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Alexei Gordin’s personal exhibition in Tartu Art House

Tartu Art House

Gordin’s exhibition encapsulates a conflict where two existentialist behavioral models collide: negation of the everyday reality and the powerless submission to a personal reality. His fresh works use the artist’s personal story to direct the viewer through deceptive probabilities to the nightmarish reality. It is his recognition that absurd is the only means of survival: a tactic whereby opposition only confirms submission and opposition itself receives its strength from submission.

The exhibition at the Tartu Art House received its title from a series of videos depicting tattoo sessions where sentences from paintings that the artist has managed to sell are recorded on his body. Gordin describes this as merging with his own works. It is a parody of the art market where a timeless ideal becomes momentary profit. A tattoo will remain on the artist’s body forever unlike his works that come and go according to the flowing rules of the market.

The term “liquid modernity”, coined in opposition to postmodernism by the Polish-British sociologist sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, states that in the contemporary world “change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty”. The artists’ position in the contemporary society also seems to correspond to this. They are marginalised and have to balance between animal urges and social survival. They have to co-operate with the market although it is despised by many as a corrupting influence on art’s pursuit of authenticity. The slogan “Art Is Not Just Fun Anymore” represents Gordin’s attempt to use a personal and physical experience to stop the flow in order to have a moment to look around. This is an attempt to contemplate the temporary things that form a person’s reality and are the basis of our world view with its perceptions and expectations.

The exhibition will remain open until 15 October.

Alexei Gordin (b 1989) has studied painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2008–2011 and received in 2014–2016 a master’s degree in painting from University of the Arts, Helsinki. This is his tenth personal exhibition and the previous ones have taken place in Tallinn, Pärnu and Tartu (2014 in Y Gallery). In addition to group exhibitions in Estonia, Gordin’s works have also been shown in Finland, Lithuania and Russia.

Additional information:

Indrek Grigor
Tartu Art House gallerist
[email protected]
5559 1425

www.kunstimaja.ee
Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) is open Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.
The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu Town Government and the Cultural Capital of Estonia.

Last changed 19.09.2017