2024, 2025
i would not prefer to
Group exhibition, OSSI MI Gallery (Samara, Russia, 2024, Moscow, 2025).
Curator: Snezhana Mikheeva, Ilya Mikheev
Organizer: OSSI MI
I exhibited the work "Catamaran for the dead":
Curator: Snezhana Mikheeva, Ilya Mikheev
Organizer: OSSI MI
I exhibited the work "Catamaran for the dead":
Exhibition view, OSSI MI Gallery, 2024.
Catamaran for the Dead. Wallpaper, print. Size varies
If you put a dead person on a catamaran, fixing his feet to the pedals, and, having installed a motor that will rotate the pedals, launch it to swim in the sea, then the observer on the shore will be completely confident that the person riding the catamaran is alive.
If you put a dead person on a catamaran, fixing his feet to the pedals, and, having installed a motor that will rotate the pedals, launch it to swim in the sea, then the observer on the shore will be completely confident that the person riding the catamaran is alive.
The theme: The title of the exhibition is the linguistic construction of the double disagreement "I would rather not" from the novel by Herman Melville "Bartleby the Scrivener". The focus is on the dissection of the image, and then the speech phrase, which form a parallax, combining the retention of action and inaction, active and passive intonation of disagreement, and more broadly, visual and semantic paradoxes, creating a field for discussion around the ontological problem of defining a political subject, the inseparability of agency and the formal experiments of artists.
My work, titled 'Catamaran for the Dead,' is a wallpaper print that directly responds to the exhibition's central theme of the paradox of refusal, inspired by Melville's Bartleby.
Drawing from the notion of 'I would prefer not to,' my piece explores a state of uncertainty, based on a quote from Žižek, according to which we can imagine an assemblage of man and machine, and a situation in which it will be impossible to understand whether a person is acting independently, or is part of the ceaseless and meaningless movement of a dead mechanism turning the pedals. The catamaran, traditionally a vessel for entertainment Here we see practically Charon's boat on the border of worlds under the gaze of a stern deity. At the same time, it is the scene of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, the first human couple who refused to obey.
The choice of a wallpaper print emphasizes the ordinariness of such situations. The allusion to the invisibility of vulgar Soviet wallpaper, which remains a background and does not attract attention, on the one hand, and which becomes the object of close attention, for example, a child punished and put in a corner, also emphasizes the ambiguity of the work.
Drawing from the notion of 'I would prefer not to,' my piece explores a state of uncertainty, based on a quote from Žižek, according to which we can imagine an assemblage of man and machine, and a situation in which it will be impossible to understand whether a person is acting independently, or is part of the ceaseless and meaningless movement of a dead mechanism turning the pedals. The catamaran, traditionally a vessel for entertainment Here we see practically Charon's boat on the border of worlds under the gaze of a stern deity. At the same time, it is the scene of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, the first human couple who refused to obey.
The choice of a wallpaper print emphasizes the ordinariness of such situations. The allusion to the invisibility of vulgar Soviet wallpaper, which remains a background and does not attract attention, on the one hand, and which becomes the object of close attention, for example, a child punished and put in a corner, also emphasizes the ambiguity of the work.
Some photos of the exhibition
Melville lifts the curtain of secrecy only at the end of the story. Initially, Bartleby worked in the dead-letter department. "These letters contain forgiveness for those who died in despair; hope for those who died in despair; good news for those who died suffocated by misfortune. Messengers of life, these letters perish in fire." By the time the action takes place, he arrives abandoned by life, so that you no longer understand who is at the helm of the catamaran: a charming corpse or a body turning the pedals. There is something eerie about Bartleby, as if he comes from the twilight of our usual rationality. He would not hurt a fly, but for some reason his presence is so inconvenient and even unbearable. Zizek compares him to Norman Bates. And it seems to me that he is the Billy doll from "Dead Silence". Or a zombie?
Kolya Nahshunov, philosopher
Kolya Nahshunov, philosopher
See more about the exhibition:
Curators' Exhibition, April 2025
In 2025, this project was shown as part of a major event in Moscow - "Curators' Exhibition", where curators from different cities presented their projects and presented their galleries and self-organization. The OSSI MI Gallery chose this exhibition to participate in this show.
Organizers: AB (https://t.me/datblag) x SHNK (https://t.me/shenkcomm) x AU (https://t.me/au_gallery) ]
Location: SNEGIRI Research Institute (Moscow,Russia)
In 2025, this project was shown as part of a major event in Moscow - "Curators' Exhibition", where curators from different cities presented their projects and presented their galleries and self-organization. The OSSI MI Gallery chose this exhibition to participate in this show.
Organizers: AB (https://t.me/datblag) x SHNK (https://t.me/shenkcomm) x AU (https://t.me/au_gallery) ]
Location: SNEGIRI Research Institute (Moscow,Russia)
Some photos of the project
