The ready-made world of the future by Roboburo

solo show Gosha Ostretsov

Winzavod Central Exhibition Centre
4th Syromyatnichesky Lane, 1/8, p. 9

05.12.23 — 22.01.24

On 5th December a—s—t—r—a contemporary art gallery will present a solo exhibition of the artist Gosha Ostretsov, participant of the Venice Biennale (2009) and creator of the VGLAZ community of artists.

Gosha Ostretsov's new solo exhibition will feature works produced as part of the 'ColLab' programme of the workshops of the 'Vaults' Art Production Centre of the 'HES-2' House of Culture.

Gosha Ostretsov on the ROBOBURO symbol

"For me, lightning is a symbol of art. As a fire from above, tamed by man not for warmth or cooking, but for the continuation of daylight hours, rest after the day's hunting. And then, remembering the working day, man began to create images: first with a burning stick and 'coal', then using more resistant materials."

"Oh, wondrous old world!

Look left, look right. The avant-garde is a hundred years old, and it is still avant-garde. The Russian avant-garde is an undoubted treasure of world culture. What is preserved in history better and more reliable than art? Scratch the avant-garde and through it will peep and Renaissance, and Gothic....

Artist Gosha Ostretsov scrapes and scratches the geometric shapes and pure colours of suprematist compositions and shows the viewer the gut and lining of the avant-garde, adds patina to century-old ideas. With a masterful movement he transforms designs into works of art. All crafts before any practical purpose take on an artistic significance. Textiles, ceramics, furniture, everything that VKhUTEMAS and Bauhaus intended to transfer from art to everyday life, makes a reverse turn in Ostretsov's hands. Artistic value above all. The physical world in his view is governed by the artist. Questions of world order in Ostretsov's cosmogony are left to the artist. Lightning is his symbol. Prometheus, who stole the fire of knowledge, is his hero. All achievements of science and technology - robots, AI - are subordinated to the demiurge, sanctified by his artistic idea, taste and style. Style is a man, said Buffon. In Gosha Ostretsov's world, style is a god. Ideas and facts of history are transformed by style.

The audience is presented with a phantasmagorical world of the artist's ideas. Ostretsov's favourite and constant heroes are robots, robotic members of the ‘new government’ who are both objects and subjects of this world. In ‘ROBOBOBURO’ is kept a relic - a leather apron of the chief master, incognito, unnamed chief creator. On the apron is an emblem - a zigzag of lightning, in which Gosha puts many meanings: a fire of knowledge, a flash that illuminates the creator's intellect, an additional light granted from above that extends the daylight hours for art.

A repository for the archive of documents and at the same time a lamp in the form of the same lightning bolt is a recurring ornament on the robots' clothes. A whole collection of clothes is presented in human and miniature, doll size. ‘Haute-futur’ is the witty title of this collection. Ceramic reliefs with domestic scenes from the life of robots, tables, chairs, table lamps, clocks, barometers can be used with equal success both in human life and in the future world of robots of artificial intelligence. The aesthetics of Suprematism in a contemporary context is both recognisable and avant-garde to the modern viewer. The sculpture 'roboscraps', a mechanical light fixture in the form of a robot family that replicates the human family, is made using modern technology and materials. The humanisation of robots, the artist's attempts to introduce AI into creativity, offer the viewer an immersion into the real life of the future imagined by the artist. And artists, as the experience of mankind shows, have visionary qualities.

ROBOBOBURO with the help of AI calculates ideal creative spaces according to the principle of radiant existence of avant-garde artist Larionov. His direction of rayonism is taken as a basis. Using the algorithms of the Russian avant-garde of a century ago, which changed our reality, the AI continues to change it in the vertical space of thinking.

ROBOBOBURO is a bridge between the virtual consciousness of the AI and the reality of the material world.
ROBOBOBURO is the perfect proportion of rational convenience and irrational creative flight of fancy.
ROBOBOBURO Creates things you never dreamed of, expands consciousness, gives you the keys to harmonise cognitive dissonance.
ROBOBOBURO comes to this abode of sorrow and decay to create a visible forecourt of otherworldly bliss in his indefatigable creative energy of creation.

The world created by Gosha Ostretsov is harmonious and flawless. And if one artist is able to create such a world on the bones of the avant-garde, can artists really be entrusted with managing everything? At least to try. It certainly won't be worse."

Text by LARISA SEKHON

Ostretsov Gosha

Today his works can be seen in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. In 2009, Georgy was one of the participants of the exhibition in the Russian pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art.

He was born in 1967 in Moscow.

In 1984 he graduated from the Theatre and Art School at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Was a member of the group of artists "Children's Garden". From 1988-1998 he lived in Paris and worked with Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Jean-Paul Gautier and Luc Besson.

Works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg, the Dreams Museum in St. Petersburg. The Gallery's collections include the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the RACh Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St. Petersburg, the Z. Freud Dreams Museum in St. Petersburg, and the private collections of Charles Saatchi, Simon de Pury and Lawrence Graff.

In his work, Ostretsov appeals to the aesthetics of the comic strip. He creates authorial iconography in the spirit of mainstream comics. At the same time, unlike American artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Ostretsov does not copy other people's illustrations, but develops his own graphic story close to action comics.

"New Government" is a series of fantasy installations arranged like an American comic book. There are no direct references to either country or architecture. But something, probably irrational, gives away the origins of the works. Maybe because we are all inheritors of totalitarianism, and the audience somewhere in Saatchi says after the exhibition, "Well, now we understand how things work in Russia. Art reveals national codes. International communications arise naturally.

The project "Gems of Dissent" is a kind of gray gloomy supremacist world of reliefs, reminiscent of house models, in which suddenly emerge dynamic abstract forms of bright colors, exploded architectons - the gems of dissent. These are both intimate and monumental forms. In each installation I set the subject: the pursuit, the prison, the escape, the explosion, the crown of thorns." Gosha Ostretsov

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2022 - Gems of Dissent. Syntax Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2021 - Imitation of the Similar to the Similar. Syntax Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2019 - Party for Time Travelers. Syntax Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2019 - Sunshine Fighters. GUM-Red-Line, Moscow, Russia
2019 - How To Learn The Upside Down World? NK Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
2018 - 360 Degrees from the Inside. Artis, Moscow, Russia
2017 - I've been abducted hundreds of times! Palazzo Nani Bernardo, Venice, Italy
2016 - I've been abducted a hundred times. Triangle gallery, Moscow, Russia
2014 - Motor Vehicles NP. Central Art Center Zarya, Vladivostok, Russia
2010 - Heavy Patients. Rabouan Mousson Gallery, Paris, France.
2010 - Love For Electricity. TM Project, Geneva, Switzerland.
2009 - Apocalypse. M.&J. Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2009 - Banality and Eternity. Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2009 - Robbing Good. Paradise Row Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
2009 - Coolville. Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, USA.
2008 - Dead Souls. Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2008 - Milk SOS. Ravenscourt Galleries, Moscow, Russia
2007 - Salon Beaute. Rabouan-Moussion Gallery, Paris, France.
2007 - Repairs. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia.
2005 - Lawlessness. Marat Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2004 - Performance Art. Ceremony of presentation of New Government to the "Silver Order of Honour" of the best people of Russian Federation. S.Art Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2002 - Vandals and Generals of New Government. Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2001 - Agitation for Art. Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2000 - New Government. Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2000 - Visitor. State Russian Museum, Marble Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia

SELECTED GROUP PROJECTS:

2022 - New from the Old. Krasnokholmskaya Gallery, Moscow.
2021 - 2MAP. Media Center of Zaryadye Park, Moscow
2019 - Actual Art. Contemporary Artists. Red Line GUM, Moscow, Russia
2016 - Collections! Contemporary Art in the USSR and Russia. 1950-2000. Center Pompidou, Paris, France.
2016 - Russian artists participating in the Venice Biennale. Central Exhibition Hall Manezh, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2015 - Something Different. Outside the Biennale, Cairo, Egypt.
2015 - Enlightenment. As part of the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Skolkovo, Moscow, Russia.
2015 - Pink Box. Erarta Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2015 - Liberation Continues. Graz Museum, Graz, Austria
2014 - Reconstruction 2 Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow, Russia
2014 - Modern Drawing. State Russian Museum, Marble Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia
2013 - Parts of the Whole. Within the framework of the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Vinzavod, Moscow, Russia
2012 - Gaiety Is The Most Outstanding Feature Of The Soviet Union. Saatchi gallery, London, United Kingdom
2011 - Russian Landscape. Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2009 - Russian Pavilion 53rd Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Venice, Italy
2009 - Another Mythology. SCCA, Moscow, Russia
2009 - Invasion: Rejection. Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow, Russia
2008 - Dead Souls. Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2008 - Russian Roulette. Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany.
2008 - Laughterlife. Diehl + Gallery One, Moscow, Russia
2008 - Zoo Art Fair (Paradise Row). London, Great Britain
2008 - Domestic Appliance. Flowers East Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2007 - Sots Art. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2006 - Amateurs. Marres Centre for Contemporary Art, Maastricht, Holland.
2005 - Russia 2 Bad News from Russia. WHITE BOX, New York, USA.
2004 - Russia 2 Special Project at 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2001 - Art for Time. Graz, Austria.
1996 - Collection of latex costumes and masks in the galleries of the 13th Quarter (Jenifer Flay Gallery, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Gallery Praz - Delavallade e.t.c.).
1996 - Correction. Gallery e.o.f., Paris, France.
1993 - Biennial of Contemporary Art in Istanbul, Turkey.
1992 - Manifestation of Illustrators of France. Bibliothèque Municipal, Villeurbanne, France.
1990 - Arte Sacra Biennal. Pescara, Italy.
1985-1986 - Exhibitions with non-conformist artists of "Detskiy Sad" group. Moscow, Russia

WORKS ARE IN COLLECTIONS:

State Tretyakov Gallery, Contemporary Art Department, Moscow
State Russian Museum, Modern Art Department, Saint Petersburg
Museum of Modern Art, Moscow
Erarta Museum of Modern Art, St. Petersburg
Saatchi Gallery Collection, London, UK
Zabludowitcz Collection, London, United Kingdom
Arctic and Antarctic Museum, Saint Petersburg
Z. Freud Museum of Dreams, St. Petersburg, Russia. Z. Freud Museum of Dreams, St. Petersburg
Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg
Private collections in Russia and abroad