The exhibition "Deity's Likeness" by photographer and traveler Olga Michi has opened on the second floor of the Museum and Art Center.
The main protagonists of the project are masks - from traditional examples from Africa and Oceania to modern movie and cartoon characters.
The series of photographs are based on a collection of masks from a private German museum. Its owner has collected more than 10 thousand items. Olga Michi visited the museum in 2019, while she was working on another project with a German publisher.
"There were collected masks from the most ancient Mesoamerican, African and Asian cultures to modern European variations. And the exposition ended with masks created by hand by the collector. Among them was a Trump mask. For many Americans fighting for certain ideals, he also became an idol. Then the idea came to show through the mask how the idols of mankind are changing and how our society is evolving," said Olga Michi.
The photographing of the masks began in Germany. During the pandemic, most of the copies were photographed by the author already in the garage. The masks were acquired specifically for the project, some were created. Olga traveled to photograph a mask by Pablo Picasso. It is a symbol of changing ideas about art in the 20th century. And this is not the only reference to world culture at the exhibition. The author was inspired by the works of the master of staged photography Cindy Sherman, photorealist Chuck Close, and abstractionist Jackson Pollock.
The backgrounds of the photographs are generated with the help of artificial intelligence. Olga has tested many printing techniques in order to achieve high quality and comply with museum standards. In the end, she settled on the plastification technology, when the image is applied to a glass base and covered with a special varnish.
"In each project, we are honing some kind of new tools. For the photo series "Vulnerable" I shot in Africa, Myanmar, Chukotka. I spent two years traveling, living with tribes, communicating, highlighting common features of all the minor nations, observing how globalization affects them, being in dialogue with myself and my heroes."
The first exhibition "Deity's Likeness" took place in the Hermitage Main Hall and since then the project has been traveling around Russia. It came to Vologda on the initiative of Svetlana Korbakova, Head of the Museum and Art Center.
"I see my mission as bringing something new to Vologda residents. I want to show how contemporary art is developing. Nowadays it is very convenient to look for information on the Internet and see what is happening at my colleagues'. This is how I found Olga Michi's exhibition. I was amazed by the size and content of the works. In Nizhny Novgorod, fellow museum workers gave me her phone number. I called. Olga is a very agile and communicative person. I did not have to persuade her. Her manager looked at the exhibition plan and found a "free period". In advance, they specially flew to us by helicopter to see the halls," shared Svetlana Korbakova.
There are 100 works in the exposition. About 60 were shown in Vologda, as all could not fit in the halls of Korbakov's house. African and Venetian masks, knight helmets and the most recognizable representatives of modern pop culture are looking at the viewer. The exposition ends with a mirror with a distorted reflection - a symbol of the fact that we perceive ourselves subjectively.
The organizers recommend reading the descriptions of each work to understand its meaning better. In addition, some of the masks can be "brought to life" by downloading a special app and scanning the qr code.
"It's a prime example of contemporary art that concludes a very interesting idea. This is not an ethnographic exhibition about masks. It is not an exhibition about the history of masks - it is an exhibition about people, about society, about the processes that take place in society," says Alexey Loginov, curator of the project and art director of the Béton Center of Visual Culture, historian of photography.
The exhibition "Deity's Likeness" will be open until October 15. You can visit it at the following address: 13, Oktyabrskaya Street, Vologda. Also follow the announcements. The curator of the exhibition Alexey Loginov plans to hold a lecture with the works at the background. And at the end of the exhibition Olga Michi would like to organize a creative meeting.
Alina Makhlina
