Evgeny Granilshchikov works with various media, including video art, photography, installation, sound, and independent experimental cinema. In many of his projects, the artist addresses the themes of his generation, as well as personal and political frustrations.
Granilshchikov's early projects include the photo series Bohemia (2009–2011) and Insomnia (2011).
His graduation project, the three-channel film Positions, directly references Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967) and explores the personal and political quests of three young Muscovites. The film won the Kandinsky Prize in the category "Young Artist. Project of the Year" (2013).
Granilshchikov participated in the exhibition cycle "Big Hopes" (2013–2014), organized by the Manege/MediArtLab Museum of Screen Culture with the support of Triumph Gallery and held at the Central Exhibition Hall Manege.
In 2014, Granilshchikov's film Courbet’s Funeral was part of the Main Project of the IV Moscow International Biennale for Young Art "Time to Dream" (curated by David Elliott). The film also participated in the main competition of the Kino Der Kunst festival (Munich) and was listed among the best works of 2014 by the online contemporary art magazine aroundart.org. The film, shot on a phone, includes found footage, documentary, and staged scenes.
In 2015, Granilshchikov's Unfinished Film (2015) was shown at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen and the goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, where it won the OPEN FRAME AWARD. The film was also shortlisted for the X All-Russian Contemporary Visual Art Competition Innovation-2014 in the category "New Generation."
Granilshchikov's films lack a clear linear structure and plot; their characters, often the director's friends, wander around the city, discussing personal topics, social-political situations, and the possibility of action within it. "Direct angle, medium, but more often distant distance, alternating long and short episodes, uneven rhythm. There is no classical narrative in this film, it seems to be assembled from random scenes with no definite connections. We never find out where the characters are going or what their goals are, but we see an implicit sense of anxiety behind all their simple actions and movements," Granilshchikov describes his works.
Along with the short video Untitled (Reenactment), the films Courbet’s Funeral and Unfinished Film form a trilogy, which the artist defines as a "reenactment of everyday life of the 2010s."
Granilshchikov's next film, To Follow Her Advice, shot in Thailand, was presented as part of the Main Project of the VI Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art "How to Live Together. A View from the Center of the City in the Heart of the Island of Eurasia" (curators Bart de Baere, Defne Ayas, and Nicolaus Schafhausen) in 2015.
In 2016, the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, held a solo exhibition by Granilshchikov titled Untitled (After Defeats) (curators Andrey Misiano and Anna Zaitseva), featuring the Polaroid series Untitled (Random Shots), videos Munich (2015), Empire (2016), and the film Ghost (2016). The project was a finalist for the Kandinsky Prize in the category "Project of the Year."
Granilshchikov's 2016 project War (Untitled), first shown at the exhibition "One Inside Another. Art of New and Old Media in the Age of High-Speed Internet" at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka, was shortlisted for the XI All-Russian Contemporary Visual Art Competition Innovation-2015 in the category "New Generation."
From 2013 to 2015, Granilshchikov was a recipient of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art's program supporting young Russian artists.
He participated in the first triennial of Russian contemporary art, organized by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, in the section "Common Language," which brought together artists working with an internationally comprehensible and "translation-free" language of contemporary art.