Mika Plutitskaya’s first solo exhibition, "Like a Carousel in Childhood," organized by Artwin Gallery, takes place at Cube Moscow from 04 November 2020 to 24 January 2021.
The central theme of the series is memory and the mechanisms of its construction. According to the artist, painting has historically been closely associated with the mythologization of memory. Plutitskaya actively employs a montage principle (both within individual works and in establishing connections between works), as well as an animation principle of change through repetition and scaling. Thus, the unit of practice for the artist is more of a series than a single work, resulting in multiple reproductions of similar compositions — a kind of attempt to find an elusive truth. A key concept in this visual investigation for the artist is the notion of "folds of memory" according to Deleuze. On the other hand, using the plastic and physical properties of paint, the artist deals with ambiguity and the blurriness of the constructed image, bringing the viewer back to the idea of memory and its variability, inviting them to actively participate in the play of perception and imagination.
The visual material and themes that Plutitskaya works with continuously question this boundary. For instance, the starting point for the series was a photograph from the early 1970s, found by the artist by chance (essentially a document), while on the other hand, the film "Oh, That Nastya!" from 1972, almost completely forgotten but leaving us with a widely known song about a deer. The exhibition's title references two iconic songs from the Soviet childhood: "The Wind of Change" and "A Beautiful Distant Land." Essentially, Plutitskaya offers both a psychological and material exploration of Soviet childhood, which, for some, almost never happened, for others remained romanticized in tune with the popular culture of that time, and for some is only gradually revealing its traumatic dark moments.
The central theme of the series is memory and the mechanisms of its construction. According to the artist, painting has historically been closely associated with the mythologization of memory. Plutitskaya actively employs a montage principle (both within individual works and in establishing connections between works), as well as an animation principle of change through repetition and scaling. Thus, the unit of practice for the artist is more of a series than a single work, resulting in multiple reproductions of similar compositions — a kind of attempt to find an elusive truth. A key concept in this visual investigation for the artist is the notion of "folds of memory" according to Deleuze. On the other hand, using the plastic and physical properties of paint, the artist deals with ambiguity and the blurriness of the constructed image, bringing the viewer back to the idea of memory and its variability, inviting them to actively participate in the play of perception and imagination.
The visual material and themes that Plutitskaya works with continuously question this boundary. For instance, the starting point for the series was a photograph from the early 1970s, found by the artist by chance (essentially a document), while on the other hand, the film "Oh, That Nastya!" from 1972, almost completely forgotten but leaving us with a widely known song about a deer. The exhibition's title references two iconic songs from the Soviet childhood: "The Wind of Change" and "A Beautiful Distant Land." Essentially, Plutitskaya offers both a psychological and material exploration of Soviet childhood, which, for some, almost never happened, for others remained romanticized in tune with the popular culture of that time, and for some is only gradually revealing its traumatic dark moments.
