“The exhibition is very original” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about what works are at the exhibition and why it is a must-see.

The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation opened a new exhibition of contemporary art in its halls. It is very original and, from my point of view, a must-see. It’s called “Woven” and represents the creativity of those who work with artistic textiles. More than 90 works in different weaving, knitting and collage techniques. More than 20 authors, from classics to very young ones.

The curator of the project, the chief curator of the fund, Tatyana Rykova, says: “Nowadays, quite a lot of exhibitions dedicated to textiles in one form or another are actually being held in parallel or one after another. I think this is a clear trend that allows us to turn to other mediums in art and expand our understanding. In this project I wanted to present the phenomenon of artistic textiles as a living process, so I think we were able to connect such classics as Albina Voronkova and Fyodor Lvovsky with young aspiring artists and show that this evolution continues.”

One of the “oldest” works at the exhibition is a classic by the representative of the “second avant-garde” Lidia Masterkova “Composition. Priluki”, collage using fabric fragments. Or, on the contrary, an equally classic, but already, as they used to say, “Art Fund” work by Albina Voronkova – a real Soviet tapestry.

I was pleased to meet the works of artists whom I have known and appreciated for a long time. Masha Arendt with her very thin, contour-embroidered Shukhov towers and lonely houses; Tanya Akhmetgalieva works with hanging cords; she always easily mixes fabric and light threads. By the way, her works are from the collection of the Ekaterina Foundation. Ira Korina from the same collection with the fabric and foam series “Infographics”; Olya Bozhko with floating fiery letters “Danger Zone”. Of course, the main “new academician” Timur Novikov with a traditional collage boat.

And everyone’s favorite Rostan Tavasiev, represented, among other things, by his early so-called hippotopic painting; Once upon a time, an artist took soft hippo toys, dipped them in paint and wrote, like with a roller, weaving a pictorial canvas.