his backpack. And then I took a “contrast shower.” This installation by Zvyagintseva in a small secluded room invites everyone to stand under the light stream of colors and wash away all the accumulated hormones. However, washing it off does not mean getting rid of it.

The final point of the performance and exhibition is a stack of suitcases with multi-colored stones. It symbolizes the emotional baggage that accumulates in each of the impressions and experiences. When we pass any emotion through ourselves, the memory of it, of the events that caused it, remains with us.

“You need to be able to live and let go,” says Marina Zvyagintseva. – If you encapsulate emotions, you can burst. And when you live them, you carry out a kind of inventory – and you can sort out the sensations into memory suitcases. And this is the most valuable thing that remains with us, these experiences are more valuable than money and things. Of course, negative emotions are more powerful than positive ones. But we always move towards the positive, and, sooner or later, we come to it. Therefore, the top suitcase in my installation is with inspiration, and it is open, unlike the others.

Indeed, if you look closely, you can find an inscription on each suitcase – all of them with a positive connotation. There is anticipation, excitement, tenderness, love, drive, happiness, joy and euphoria. These are the emotions that are worth saving.

Marina has another key work – about hidden emotions. It is located behind the pyramid of suitcases – in the far corner. In front of us are two white lightboxes. If you poke your finger into each one, the white veil will disappear and a bright painting will appear behind it. This diptych is an important part of the concept. The worst thing is the unexpressed, undigested feelings that a person keeps within himself, not allowing them to break out. If you hide hormones, they “get stuck” somewhere inside and will definitely “recoup” later on the body. Therefore, you need to be able to accept an “emotional shower” in all its contrasts, and, letting go of stress, retain the best feelings in your memory.