The photo project continues the tradition of cooperation between the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts and the Centre of Visual Culture Béton in Moscow. The new exhibition will introduce viewers to a conceptual project by St Petersburg photographer and artist Andrei Chezhin.

Andrei Chezhin is a Russian photographer, practicing since 1982, a member of the Union of Photo Artists of Russia and the International Federation of Artists (IFA), one of the creators of the gallery ‘PHOTOimage’ in the Cultural Centre ‘Pushkinskaya, 10’ and a personal museum of contemporary art ‘Museum of Stationery Button’. In his work the artist often uses multi-exposure and photomontage, and prefers the digital method of printing to the analogue one with a predominantly monochrome colour range, which enhances the effect of man-madeness in the pictures. In a number of works the artist also uses partial toning with chemical compositions, which bring an additional sepia tint to the print and make it possible to achieve various visual effects close to the spirit of the original graphics. The same features are characteristic of the project ‘Button and Modernism’, which includes 61 photographs and 3 thematic objects from the collection of the Béton Centre for Visual Culture.

The works presented are part of a large conceptual project of ‘installing the bottons, which has been consistently developed by Chezhin for almost 30 years. The artist gravitates towards seriality and variation in an attempt to develop his themes of interest as fully as possible, leaving no room for understatement. Meanwhile, his works are filled with postmodernist techniques. In the process of comprehending the world’s cultural heritage and creating his own artistic statement complementing it, Chezhin actively uses the techniques of quotation and allusion, sometimes turning into pastiche. By doing so, he invites the audience to play a game based on the joy of recognition, the emergence and selection of associations, and fantasising about how they themselves would apply the buttons in the artistic field.

Another postmodernist trait in Chezhin’s works is the absence of the experience of anomie or affect – they do not carry charged emotions, offering instead a carefully noted stereotype of a particular master’s work that has developed in the culture. This allows us to present the history of modernism as a kind of textbook with characteristic simplified patterns about each author and to reflect on how patterns of perception emerge in art. However, it would be unfair to call the presented works insensitive. The photographs have an appealing nostalgic touch and a special sense of tactility resulting from analogue printing technology, which, despite the time of their creation, is also in line with today’s trends (e.g. in design).

Chezhin’s photographs also postulate the freedom of creativity as a recognisable technique of postmodernism. If the subject of art is anything, then the stationery button can act as a protagonist and become ‘a certain point against which it is possible to consider various aspects of artists’ work’. This image, which is important for the author and formed the basis of a long-term project, has become not just a character wrapped in a special mythology deliberately constructed by the author, but also a structural element of his works. And it is now perceived as part of Andrei Chezhin’s personal brand, like Andy Warhol’s Campbell jars.

Exhibition

Button and Modernism 16+

Main building | Vojvodina, 5

2 November 2024 – 8 January 2025

Opening hours

Wed – Sun – 11:00 to 19:00 (box office until 18:00);

Mon – Tue – weekends

Tickets

400 roubles / admission

200 rubles / concessionary